Richard and Mildred Loving's lawsuit eventually overturned laws forbidding interracial couples from marrying. FILE/Francis Miller/Time Life Pictures

Family and friends bid farewell to Mildred Loving

Date published: 5/11/2008

By PORTSIA SMITH

Humble. Divine. But mostly loving, like the name she bore.

Those were words used to describe Mildred Loving at her funeral service yesterday morning.

The Caroline County woman, who defied, fought and prevailed over Virginia's ban on interracial marriage, died May 2 at her home in Central Point. She was 68.

Loving didn't consider herself the heroine many people thought she was, and she downplayed any recognition.

"I just wanted to get married," a family friend recalled her saying.

"She never wanted the attention or to be in the spotlight, but she deserved it," said Floyd Thomas, chairman of the Caroline County Board of Supervisors and a member of the same church Loving attended. "Here is an icon of America. A heroine of Caroline County."

As she would have wanted, the hourlong service at the county's community center in Bowling Green didn't focus on Loving's battle with the courts, but on the kind of person she was.

She was a no-nonsense mother who loved to cook sausage biscuits, said her pastor, the Rev. William Gibson of St. Stephens Baptist Church.

She always shared whatever she had, without complaining.

And she loved her family more than anything else, Gibson said.

A line in her obituary in the funeral program said, "The love she had for her family and home put her through trials and tribulations, but she persevered."

Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving fell in love and married in Washington on June 2, 1958, then returned home to Central Point.

Six weeks later, sheriff's deputies showed up in the middle of the night and arrested the couple, charging them with violating Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924.

Richard was white and Mildred was black and American Indian.

Their sentence was banishment from the state for 25 years, with the penalty of a year in prison if they returned. After five years in exile, Mildred Loving wrote then-U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy, asking for his help under the recently passed Civil Rights Act.

The Lovings wanted to come home.

Kennedy referred them to the American Civil Liberties Union, and the case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

On June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court cited the 14th Amendment when it struck down the Lovings' conviction, as well as laws banning interracial marriage.

The Lovings had returned to Caroline while the case was pending, and raised three children there.

Richard Loving died in 1975 after a drunken driver struck the couple's car. Mildred lost her right eye in the accident.

Interracial marriages now make up about 3 percent of all unions in America, according to census figures. Almost 1.7 million couples classified themselves as interracial in 2002, nearly three times as many as in 1980.

Condolences were sent to the Loving family by Gov. Tim Kaine, U.S. Sen. Jim Webb and the Virginia legislature.

Attending the funeral was Bernard Cohen, one of the attorneys who won the appeal of the Lovings' conviction. Cohen is now a Spotsylvania County resident.

"This was a wonderful tribute to Mildred," Cohen said yesterday. "Her importance to the community was well-outlined. She was a very humble woman who never sought the limelight."

Portsia Smith: 540/374-5419
Email: psmith@freelancestar.com

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Date published: 5/11/2008

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