The Legacy of Loving Day

On June 12, 1967 – known as “Loving Day” – the Supreme Court struck down state laws outlawing interracial marriage in the case of Loving vs. Virginia. Forty-six years later, on June 26, 2013, the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, making same-sex marriage legal nationwide. In celebration of Pride Month and Loving Day, Greenlight is proud to host an event celebrating the freedom to marry with a panel of creators discussing their work on the legacy of Loving vs. Virginia. Susan Green’s book The Marriage Battle: A Family Tradition is a story about American culture as told through one family: Green’s parents married in the 1960s, enduring prejudice and official barriers because she was white and he was black – and like her parents, Sue fought for the right to marry her wife Robin. Lori Tharps’s book Same Family, Different Colors: Confronting Colorism in America’s Diverse Families also starts with her own family experience as the mother of three mixed-race children, weaving together personal stories, history, and analysis to explore the myriad ways skin-color politics affect family dynamics in the United States.. Anna Holme’s documentary series The Loving Generation tells the story of a generation of Americans born to one black parent and one white parent, whose narratives provide a fascinating and unique window into the borderland between “blackness” and “whiteness”, and, in some cases, explode fixed ideas about race and identity. Join us for a reading, screening and discussion, moderated by Rebecca Carroll, cultural critic and Editor of Special Projects at WNYC New York Public Radio as well as the author of several interview-based books about race and blackness in America.