Legal Interracial Marriage Turns 50 and Inspires Nationwide Celebrations

The 2017 Academy Awards honored Loving, a Hollywood film about the real-life in the Loving case: Richard and Mildred Loving. Ruth Negga earned an Oscar nomination as Actress in a Leading Role for her portrayal of Mildred Loving.

One-in-six newlyweds (17%) are married to a person of a “different race or ethnicity” according to a May 2017 Pew Research Center analysis. This is five times more than in 1967, the year of the Loving decision. One-in-ten of all married people are in an interracial or interethnic marriage (about 11 million).

11% of Americans still do not approve of interracial marriages (Gallup 2013). 6.9% of adult Americans (22M) are multiracial, comparable to the Asian American population at 5.6% (Pew Research 2015).

Thousands will celebrate Loving Day on or around June 12th in cities worldwide. These celebrations range from family gatherings to public festivals like the Loving Day Flagship Celebration in New York and the Mixed Remixed Festival in LA. Celebrations are also planned for 35 other cities including DC, Boston, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Paris, and Amsterdam. Additional events are expected.

About the Loving Day Project
Created in 2004, Loving Day’s mission is to fight racial prejudice through education and to build multiethnic community. Our vision is to create an annual tradition that will make the Loving case a universally recognized civil rights landmark.