A very heroic woman died yesterday.  She probably never wanted to be a hero.  She did want to be a wife, though.   But back in Virginia in the late 1950s, when Mildred Jeter, a black woman, fell in love with Richard Loving, a  white man, and they decided to marry, that was indeed a heroic act.  Not only because of society's prejudices, but also because it was a crime -- a felony punishable by one to five years in prison.  Virginia's law prohibiting interracial marriage wasn't some unenforced statute, either.  Oh no, Virginia was quite serious about keeping the races from "mixing."  The County Sheriff burst into the Lovings' home in the middle of the night, and Mildred and Richard were charged as criminals and prosecuted -- that's right -- prosecuted -- for having gotten married.  They pleaded guilty and were sentenced to a year in prison.  The trial judge, in a moment of magnanimity, made the Lovings an offer they couldn't refuse: he agreed to suspend their prison sentence for 25 years if they would just leave Virginia and not return for a quarter of a century.  He also had this to say about interracial marriage:

I just read sad news about the passing of Mildred Loving. For those unfamiliar with her name, she and her husband Richard ( d. 1975) were the Lovings in "Loving v. Virginia", the case decided by the Supreme Court in 1967 that struck down laws banning interracial marriages in 17 states. These were unassuming people who wanted what any other couple in love wants; to be married. I was a toddler when their landmark case was decided and at that young age completely oblivious to how grateful I would one day be to them. That day was my wedding day, when like Mildred, I married the man I loved with all my heart. Also like Mildred, I was a black woman marrying a white man. Unlike Mildred, it didn't take a Supreme Court decision for our marriage to be valid.

Mildred Loving, matriarch of interracial marriage, dies

Mildred Jeter Loving has passed away.

You may have never heard of her, but she and her husband left their mark on this country in the struggle for equality during the Civil Rights Movement. In June of 1958 the then 18 year old Mildred Jeter did something controversial. She did something that sent reverberations down through the years and is written in the some history books. She did something illegal. She said "I do."

The civil right's era had many, many heroes, some of which don't get the credit they deserve.  Some of which have receded to the background of our history, despite the large role they played in that history.

Mildred Loving was one of those.  She, the black wife of a white man, who took her case against the Commonwealth of Virginia for the right to be so all the way to the Supreme Court, and won.  

She died Friday from undisclosed reasons.  She was 68.