On June 12, 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court was wrapping up the final orders for the term. During the unveiling, Gov. McAuliffe said that the Lovings were convicted of the high crime of loving each other.
Few cases were more aptly named than Loving v. Virginia, which pitted an interracial couple-17-year-old Mildred Jeter, who was black, and her childhood sweetheart, 23-year-old white construction worker, Richard Loving-against Virginia's "miscegenation" law, the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, banning marriage between blacks and whites.
Richard died just eight years after his court ruling. The Loving v. Virginia case ended all cases based on interracial marriages not only in Virginia but all of the United States. The question posed by the Lovings' plight was simple: Did Virginia's law violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
On the following day, June 13, 1967, President Johnson nominated Thurgood Marshall as an Associate Justice to the United States Supreme Court.
Claire Gastanaga is executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia.
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Villet's photo essay, titled "The Lovings: An Intimate Portrait", captures Mildred and Richard when word of their civil rights battle was spreading throughout the country and the fate of their relationship remained unknown.
Governor Terry McAuliffe unveiled the marker that summarized brief details of the landmark case. Richard, a white man, and Mildred, a black woman of Native American descent, were each sentenced to a year in jail and were forced to move away from Virginia.
It fell on the 50th anniversary of the high court decision dismantling Virginia's anti-interracial marriage law and similar ones in about one-third of the states.
The historical marker is being placed alongside the Richmond building that once housed the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, which ruled against the Lovings before their U.S. Supreme Court victory.
As for the Ross family, Lisa said she hopes more people will accept that it's not about the color of their skin but their love. The Lovings remained married until 1975 when Richard was tragically killed when a drunk driver slammed into his auto.
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