Mildred Loving, matriarch of interracial marriage, dies
By DIONNE WALKER, Associated Press Writer
53 minutes ago
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080505/ap_on_re_us/obit_loving
RICHMOND, Va. - Mildred Loving, a black woman whose challenge to
Virginia's ban on interracial marriage led to a landmark Supreme Court
ruling striking down such laws nationwide, has died, her daughter said
Monday.
Peggy Fortune said Loving, 68, died Friday at her home in rural
Milford. She did not disclose the cause of death.
Loving and her white husband, Richard, changed history in 1967 when
the U.S. Supreme Court upheld their right to marry. The ruling struck
down laws banning racially mixed marriages in at least 17 states.
They had married in Wa****ngton in 1958, when she was 18. Returning to
their Virginia hometown, they were arrested within weeks and convicted
on charges of "cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and
dignity of the Commonwealth," according to their indictments.
The couple avoided a year in jail by agreeing to a sentence mandating
that they immediately leave Virginia. They moved to Wa****ngton and
launched a legal challenge a few years later.
After the Supreme Court ruled, the couple returned to Virginia, where
they lived with their children Donald, Peggy and Sidney.
Richard Loving died in 1975 in a car accident that also injured his
wife.
In a rare interview with The Associated Press last June, Loving said
she wasn't trying to change history =97 she was just a girl who once
fell in love with a boy.
"It wasn't my doing," Loving said. "It was God's work."
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