Today I trekked up and back to NYC for the greatest holiday since Christmas…the Loving Day celebration! Loving Day is a holiday my brother created as part of his master’s thesis at Parsons. It celebrates the right to love across racial lines as first set forth by the Loving vs Virginia Supreme Court Case in 1967. Before 1967, interracial marriage was still illegal in fourteen states. What! Yup, forty-two states over the course of American history outlawed interracial marriage at one time or another.
Of course in our day and age this seems absolutely crazy, but a clause that prohibited “marriage of a white person with a Negro or mulatto or a person who shall have one-eighth or more Negro blood” was removed from South Carolina’s state constitution in 1998. Yes, 1998. It wasn’t enforceable because of the Loving Supreme Court case, but it was still on the books until ‘98. Alabama had a similar one until 2000. So it seems we still have a bit of a ways to go.
Ken’s idea was to have Loving Day celebrate the right to love, and I think irregardless if you’re in an interracial relationship or not, it’s great to have a day that celebrates love and being in love. Loving Day was featured in Time magazine on Friday and has been getting amazing press in the Washington Post, BBC, NPR etc. But the celebrations, like the one today in NYC, are the very best press. There’s free beer, free burgers, and baby can you ever feel the love.
A great photo from the NYC celebration.
The view from behind the DJ today.
My wonderful friends from Vassar, Jamilyah and Keisha, were kind enough to come to Loving Day and gossip with me. I miss them!!
It always wows me when people run non-profits in their spare time. Who has spare time? If I have spare time, which is rather rare, I do really life changing things like get manicures and shop online. I don’t try to make national parks more handicap accessible or send food to our troops. I would like to, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t. One day! I tell myself, and hopefully I’ll stay true to my word. In the meantime, there are some people doing great things in their downtime, and one of them is my own brother.
My brother was always a really good kid. He spent his time saving the dolphins while I played in the trash and preformed Broadway numbers in drag makeup. So it’s no surprise that he also runs a cool non-profit called Loving Day that fights racial prejudice through education and builds multicultural communities. They have a huge party in New York every year to raise money that is like one big Benetton commercial. I once attended so hungover that someone almost cut off my toe and I appreciated the pain because it took away from my hangover. But it was the day after my college reunion, so it’s understandable. If your liver is not about to explode, it’s a really amazing event.
Loving Day is up for a $25,000 grant through Pepsi’s “Refresh Everything” project. I had no idea that Pepsi did such creative philanthropy and I now feel that it’s totally okay to knock back Diet Cherry Pepsi at 10 am at work. I mean, it’s helping children, and diversity, and vets, and organic things. Loving Day is currently ranked 26th and has to be in the top 10 by the end of Feb. to win the grant. I’m insanely nervous about it, so please vote here if you can!
If Loving Day doesn’t win, clearly I will have to preform some sort of ritual sacrifice, but I do appreciate Pepsi giving the organization and other great causes a chance to become even greater. Not every big company sucks!
Help my brother win the much needed moolah from Pepsi! It's a good cause. Think of all the hot bi-racial men who would not exist without these laws! Two words: Tyson Beckford.
This is Mildred and Richard Loving. Their Supreme Court case legalized interracial marriage in the US in 1967. 19 friggin 67?!! Yup! That's right! Oh, and their name really was the Lovings. How utterly perfect.
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