Loving Day is an annual celebration held on June 12, the

anniversary An anniversary is the date on which an event took place or an institution was founded. Most countries celebrate national anniversaries, typically called national days. These could be the List of national independence days, date of independen ...

of the 1967

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

decision ''

Loving v. Virginia ''Loving v. Virginia'', 388 U.S. 1 (1967), was a landmark civil rights decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that ruled that the laws banning interracial marriage violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to ...

'' that struck down all

anti-miscegenation laws Anti-miscegenation laws are laws that enforce racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalizing interracial marriage sometimes, also criminalizing sex between members of different races. In the United Stat ...

remaining in sixteen U.S. states. In the United States, anti-miscegenation laws were U.S. state laws banning mixed-race marriages. The

Warren Court The Warren Court was the period in the history of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1953 to 1969 when Earl Warren served as the chief justice. The Warren Court is often considered the most liberal court in U.S. history. The Warren Cou ...

ruled unanimously in 1967 that these state laws were unconstitutional. Chief Justice

Earl Warren Earl Warren (March 19, 1891 – July 9, 1974) was an American attorney and politician who served as the 30th governor of California from 1943 to 1953 and as the 14th Chief Justice of the United States from 1953 to 1969. The Warren Court presid ...

wrote in the court

majority opinion In law, a majority opinion is a judicial opinion agreed to by more than half of the members of a court. A majority opinion sets forth the decision of the court and an explanation of the rationale behind the court's decision. Not all cases hav ...

that "the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State." Loving Day is not an official national or state holiday in the United States, despite attempts to make it so. A writer for ''Time'' magazine in 2010 claimed that Loving Day was "the biggest multiracial celebration in the United States." According to the

Pew Research Center The Pew Research Center (also simply known as Pew) is a nonpartisan American think tank based in Washington, D.C. It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the world. It ...

, "In 2019, 11% of all married U.S. adults had a spouse who was a different race or ethnicity from them, up from 3% in 1967. Among newlyweds in 2019, roughly one-in-five (19%) were intermarried."

History

According to a 2010 article in ''Time'' magazine:

The idea for Loving Day came from one person, Ken Tanabe. In 2004, while a student at Parsons the New School for Design, Tanabe created Loving Day as part of his senior thesis. Growing up, he had never heard of the Lovings, and as a person of mixed-race heritage, he wanted that to change. He created a website to educate people about the history of mixed-race marriages and encouraged people to host their own Loving Day gatherings to create an annual tradition for the mixed-race community.

According to the official Loving Day website, the event was recognized by a resolution of the United States House of Representatives in 2007, by a proclamation of the Governor of Virginia in 2015, and by a resolution of the California State Assembly in 2017. In 2024, the website listed 16 privately hosted events to mark the day, 11 in U.S. cities and towns, and five in European cities.

Notable observances

Many organizations sponsor annual parties across the country. To celebrate the holiday, people are encouraged to hold parties in which the case and its modern-day legacy are discussed, in smaller settings such as living rooms, backyards, etc., as well as in larger gatherings.

United States

* The annual flagship Loving Day Celebration in

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was featured in the

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documentary series ''Our World'' in 2007, on the 40th anniversary of the ''Loving'' decision. Coverage of the annual celebration has also been featured in ''

Time Magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps as ''TIME'') is an American news magazine based in New York City. It was published weekly for nearly a century. Starting in March 2020, it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York Cit ...

'', on the

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National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

, ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'', and on ''

PBS NewsHour ''PBS News Hour'', previously stylized as ''PBS NewsHour'', is the news division of PBS and an American daily evening news broadcasting#television, television news program broadcast on over 350 PBS Network affiliate#Member stations, member stat ...

''. * In 2010. ''New York Times'' best-selling author Heidi W. Durrow co-organized a celebration of Loving Day in Los Angeles with Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni, during the annual Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival. * Several cities and municipalities have issued proclamations officially recognizing Loving Day as a holiday, including

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, and

Caroline County, Virginia Caroline County is a United States county located in the eastern part of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The northern boundary of the county borders on the Rappahannock River, notably at the historic town of Port Royal. The Caroline county se ...

, where the Lovings hailed from.

Other countries

Since 2013, Loving Day has been celebrated with an annual symposium at De Balie theater in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

, organized by the Stichting Loving Day foundation.

In popular culture

*A documentary, ''The Loving Story'', which features rare contemporaneous photographs of the couple and details the history of the case and references Loving Day, premiered on

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

on Valentine's Day 2012. *'' Loving'', a 2016 film starring

Ruth Negga Ruth Negga ( ; born 4 May 1981) is an Irish actress known for her roles in the AMC television series ''Preacher'' (2016–2019) and the film '' Loving'' (2016). For her portrayal of Mildred Loving in the latter, Negga received a nomination for ...

and

Joel Edgerton Joel Edgerton (born 23 June 1974) is an Australian actor and filmmaker. He is known for his portrayal of Will McGill on the first two seasons of the Australian drama series'' The Secret Life of Us'' (2001–02), and for playing Owen Lars in t ...

as Mildred and Richard Loving, directed by Jeff Nichols. The film was selected to compete for the at the

2016 Cannes Film Festival The 69th Cannes Film Festival took place from 11 to 22 May 2016. Australian filmmaker George Miller (filmmaker), George Miller was the president of the jury for the main competition. French actor Laurent Lafitte was the host for the opening and ...

, and was nominated for numerous awards, including a

Golden Globe The Golden Globe Awards are awards presented for excellence in both international film and television. It is an annual award ceremony held since 1944 to honor artists and professionals and their work. The ceremony is normally held every Januar ...

nomination for Best Actor for Edgerton and

Academy Award The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...

and

nominations for Negga. * ''Loving v. Virginia'', an opera, is scheduled to be presented in 2025 by the

Virginia Opera Virginia Opera is an opera company based in the Commonwealth of Virginia which was first organized in 1974 by a group of Norfolk, Virginia community volunteers. In September 1974, Thomas A. Lipton was engaged to produce a fully professional pro ...

References

{{Reflist, 30em

External links

Lovingday.org, Official site

''Village Voice'' interview about Loving Day

''The Huffington Post'' article about Loving Day and interview with founder, Ken Tanabe

MSNBC article "Matriarch of racially mixed marriages dies"

ABC News video of report on Loving family
Interracial marriage in the United States June observances Public holidays in the United States Unofficial observances Mildred and Richard Loving