At 2 a.m. on July 11, 1958, newlyweds Richard and Mildred Loving were jostled out of their bedroom by a Virginia sheriff.



7At 2 a.m. on July 11, 1958, newlyweds Richard and Mildred Loving were jostled out of their bedroom by a Virginia sheriff. "What are you doing in bed with this woman?" the sheriff demanded of Richard, a white man. 
"I'm his wife," Mildred, a Black and Indigenous American woman replied. The sheriff barked, "Not here you're not."⁠

At the time, interracial marriage was still illegal in Virginia, and the Lovings were arrested for unlawful cohabitation. 

Exiled from their hometown for nine years, the couple eventually decided to take the state to the Supreme Court — and in 1967, the historic ruling on Loving v. Virginia decriminalized interracial marriage all across the country.

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