Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Lovin' Loving Day

Just this week I heard about the passing of Mildred Delores (Jeter) Loving. She died on May 2. I don’t know that I had ever come across her name before, but what she and her husband of 17 years stood up for made me wince and celebrate at the same time.

Mildred married Richard Perry Loving in June of 1958 in a civil ceremony in Washington, D.C. That’s not particularly newsworthy, I suppose, except that Mildred was a woman of African and Native American descent and Richard was a white man, and at that time in Virginia and 15 other states anti-miscegenation laws existed, banning marriages between any white person and a black person. After going back to their Caroline County, Virginia, home, the happily married couple awoke one night to find the sheriff and several deputies standing in their home, and when Richard rushed to show them their legal marriage license, protesting, “We are married!” he was told simply, “Not in this state, you’re not.”

They were taken into custody, charged under both Section 20.58 of the Virginia Code, which prohibited interracial couples from being married outside of state and then returning to Virginia, and Section 20.59, which defined such marriage as a felony punishable by one to five years in prison. On January 6, 1959, they plead guilty and were sentenced to one year in jail, with the sentence suspended 25 years on condition that they leave and not return to Virginia. So they did.

After arriving in Washington, D.C., they filed a motion in the state trial court to vacate the judgment and set aside the sentence on the grounds that it violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Their case ultimately reached the Supreme Court, where, on June 12, 1967, it overturned the convictions in a unanimous decision.

Today “Loving Day” is celebrated every year around June 12, and people are encouraged to hold parties in which equality and other social issues are discussed. Such gatherings happen in living rooms and backyards, as well as larger gatherings with several hundred participating in places such as New York City, Berkely, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, and Eugene and Portland, Oregon.

Richard Loving died in an automobile accident in 1975. As I already mentioned, Mildred died just a few days ago. But what they stood for has impacted many people across this country, and even within our own congregation.

It makes me wonder what kind of legacy each of us is leaving. How does what we do affect those around us, even those we may never know? Are we making this world a better place, looking to right wrongs and lead people to hope? Are we modeling grace to the graceless and love to the unlovely?

May you come to be like Jesus more and more every day, and if you celebrate Loving Day on June 12, may you rejoice that every day we are able to show all people that God is a God who loves everyone passionately, more than we could ever know.