Mildred Loving, a black woman married a White man in 1958 in Washington DC. When they went home to Virginia where they have lived since they were kids, they were arrested. There was a ban of interracial marriages so that the marriage was deemed null and void and therefore they were being arrested for cohabiting as man and wife.
Her husband preferred to leave Virginia rather than divorce or leave Mildred. They left Virginia together to avoid jail time and settled in Washington DC.
Mildred changed history by challenging the law. She decided to fight for their right. She wrote Robert F. Kennedy who referred the case to the ACLU. In 1967, the Supreme Court lifted the interracial marriage ban nationwide.
Her husband died in 1975 due to car accident. Mildred Loving died last May 4, 2008 to join her husband where race is not a matter of discrimination for loving couples.
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