PROCLAMATION
Loving Day
June 12, 2022
WHEREAS, in 1958, Mildred Jeter, an African American woman, and Richard Loving, a white man,
married in Washington, D.C.; and
WHEREAS, when the Lovings returned to their home in Virginia, they were arrested and sentenced
to a year in jail for breaking the state’s anti-miscegenation laws banning interracial marriage. The judge
suspended the sentence in exchange for the Lovings’ agreement to leave Virginia for 25 years; and
WHEREAS, the Loving family took their case to the United States Supreme Court and on June 12,
1967, the U.S. Supreme Court decided unanimously in the Lovings’ favor and overturned their
convictions in the case of Loving v. Virginia; and
WHEREAS, this decision marked an important milestone in the era of Jim Crow race discrimination
laws, ending bans on interracial marriage in seventeen states, and granting the freedom to marry to
interracial couples across the nation; and
WHEREAS, an annual celebration known as Loving Day is held on June 12 in communities
throughout the nation to commemorate and celebrate the anniversary of the 1967 Supreme Court
decision.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, Alexander D. Johnson II, Mayor of the City of Albany, Oregon, do hereby
proclaim June 12, 2022, as
Loving Day
in Albany, and encourage all citizens to recognize this day as a celebration of multiculturalism, and to
reflect on the Loving family and all of the pioneers who have fought and will continue to fight for the
civil right to love.
SEAL OF THE CITY OF ALBANY OREGON
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have
hereunto set my hand and caused the
seal of the City of Albany to be affixed
this 8th day of June 2022.
Alexander D. Johnson II, Mayor
