Growing up in Brownsville, Brooklyn was very interesting to say the least. At an early age I was made aware of many of society's ills and I guess you can say I grew up fast. My parents made sure that I was aware of the social climate that we were presently living in, as well as the social climate that they were raised in. My parents were born in the 50's during a time where the racial problems in America and the world were still very blatant and in your face. In the southern areas of America the barriers were even more disheartening and dehumanizing.
Earlier today while browsing the web, I came across some very interesting historical facts regarding race relations in America. The information was eye opening and really made me realize how these conditions were a reality in the very recent past. This June 12th will mark the 40th anniversary of one of America's biggest Supreme Court decisions. The landmark case is known as Loving v. Virginia. Call me lazy but I copied and pasted Wikipedia's fact section below:
The plaintiffs, Mildred Jeter (a black woman) and Richard Perry Loving (a white man), were residents of the Commonwealth of Virginia who had been married in June of 1958 in the District of Columbia, having left Virginia to evade a state law banning marriages between any white person and a non-white person. Upon their return to Virginia, they were charged with violation of the ban, pleaded guilty, and were sentenced to one year in prison, with the sentence suspended for 25 years on condition that the couple leave the state of Virginia. The trial judge in the case, Leon Bazile, echoing Johann Friedrich Blumenbach's 18th-century interpretation of race, proclaimed that
Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.
The Lovings moved to the District of Columbia, and in 1963 began a series of lawsuits seeking to overcome their conviction on Fourteenth Amendment grounds, ultimately reaching the Supreme Court.
I just find it amazing that such laws still existed only 40 years ago. It shows me that even though we have come a long way, we still have a lot of healing to do in this land of the free.
Isn't it so beautiful that the last name of the plaintiff was Loving...let's get rid of the hate ya'll....
