History is full of unsung heroes, and Mildred Loving (1939 - May 2, 2008) was one. An unwitting civil rights activist, Loving made national news back in 1957 for planning to marry a white man. Because the couple's home state of Virgina would not allow interracial marriages, they eloped to Washington D.C. to avoid the "Racial Integrity Act", which made marriage between whites and blacks a felony. They were married in 1958.

When the newlyweds returned to Virginia, they were not only ostracized but arrested for "miscegenation" -- a term coined in 1864 by an American journalist to describe, pejoratively, any union or cohabitation by people of different races. The case also violated the rulings of a precedent case, Pace v. Alabama, in which the anti-miscegenation statute was determined constitutional.

Loving and her husband, Richard, were given an ultimatum: either spend a year in jail for their crime, or leave the state for 25 years. The presiding judge told the Court, "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 chose the latter, and left their home to avoid further persecution. But in 1963, the American Civil Liberties Union motioned on their behalf, and in 1967 the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Lovings.

"Marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival," the judge said. "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. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

Mildred Loving died on May 2, 2008, having survived her husband for 33 years. In 2007, she wrote a public statement on racial equality and civil rights to explain her case and, with hope, help keep the wheels of social justice in motion.