I sat.
I watched.
I cried.
I felt love.
I experienced all these feelings as I watched the movie called Loving.
Loving, is about a man and woman who drove from their home town in Virginia, to Washington D.C, to get their marriage license in 1958. Weeks after getting married police arrested the newlyweds in their home, in the middle of the night, and took them to jail for unlawful cohabitation. In the late 1950’s laws prohibited marriage between Richard Loving (a white man) and Mildred Loving (a black/Indian woman) simply because they were not the same race. The Lovings, spent time in jail until they made bail. They eventually pleaded guilty and agreed to follow a court ruling to leave their home state of Virginia to never return as a married couple for twenty-five years.
After a few years of living as a married couple in Washington, DC and not being able to spend time with their parents and siblings back in Virginia, Mrs. Loving wrote a letter to Bobby F. Kennedy (64th United States Attorney General) asking for help. Kennedy sent the Loving’s case information to the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU sent an attorney to help the couple and their case eventually made it to the Supreme Court. Today their story is remembered as Loving v. Virginia, 388, a major civil rights decision overturning laws prohibiting interracial marriage.
I cried, because all this couple wanted was to spend their lives together loving each other. That’s it! They didn’t want to cause problems in their community. They just wanted to be accepted for who they were; human beings who loved each other and loved raising their family in Virginia. I was so overwhelmed by their love and adored the simplicity of the lives Mr. and Mrs. Loving lived. At one point in the movie their attorney asked if the couple wanted to appear in court to hear the cases arguments. They said they were not interested in attending. Hoping the Lovings would change their mind the attorney explained to Mr. Loving that it’s rare for cases to make it to the Supreme Court and if there was anything he wanted the Supreme Court Justices to know. Mr. Loving paused and said, “Tell them, I love my wife.”
The Lovings won their Supreme Court case in 1967. Today there is still resistance in allowing people the freedom to love each other and express themselves. This time it’s marriage between man and a man and woman and a woman. We have come a long way in the United States and have federal laws supporting same-sex marriage, but the fight continues in other parts of our world.
Being able to express love is a right no matter how untraditional it may seem to those who hold a closed-minded view of our changing world.
Differences help us understand who we are and learning to embrace them makes humanity more compassionate.
Copyright 2017 © by Allura Eshmun