June 12: National Loving Day

Across social media you might've seen people using the hashtag #LovingDay, but what is it about? Well, it is an unofficial holiday honoring the ruling of the landmark case, Loving vs Virginia, which made interracial marriages legal on June 12, 1967.

In Caroline County, Virginia, Mildred, a woman of African and Native American ancestry became pregnant and Richard Loving, a white man, was the child's father.

The couple traveled from Virginia to Washington, D.C to get married in June of 1958. Interracial marriage was illegal in the state of Virginia at the time under Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924.

When the couple returned back to their small town of Central Point, Virginia police raided their home early in the morning, due to an anonymous tip.

The police hoped to find them having intercourse, which was also illegal between mixed-race couples.

When they were found together in their room Mildred showed them their marriage certificate, however it was invalid in Virginia. The couple was then arrested.

The couple was allowed to avoid prison time if they left the state, so they did and moved to D.C for a few years.

However, the Lovings missed their life in their small-town farming community. They appealed to the Supreme Court of Virginia, but their convictions were upheld.

The couple eventually got help from the ACLU, which allowed the case to go all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

The U.S Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of the Lovings and deemed anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional. Thus making it legal for whites and non-whites to get married, and changing the lives of many Americans in interracial relationships.