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Mildred Loving, wife in mixed-race marriage case, dies

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

May 6, 2008

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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 yesterday.

Peggy Fortune said Loving, 68, died Friday. She did not disclose the cause. "I want [people] to remember her as being strong and brave yet humble - and believed in love," Fortune said.

Loving and her white husband, Richard, changed history in 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld their right to marry and struck down laws banning racially mixed marriages in at least 17 states. Her husband died in 1975 in a car accident.

Mildred Jeter was 11 when she and Richard, 17, began courting, said author Phyl Newbeck. The couple married in Washington in 1958, when she was 18. Mildred said she didn't realize it was illegal. They were arrested a few weeks after they returned to their hometown north of Richmond. They avoided jail by moving to Washington, then wrote to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

After the 1967 ruling, the couple returned to Virginia, where they lived with their children, Donald, Peggy and Sidney. Each June 12, Loving Day marks the anniversary of the ruling.

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