40 years ago, interracial couple broke the color barrier

The Lovings union changed the face of America


Richard P. Loving and his wife, Mildred, two years before a U.S. Supreme Court decision allowed them to return to Virginia.
AP file


By DIONNE WALKER
Associated Press

MILFORD, VA. — Reporters no longer beat a path to the modest white house just over the Caroline County border — and that's fine with its owner, a soft-spoken 67-year-old who never wanted the fame her marriage brought her.

Born Mildred Jeter, she's known by the name she took when she — a black woman living in segregated Virginia — dared break the rules by marrying a white man named Richard Loving.

The union landed the Lovings in jail, then before the U.S. Supreme Court, and finally in the history books; 40 years ago Tuesday, the court ruled in favor of the couple, overturning laws prohibiting interracial unions and changing the face of America.

Mildred Loving hardly considers herself a hero — just a girl who once fell in love with a boy.

"It wasn't my doing," Loving said. "It was God's work."

more:http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4877907.html

in my family tree that I've been mulling over:

"Mattie" was a white girl born in 1873. She has a child out of wedlock in 1903. The father of the child is black. Mattie's mother died when she was a child, and she and the baby are found in the census living with her father. Her father remarries in 1905. She leaves his home, and marries a black man named Haskins.

It amazes me that this could happen in the early 1900's. I wonder if she was asked to leave her father's home because her new step-mother disapproved of the baby? I also wonder if Mr. Haskins was the baby's father, or if society forced her to marry into a black family?

Any thoughts?

for my kids :)

I'm so glad about that!

The fact that many teenagers today now think it's "weird" if somebody expresses reservations about interracial couples (and not just black/white, but Asian, aboriginal, etc.) -- this gives me hope.

:hug:

Kicked and recommended

:loveya: