Black History month

1. Black History month Mildred Loving Lydia

2. Mildred Delores Jeter, Birth • Mildred Loving was born July 22, 1939 • She was born in Central Point Virginia • She was of African-American and Native American descent • Her mother was part Rappahannock Indian and her father was part Cherokee

3. Marriage life • She was just 11 years old and attending an all-black school when she first met Richard Loving, a 17-year-old high school student. Quietly, the two eventually started dating and, when Mildred became pregnant at the age of 18, the two decided to get married. • They were married for a couple of weeks when the sheriff barged in their house from a tip saying that they had an illegal marriage. • Richard Loving spent a night in jail • The couple was ordered to leave the state and not return together for 25 years. • They paid their court fees; relocated to Washington, D.C.; had three children

4. Fight for a right! • The shy, somewhat soft-spoken Mildred became a reluctant activist in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s when she and her husband, Richard Loving, successfully challenged Virginia's ban on interracial marriage. • But by 1963, the Loving's decided they'd had enough • Mildred wrote Attorney General Robert Kennedy to ask for his assistance. • Kennedy wrote back and referred the Lovings to the American Civil Liberties Union (A.C.L.U.), • On June 12, 1967, the high court agreed, unanimously coming down in favor of the Lovings, striking down Virginia's law and allowing and the couple to return home to Virginia • Mildred Loving made blacks and whites to have a legal marriage