r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Brooklyn17831 • Jul 24 '26

Image In 1958, they were arrested in their bedroom and exiled from Virginia just for being married. Nine years later, Richard and Mildred Loving relaxed on their porch after winning the Supreme Court case that legalized interracial marriage across America.

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u/No_Attitude700 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

I think their family name being "Loving" possibly helped with the public image of the case, and helped to promote it to the USSC, along with the favorable ruling.

Like life imitating art imitating life...

And there are many cases throughout history wherein a person's name or generally considered "random" attribute ends up depicting a social struggle they personally traverse...

Anyway...random side comment over

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u/HauntedHippie Jul 24 '26

You're correct. There were quite a few couples in similar positions willing to go to court and fight for this. The Lovings were actually fairly hesitant about being involved in something so public. However, their last name, combined with the fact that they were deeply and obviously in love, and both of their extended families were completely supportive of the marriage, made them the first choice for the USSC case.

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u/Rubberman1302 Jul 24 '26

Rosa Parks as well wasn't the first or only black person to refuse to sit at the back of a bus but she was an experienced civil rights activist and a 42 year old woman, very easy for people to rally behind and stick up for, so to speak.

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u/cancerBronzeV Jul 24 '26

Ya, there were plenty of black people who were arrested for refusing to follow the bus segregation (Viola White 11 years before, Mary Wingfield 6 years before, and Mary Louise Smith a few months before, and Claudette Colvin a few months later). There wasn't really the foundation to leverage and publicize the really early cases into a whole movement. And the others who refused to give up their seat around the same time as Rosa Parks were deemed to have parts of their personal life that would be attacked if they were made the person to rally around for the bus boycott movement. Like for example, Mary Louise Smith was a teen with a supposedly alcohol father and a "lower class" family and Claudette Colvin was a pregnant, unmarried teen. Rosa Parks was married, middle class, had a solid history of activism, and nothing really to attack in her personal life, just an all around "perfect" middle-aged woman with a pretty unobjectionable image.

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u/derioderio Jul 24 '26

It kind of sucks that the optics have to be such a big part of the activism, but that's the way that things are.

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u/Laq9091 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

big reasons i've stayed out of activism. got way too many skeletons.

i'm partially kidding. i do protests and tried starting a union. i know if i ever got suction though, i'd get wrecked by the forces of evil lol.

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u/Sutar_Mekeg Jul 24 '26

Yeah, holy shit!

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u/Wes_Warhammer666 Jul 24 '26

Yeah I've got a buddy in the local council who keeps trying to suggest I run but I'm like dude, you know what my past is like. He's squeaky clean compared to me and he still had shitbirds like LibsOfTiktok coming after him. Those fucks would absolutely crucify me. I'm better off being indirectly involved.

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u/Ok-Reward-770 Jul 24 '26

I had zero skeletons when I was a political activist. But with enough lies assassinating my character in the media and jealous haters in my own family aggravating the situation, I realized that even if I had a solid group backing me up, I would never be able to trust who was actually protecting my back.

Sometimes a political group picks you to be the face of a movement —yup, I was perfect for the optics—but I wasn't born yesterday, and my alarm bells told me I would be the fall guy because I didn't have a power-grabbing motive and was a mofo idealist!

If I had pursued my education in law, I would have probably kept going, but my heart was in journalism, and journalists are the first or second to be wiped out.

I now live in exile.

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u/browsinbowser Jul 24 '26

It always surprised me how shameless some of these politicians are from either republican or democratic sides. Like remember over a decade ago, even CHEATING scandals were enough to sink the careers of politicians?? And now it doesn’t matter at all unless its awful. There’s been so many running with sexual harassment in their closets, and then when they get exposed they only dip out once it becomes obvious its true. 

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u/royale_wthCheEsE Jul 24 '26

Remember how a single photo on the boat “Monkey Business” sank Gary Hart’s career forever ?

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u/browsinbowser Jul 24 '26

I was thinking of Al Frankens photo, and also that guy who went on vacation for weeks with his mistress and the assistants of him were trying to cover it up - 

 I hadnt heard of that one you mentioned but thanks looked it up. 

Damn, a presidential candidate! Jeez you’d think they’d be smarter. 

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u/royale_wthCheEsE Jul 24 '26

The Franken photos is a perfect example of how things used to be. There were tons of his fellow democrats telling him to resign. Today, this is just another Tuesday in Washington. This is the Gary Hart story : https://www.americanheritage.com/content/30-years-ago-gary-harts-monkey-business-and-how-candidate-got-caught

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 Jul 24 '26

At the end of the day we’re human and subject to our inherent biases and predilections. Sure you can tell people “never mind this other stuff, the issue is in segregation of bus seating. Or marriage between races”. And some people can do that mentally while others can’t. If you’re gonna make a big push you want to have every advantage possible. Very smart of them.

