Mildred Loving, a woman of color whose challenge to Virginia’s ban on interracial marriage led to a landmark decision by the Supreme Court, has died. Mildred passed away on Monday May 2, 2008 at her home in rural Milford, her daughter said Monday. She was 68.
Loving and her white husband, Richard, changed history in 1967 when the Supreme Court upheld their right to marry lifting the race mixing ban in 17 states.
Loving and her husband’s courageous action gave rise to a proliferation in mixed marriages that forever changed the racial composition of black people in America.
“It wasn’t my doing,” Loving said. “It was God’s work.”
“I want (people) to remember her as being strong and brave yet humble — and believed in love,” Peggy Fortune told The Associated Press.