(Source: serkanvianse, via rebekahloves)
(Source: nativethoughts, via fuckyeahinterracialcouples)
Just 45 years ago, 16 states deemed marriages between two people of different races illegal.
But in 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court considered the case of Richard Perry Loving, who was white, and his wife, Mildred Loving, of African American and Native American descent.
The case changed history - and was captured on film by LIFE photographer Grey Villet, whose black-and-white photographs are now set to go on display at the International Center of Photography.
Twenty images show the tenderness and family support enjoyed by Mildred and Richard and their three children, Peggy, Sidney and Donald.
The children, unaware of the struggles their parents face, are captured by Villet as blissfully happy as they play in the fields near their Virginia home or share secrets with their parents on the couch.
Their parents, caught sharing a kiss on their front porch, appear more worry-stricken.
And it is no wonder - eight years prior, the pair had married in the District of Columbia to evade the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which banned any white person marrying any non-white person.
But when they returned to Virginia, police stormed into their room in the middle of the night and they were arrested.
The pair were found guilty of miscegenation in 1959 and were each sentenced to one year in prison, suspended for 25 years if they left Virginia.
They moved back to the District of Columbia, where they began the long legal battle to erase their criminal records - and justify their relationship.
Following vocal support from the Presbyterian and Roman Catholic churches, the Lovings won the fight - with the Supreme Court branding Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law unconstitutional in 1967.
It wrote in its decision: ‘Marriage is one of the basic civil rights of man, fundamental to our very existence and survival.
‘To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law.’ [Read more]
(Source: blackndns)
What does it mean to be black and Latino in the U.S.? Featuring interviews with Latino actors Laz Alonso (“Avatar”, “Jumping the Broom”), Tatyana Ali (“Fresh Prince of Bel Air”), Gina Torres (“Suits, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys”) and Judy Reyes (“Scrubs”), musicians Christina Milian (“Dip it Low”) and Kat DeLuna (“Whine Up”), and journalist Soledad O’Brien (CNN), among many others.
ME
What are you anyway?
Black? White? Mixed? Latina? Native American?
Mulato? Caribbean? Puerto Rican? Gringa?
Middle Eastern? Central American? Venezuelan?
Italian? Greek? Biracial? Cape Verdean? Spanish?
Cuban? Irish? Trigueña? Jewish? Hispanic? Morena?
Multiracial? Colombian? Eastern European? African?
Mestizo? Brazilian?…I’m all of the above because you think I am
(depending on the clothes I’m wearing, the company
I’m keeping, the language I’m speaking, the food
I’m eating, the style of my hair, the shade of my
skin, the country I’m in), and I’m none of the above.What am I?
I’m a question. I’m an answer.
I’m a resister of racial classifications,
A defier of ethnic designations,
A list of possible labels,
And a navigator of niches that don’t quite fit.
I’m a petitioner for no more pigeon-holing,
Who loves to keep you guessing.
I’m a medley, a mixture,
A collage of colors,
A blended body shifting shades,
A cultural chameleon
Of ambiguous ancestry, and hybrid heritage.
I’m creator of my own category,
I’m inventor of my own identity.I’m mixed, but I’m not mixed up.
I’m not about denying a part of me.
I’m not about trying to pass.
I’m no sell-out, no traitor,
No wanna-be, no mutt.
I’m no tragedy, and no exotic other.
…If anything, I’m just another hue of you.
I’m not about confusion
(unless you mean other people’s confusion).
I’m not about anomaly or impurity,
About halfness or being in between.
I’m no less of one thing than I am of another.
I’m no poster child for interracial harmony,
No model for miscegenated humanity.
I’m not about messy mingling,
And I’m not what’s meant by the melting pot.
I’m no jungle fever rainbow baby,
No icon for interbreeding.
I’m not about trying to be better than anyone else,
Or trying to be different.
What I’m about is being all of what I am…
Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.I’m a black + white + I don’t know what else =
Sara Busdiecker, ©1997 (via lobolitablanca)
both/neither/other, “half” transracially adopted,
descendent of people I’ve never met. A freckled,
brown-skinned, curly/straight/frizzy brown-haired
(with some black, blond, and orange thrown in),
German American raised, Spanish speaking gringa
and multicolorful part-time ex-patriot. I’m mixed.
What I am is Me.
(Source: afro-art-chick, via fuckyeahinterracialcouples)
(via mixedisbeautiful)
