The story of Richard and Mildred Loving, the plaintiffs in the 1967 Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia, which invalidated state laws prohibiting interracial marriage. The film was written and directed by Jeff Nichols, and starred Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton as Mildred and Richard Loving, a white construction worker from Virginia, and Mildred Jeter, who is black. In 1958, upon Mildred discovering that she is pregnant, they decide to marry. Knowing that their marriage would violate Virginia’s anti-miscegenation laws, they drive to DC to get married.
Several weeks later, the Supreme Court unanimously holds that laws prohibiting interracial marriage are unconstitutional, finding that racial classifications were not subject to a “rational purpose” test under the Fourteenth Amendment and that the Virginia law violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
One critic noted that Loving allowed a brief, believable window into the lives of Richard and Mildred Loving, two people who changed the country just by falling in love.
LOCATION: The Avalon Theatre / 5612 Connecticut Avenue Northwest, Washington, DC, 20015
