Today’s Word from Pastor Katrina…
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!! I am so happy that my week to write for you lands on Valentine’s Day during Black History Month. I normally share this picture of my wonderful parents on Loving Day – June 12th. I am glad it works well to share the picture and the story of the Lovings with you today.
In 1958, in the state of Virginia, Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter wanted to get married but there were laws that made interracial marriage illegal, so they went out-of-state to Washington DC and were married there. They returned to Virginia with their marriage certificate, only to have the police invade their home 3 weeks later in the middle of the night to tell them their marriage certificate wasn’t any good in Virginia, and to arrest them. Legal proceedings ruled for them to either spend a year in prison or leave Virginia for 25 years. They left Virginia in 1959.
They moved to the bustling city of Washington DC, but were unhappy there, and wanted to return to their home and community in Virginia. The laws said they could visit, but not as a family. By 1963 their growing frustration resulted in Mildred writing a letter to then US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy who directed them to the ACLU. This started a 4-year-long legal battle through circuit courts, district courts, Virginia’s state supreme court, and finally to the United States Supreme Court.
I want to pause their story for a moment to share that researching their story has been painful – painful to read about the misuse of God and “God’s intention” to enforce unconstitutional and discriminatory laws. Painful because there were also many legal cases before the Lovings’ that dealt with various nuances of anti-miscegenation laws (anti-interracial marriage & co habitation laws) but that never resulted in the clarity of decision that was finally reached by the US Supreme Court for the Lovings. In one case in the 1930’s and 40’s in California and Arizona an attorney pointed out that the laws prohibited a mixed-race person from marrying anybody. The illegal status was just one of many factors that impacted (and still impact) identities of people, and as a mixed-race person myself, this strikes me deeply.
On June 12,1967, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously 9-0 in favor of the Lovings. The court said the freedom to marry is a fundamental constitutional right, and the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State. Richard and Mildred couldn’t be at the hearing, but when the lawyer asked if they had a message for the Supreme Court, Richard said “tell the Court I love my wife.”
In 1977, in the state of Washington, my parents were married at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Clinton. For a long time I didn’t know about the laws that would have prohibited their union just 10 years prior. On this Valentine’s Day, I thank you for taking the time to read about Richard and Mildred Loving, whose love was patient, kind, believed all things, hoped all things, and endured what many have never had to.
With gratitude and LOVE for you,
Pastor Katrina
pastorkat@trinityfreeland.org
