Mildred Loving, broke interracial marriage barrier, May 2
Mildred Loving, a black woman whose challenge to Virginia's ban on interracial marriage led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling striking down such laws nationwide, died on Friday, May 2, 2008, in rural Milford, Va. She was 68. Loving and her white husband, Richard, changed history in 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld their right to marry. The ruling struck down laws banning racially mixed marriages in at least 17 states. Her husband died in a car crash in 1975. Shy and soft-spoken, Loving shunned publicity and in a rare interview with The Associated Press last June, insisted she never wanted to be a hero — just a bride. "It wasn't my doing," Loving said. "It was God's work." The Lovings are shown here in 1965. (AP, file / May 7, 2008)