Ethics

RIP, Mildred Loving

By Ed Brayton

Mildred Loving, one half of the interracial couple who challenged a Virginia ban on miscegenation and struck an enormous blow for freedom and equality, has died at 68. Just imagine that a mere 40 years ago, a husband and wife could be woken up in the middle of the night by a county sheriff and arrested for the "crime" of having married the person they love and that person being of another race. That actually happened to them. The judge declared:

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on May 06, 2008 (boomark / email).