Did you know that tomorrow is the forty year anniversary of a Supreme Court decision striking down race-based laws that had formerly prohibited people of different races from marrying? An eighteen-year-old black woman named Mildred Jeter got pregnant by her twenty-four-year-old best friend, Richard Loving. They lived in Virginia. When she told Richard she was pregnant, they got in the car and drove to Washington, D.C., got married, and returned home to Central Point, Virginia. Authorities burst into their home at two a.m. and carted them both off to jail. The A.C.L.U. took their case to the Supreme Court (yes, in those days the A.C.L.U. actually did some good things), and won. Eight years later Richard was killed by a drunk driver. Mildred wishes he were still here with her to enjoy the day tomorrow, because, "He was my support; he was my rock."
By 2005 there were now 2.3 million interracial married mixed couples in the United States. Read more here.
No comments:
Post a Comment