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On February 11, 1979, Mildred Loving was photographed at home with her children and grandchild, holding a photograph of her husband, Richard Loving. The image carries the memory of a man who was no longer there, but whose marriage to Mildred had helped change American law forever. Mildred and Richard Loving were an interracial couple from Virginia who married in Washington, D.C., in 1958 because Virginia law prohibited interracial marriage. When they returned home, they were arrested in the middle of the night for simply being married. A judge gave them the choice of leaving Virginia or facing imprisonment, forcing the couple to leave their home and live away from their families. They refused to accept that their marriage should be treated as a crime. With the help of civil rights attorneys, their case eventually reached the United States Supreme Court. On June 12, 1967, the Court unanimously ruled in Loving v. Virginia that laws banning interracial marriage violated the Constitution. The decision struck down Virginia's law and made it impossible for states to continue enforcing laws that prohibited marriage based on race. The importance of Loving v. Virginia went far beyond Richard and Mildred themselves. At the time of the decision, several states still had laws restricting interracial marriage. The ruling removed one of the most deeply rooted forms of racial discrimination from American law and affirmed that the government could not deny people the right to marry simply because of the race of their partner. Mildred later became an advocate for interracial couples and families, but she never seemed interested in presenting herself as a traditional civil rights hero. Her position was remarkably simple. She wanted to be able to live with the man she loved, raise her family and live in her own home without the government telling her whom she was allowed to marry. This photograph is especially powerful because it shows Mildred years after the Supreme Court victory, surrounded by family and holding Richard's image. Their private decision to marry had become a landmark case that changed the lives of countless people across the United States. Today, June 12 is commemorated as Loving Day, a reminder of the couple whose determination helped establish that marriage could not legally be restricted on the basis of race. Sometimes history changes because people set out to make history. Sometimes it happens because ordinary people simply refuse to accept that an unjust law should determine how they live, whom they love, or what kind of family they are allowed to have.