Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (left) and Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney attended an unveiling ceremony Monday at 11th and Broad streets in Richmond for the marker honoring the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Loving v. Virginia, which overturned laws prohibiting interracial marriages.
Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney (from left), Virginia first lady Dorothy McAuliffe, Gov. Terry McAuliffe, and Sen. Jennifer L. McClellan, D-Richmond, applauded during the unveiling of the Virginia Historical Highway Marker honoring the 50th anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court decision, which struck down laws prohibiting interracial marriage. The marker stands outside the Patrick Henry Building in downtown Richmond.
The Virginia Historical Highway Marker honoring the 50th anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia decision that was unveiled during a ceremony at 11th and Broad Streets in Richmond, VA Monday. June 12, 2017.
A historical marker commemorating the Lovings, the Caroline County couple at the center of the landmark 1967 Supreme Court case that ended nationwide bans on interracial marriage, will be dedicated in their home county in three weeks.
On Tuesday, the Caroline Board of Supervisors approved the date of June 2 for a dedication ceremony unveiling the marker at U.S. 301 near Sparta Road, which leads to the community of Central Point, where Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter grew up, met and fell in love.
The Virginia Department of Historic Resources planned to dedicate a marker to the Lovings at that site last year, the 50th anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia decision. But two weeks before the ceremony, the location was moved from Caroline to Richmond after concerns were raised by grandson Mark Loving.
Loving felt that his grandmother would object to the marker describing her as being of mixed heritage, black and Native American.
However, the Lovings’ daughter, Peggy Loving Fortune, had approved of the marker’s wording and was upset that it was not placed in Caroline, according to Supervisor Floyd Thomas, a friend of Fortune’s.
After the Richmond dedication, Caroline supervisors voted to place a duplicate in the county, where both Lovings were born and where they returned to live after their marriage.
The wording approved by the board last year reads:
“Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter, of different racial backgrounds, grew up near Central Point, 11 miles east of here. They fell in love and in June 1958 were married in Washington, D.C. After returning to Central Point, they were arrested for violating the state’s laws against interracial marriage, which made it a felony for interracial couples to leave Virginia, marry, and resume residence in the state. The Lovings were convicted in 1959 at the Caroline County courthouse. The case reached the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, which in 1966 upheld the state’s laws. In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Loving v. Virginia overturned all laws prohibiting interracial marriage.”
Fortune will attend the June ceremony, Thomas said. Gov. Ralph Northam is also scheduled to attend.
