Posted on Tue, May. 06, 2008

Mildred Loving fought mixed-race marriage bans

By Dionne Walker

ASSOCIATED PRESS

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 Monday.

Peggy Fortune said Mrs. Loving, 68, died Friday at her home in rural Milford. She did not disclose the cause of death.

"I want (people) to remember her as being strong and brave yet humble, and believed in love," Fortune said.

Mrs. Loving and her white husband, Richard, changed history in 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld their right to marry. The ruling struck down laws banning racially mixed marriages in at least 17 states.

"There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the equal protection clause," the court ruled in a unanimous decision.

Her husband died in 1975. Shy and soft-spoken, Mrs. Loving shunned publicity and in a rare interview with The Associated Press last June, insisted she never wanted to be a hero, just a bride.

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

Mildred Jeter was 11 when she and 17-year-old Richard began courting, said Phyl Newbeck, a Vermont author who detailed the case in the 2004 book, Virginia Hasn't Always Been for Lovers.

When at 18 she became pregnant, she and Loving got married in Washington in 1958. Mrs. Loving told the AP she didn't realize it was illegal.

But they were arrested a few weeks after they returned to Central Point, their hometown in rural Caroline County north of Richmond.