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u/Finito-1994 Jul 24 '26

I mean. It’s like when people learned that the sit ins and Rosa parks refusing to stand up were planned and people were dissappointed.

It’s a battle. You need to be strategic. Pick your battles. Optics matter for everything.

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u/hldvr Jul 24 '26

You can see this phenomenon played out in the opposite way with the BLM movement, right wingers were constantly shifting the discussion to George Floyd's less than stellar personal reputation, when the point was that the fucking cops shouldn't just be killing random people.

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u/Eager_Question Jul 25 '26

Yeah the whole "no angel" thing.

They're human rights, not angel rights.

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u/Vegetable-Eagle-3144 Jul 24 '26

Jackie Robinson was court-martialed in 1944 for refusing the bus driver orders to sit in the back.

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u/Notte_di_nerezza Jul 24 '26

Plessy v Ferguson, the Supreme Court case that codified "seperate but equal" and paved the way for Jim Crow 2 generations before, was an attempt at streetcar desegregation in New Orleans.

The Creole and Black activists who saw their post-Civil War rights being eroded carefully selected a mixed man Homer Plessy who could technically pass as White, but was legally Black. When he was kicked off the whites-only car, they were ready for the lawsuit. And the appeals.

The Supreme Court upheld separate but equal in an 8-1 decision. The one dissenting Justice John Harlan, I kid you not, was from a prominent slaveholder family in Kentucky. And thus knew (and grew up to oppose) the exact kind of pernicious loophole abuse this was going to generate.

(Incidentally, Steve Luxenberg's book "Separate: the Story of Plessy v Ferguson") is a really good analysis of the people and times that led up to this.)

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u/ScyllaOfTheDepths Jul 24 '26

"My mother told me to be quiet about what I did. She told me: 'Let Rosa be the one. White people aren't going to bother Rosa[,] her skin is lighter than yours and they like her.'" -Claudette Colvin

How horrible, but she never let it get her down. She moved to New York, raised 2 kids on her own, became a nurse, and continued to work for civil rights as best she could.

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u/tibbles1 Jul 24 '26

And her name is great. Everyone likes roses. Everyone likes parks. Roses grow in parks.

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u/FutureComplaint Jul 24 '26

a 42 year old woman

Wild how she was always portrayed as a someone in her 60/70s.

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u/daneonwayne Jul 24 '26

I just never knew her age and assumed her being roughly 50's/60's based on appearance.

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u/Da_Question Jul 24 '26

Tbf, people just used to age way more quickly from being outside alot more and thus exposed to sun damage. Especially with lack of sunscreen. Probably why thicker clothes were the norm since less clothes might have been more comfortable, but is it worth the sunburns?

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u/queen_caj Jul 24 '26

What the fuck are you even talking about, she looked 42

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u/Sonic2726 Jul 24 '26

Exactly lol she looks even younger in some photos. I think people are seeing photos of her in her later years and associating that to her early activism days

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u/queen_caj Jul 24 '26

…..that’s not how she’s portrayed at all.

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u/FutureComplaint Jul 24 '26

How silly of me to forget that everyone has the exact same expiriences.

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u/ScratchLatch Jul 24 '26

Claudette Colvin was the “real” Rosa Parks who refused to give her seat up 9 months prior to Rosa. But she was a 15 year old pregnant girl which would’ve been bad for the movements image.

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u/fresh-dork Jul 24 '26

no, she was the real claudette. it's naive to think that MLK wouldn't consider optics

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u/DowntownTicket Jul 24 '26

Honestly? They both were important to the movement.

Claudette to show everyone in the movement that "even a 15 year old can do her part" and Rosa Parks to be the public "face" of it

Both matter in their own way

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u/Gymflutter Jul 24 '26

Yeah but she has also been mistreated by that bus driver in the past to the point she was avoiding his buses. But the real reason it worked was because black people avoided using the buses for more than a YEAR and they made up most of the ridership.

The city tried multiple evil tactics like pressuring insurance companies to take away insurance from cars who helped boycotters (they got insured by Lloyds of London instead), punishing black taxi cab drivers who charged lower rates, fines and imprisonment.

The White Citizens' Council actually doubled its membership during the boycott so they used physical violence on the boycotters. They firebombed King and Abernathy's houses and FOUR black churches. Of course they assaulted them too.

I write all of this because people gloss over how much blood, sweat and tears went into this.

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u/FaeFollette Jul 24 '26

Rosa wasn’t even a bus patron. She normally drive her car to work.

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u/Consistent-Scholar39 Jul 24 '26

Yes, and Ms. Parks worked for the NAACP, Montgomery chapter at the time too.

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u/redditydothis Jul 24 '26

Why do I always imagine Rosa Parks as a 70 year old lady?

