COLAGE honors Mildred Loving, a pioneer of marriage equality, who passed away this week. She was 68. Mildred, who was Rappahannock Indian, Cherokee and Black and her husband, Richard, who was White, committed the "crime" of marrying in 1958. With help from the ACLU, the Lovings with unbelievable courage at a time when people were lynched for far less, fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in an effort to defend their own right to marry. Their case, decided in 1967 meant the defeat of laws prohibiting interracial marriage ("miscegenation") in the United States. Richard passed away in 1975.

Whitney Moses, chair of the COLAGE Board of Directors shares, "I can't really fathom a life without Loving vs Virginia, frankly. I first began to understand the complexity of my identity through my mixed race lens. As a preteen I found myself reading mixed race magazines and looking for mulatto icons in the media. The Loving vs Virginia case was where I first began to appreciate how the misguided judgments of a nation could drastically effect the intimate bonds between two people, and how important legal protection was for even our most intimate experiences. Later in life, when I began to understand the queerness of my family and learn about the fight for gay marriage, there was no question in my mind as to what was right and just. I am eternally grateful for how Mildred Loving challenged our country to respect love. Few things are more paramount."

Read Mildred Loving's own words here, issued on the 40th anniversary of her case, making the case for marriage equality.