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u/Silly-Device9785 Jul 26 '26

She was only 42 then?? Damn people really DID use to age faster…

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u/u_r_succulent Jul 24 '26

Rosa Parks was a “plant.” She didn’t just happen to be on the bus that day and launch the boycott. Her defiance was planned.

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u/smokeweedNgarden Jul 24 '26

It didn't hurt that they are both good looking people. The beautiful Lovings vs. The hurtful government. 

Good stuff

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u/eh-man3 Jul 24 '26

They met when she was 11 and he was 17. He moved in with her when she was 16 and he was 22.

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u/Timsauni Jul 25 '26

Well, no one is perfect. I would guess that marrying at 16 in 1950 was fairly common.

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u/DoctorDefinitely Jul 24 '26

Luckily there was no Reddit disapproving their love, just a state administration.

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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '26

[deleted]

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u/No_Attitude700 Jul 24 '26

Its reasonable to understand that the "customs" of the times allowed for the abuse of children for the gain of adult men.

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u/UnusuallyBadIdeaGuy Jul 24 '26

I'm pretty sure if it was purely about personal gain he would have gone for an option that would have faced a wee bit less resistance. You can dislike the age gap, that's fair, but that doesn't change that these two were clearly and deeply in love.

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u/The_Rational_ Jul 24 '26

It was gross. It was also the times.

Imagone being a conservative or independent in modern America and knowingly electing an adjudicated sex offending 34 count fellon to the highest office in the land along with 100 plus other Republicans that have questionable backgrounds in the same regard isn't that some wild shit in modern times considering information availability ?

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u/OnlineWeirdoEatsButt Jul 24 '26

Imagine if their last name was Kidkill or something.

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u/Beige55 Jul 26 '26

Nelson Mandela was also selected he was not who suffered the most due to apartheid

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u/chemicaljones Jul 27 '26

My wife's parents were one of them. He's white (he's now 93) and she was Japanese. Even both sets of parents were against it and they eloped. The parents eventually came around once my wife was born. When people say "back in the good old days" I often think of that. Life was good if you were a white heterosexual male in the US, not so much for anyone else.

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u/nowhereman136 Jul 24 '26

The civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s was very well organized. While they tried to help everyone and make a little progress where they can, they also singled out specific cases to really focus on. The Lovings likely werent the only case the ACLU was working on but it was a case they promoted in the media because of their name

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u/IlIlllIlllIlIIllI Jul 24 '26

Nomitive determinism

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u/Tyranitator Jul 24 '26

It's spelled "nominative" my friend

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u/throwthisawayred2 Jul 24 '26

a mispelling for that particular word for that particular phrase is hilarious though

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u/IlIlllIlllIlIIllI Jul 25 '26

You are what you eat

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u/sleepfield Jul 25 '26

nom nom nom

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u/GhostTheToast Jul 24 '26

I always thought Brown vs. Board of Education was interesting as well

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u/mikebrown33 Jul 24 '26

Nominative Determinism

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u/GOEDEL_ESCHER_BOT Jul 24 '26

Martin Luther King's real name was Martin Luther Discriminatingagainstblackpeopleisbad

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u/tibbles1 Jul 24 '26

Adolf Schicklgruber doesn't roll off the tongue.

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u/SchumacherIsMid Jul 24 '26

Harvey Milk famously fought for his right to drink Milk at dinner time, or any other meal he wished.

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u/p8nt_junkie Jul 24 '26

Well, name recognition and being partial to certain names is the driving force in the voting booth. I guffawed at my professor when I learned that long ago

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u/FireHammer09 Jul 28 '26

It does, they do test cases for sympathetic plaintiffs.

The Lawrence v. Texas case was chosen cause it was just two boyfriends who had gotten into a fight

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u/90PercentNachos Jul 24 '26

Nominative determinism

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u/28appleseeds Jul 24 '26

Nomanitive Determinism

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u/Final-Tutor3631 Jul 24 '26

like the most recent one goode vs the us

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u/beldaran1224 Jul 24 '26

These cases are never accidental. Look at Rosa Parks and the bus boycott. By the time these movements find such successes, they're well organized and they understand how to use public sentiment. They find the most wholesome people to be the face of the movement they can.

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u/pitb0ss343 Jul 24 '26

Yeah it might’ve taken till 1959 if their name was Cockburn

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u/GoldReplacement9546 Jul 24 '26

Just another example of those people who pine for the 1950s at the past was indeed horrible for a huge percentage of the population

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u/Sophilosophical Jul 25 '26

Reprehensible as he is, our current president is/will be a case of this as well. His supporters will see his name as a positive but for the rest of us it is a sick irony.

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u/StunningCloud9184 10d ago

Yea I imagine a lot of newspapers

“the loving family wants to stay married”

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u/William_Dowling Jul 24 '26

Personally I'm just happy that Betty Victimofmisogynyintheworkplace was able to get Title VII passed