Volume 6.

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Front Royal, VA

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Friday, June 11, 2004

$2.75

The Love Story of Mildred Loving

Mayra Trejo | Front Royale As soon as Mildred Loving walked into the room, everyone went silent. Mildred Loving, the wife of a white man, the mother of three children came today to tell her story once more. On June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court ruled that a Virginia law prevented Mildred Jeter Loving, who was African American woman and Richard Loving, who was a Caucasian man from marrying because of their race was unconstitutional. How did you and Richard meet? Her eyes lit up, her head tilted and she smiled. They were both from a part of an area around Central point, Virginia where race rela

Above: 1966, the year that Mildred and Richard Loving went to court. Mayra for The Front Royal

tions were fairly friendly. She attended an all-black school when she first met Richard Loving. Mildred was eleven years old and Richard was seventeen. They kept it a secret for a while. When Mildred became pregnant at the age 18, they got married. She was colored, he was white, and they were in love. By Virginias law, interracial marriage is prohibited. In 1958, they decided to run off and get legally married in Washington. Once they returned from Washington, a sheriff came down and pressed charges when he saw them in the same bed that night. She tried to clarify to the sheriff that they are legally married which was no good where their hometown lies. The married couple lived unhappily in Washington wishing to go back where they first fell in

love. She wished to live in her hometown to raise her future children and build memories where they once started. Unfortunately, they had no choice but to seek home to visit their families and where their children were raised with Richards mother. We didnt get married in Washington because we wanted to get married there. We did it there because the government wouldnt allow us to marry back home in Virginia where we grew up, where we met, where we fell in love, and where we wanted to be together and build our family. What did you and Richard do after that happened? We left, and got a lawyer. Richard and I had to fight, but still were not fighting for a cause. We were fighting for our love.

The Founder of Loving Day: Ken Tanabe

Lucia Acosta | Front Royale

sign. Loving day first began as a project, Ken created the Loving day concept, the logo, the website design, merchandise and more. It has been celebrated internationally in places such as New York, Paul Parnell | Front Royale Los Angeles and Chicago. Loving day has been featured in national and international press including TIME magazine, NPR, ABC news, CNN and In 1966 I wrote an article about the great mystery, Donyale Luna. In the honor of the first Loving Day I have taken the many more. liberty of unearthing the story of the first socially accepted --------------------------

Roles of a Lifetime

What happened, we really didnt intend for it to happen, she said. What we wanted, we wanted to come home. This love story has been repeatedly used by supporters of gay marriage and interracial marriage as a substantial argument for legalizing same-sex marriage in America. Mildred Loving is a great supporter to bring freedom to marriage equality. I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richards and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. Mrs. Loving got up, waved goodbye and her last words still remain: Thats what Loving, and loving, are all about.

I wanted to take something historically negative and make it into a positive, to structure it around an event people can use every year to be reminded of this case and celebrate it
Before the year 1967 states could ban interracial marriage and even send the bride and groom to prison, but because of the Loving V. Virginia case, interracial marriage has been legalized since June 12th of 1967. The 28 year old Ken Tanabe believes June 12 is a very historic day, its the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling against laws that would have made his own parents marriage illegal. Ken created Loving Day in 2004 a holiday celebrating the anniversary of Loving v. Virginia. Ken is a Art Director/Designer/Animator, part time Assistant Professor at Parsons School of De-

--------------------------You dont have to be part of an interracial couple to celebrate this case. People have been marrying outside of their race, The percentage was 14.6% in 2008, up from 6.7% in 1980. Alabama was the last state to recognize this decision in 2001. Approximately 4.5 million married couples in the USA are interracial, statistics found that 86% of Americans approve of black-white marriages, compared to 48% in 1991. Including ages 18-37, 97% approved.

The Soft Side of a Champion

By Nate Hinkle | The Front Royale
Jack Johnson started his boxing career in 1891 as a black fighter. He was very good and slowly climbed in rank becoming a worthy opponent and on December 26, 1908, he became the world heavyweight champion which put the country into a fury because a black men had won. He was disliked by many for the choices he made outside of the ring. Spending his money on whatever he wished buying expensive cars which he would race through the streets and he would sleep with many white women which in that time was unheard of. He would end up marrying four women of white. The U.S. government was angry that a black man was marrying white women, this would would turn out to be a problem for Jack because after meeting his fourth wife Kim her mother who was angry that her daughter was with Johnson went to the police and told them that he had hypnotized her Kim and had kidnaped Kim, accusing him of the man act. This was a great excuse to arrest Johnson. Johnson was sentenced to 366 days in jail but he payed his bale and escaped from the U.S. hiding as a baseball player with his friends team into Canada. Continued on Page 7E

Continued on Page 7B

Bloody Sunday
Just around the month of march, 39 years ago, on the 7th, in the Edmund Pettus bridge just around 600 civil demonstrators were halted and warned by the sheriff, I am Major Cloud, and this is an unlawful assembly. This demonstration will not continue. You have been banned by the Governor. I am going to order you too disperse. The demonstrators held their ground and refused to move, but after being warned a second time, the state troopers advanced on the marchers with billy clubs and tear gas. The demonstrators then commenced to back off from the blockade, but were met with mounted police who proceeded to beat those who were retreating. Overall, around 50 were injured from cuts and bruises, fractures of ribs heads and arms, and 15 were hospitalized. This day was known as bloody sunday, and it was at that moment at which the civil rights movement had hit its peak, although not glorious. The Selma to Montgomery marches were inspired by the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson who was shot by Alabama state trooper James Bonard Fowler when he was protecting his mother from taking a beating in a local cafe after running away from the break up of a night march protest of the arrest of James Orange. Even then after being shot he was beat until he finally collapsed. Fowler, as he was only referred to during his court hearing 42 years later, was to be charged with first degree and second degree murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson. Fowler then pleaded guilty of manslaughter and was sentenced to six months in jail.

By Arturo Hernandez | The Front Royale

African American model. Later on, Judy Stone who wrote a profile of Luna for The New York Times in 1968, described Luna as secretive, mysterious, contradictory, evasive, and insistent upon her multiracial lineage -- exotic, chameleon strands of Indigenous-Mexican, Indonesian, Irish, and, last but least escapable, African. Donyale and my paths crossed a couple of times after the review. Did she ever read it? She acted as though she didnt, and I assumed she hadnt. Now, 38 years later, I know that she inhaled every word written about her. Acting as though she hadnt read them was Donyale the actress at her finest: she cast a spell on me that lasted 38 years! Donyale was a great actress, possibly the worlds greatest, in the role that she created: Donyale Luna. Here is the original manuscript: Couch for Two | Paul Parnell It was the meal where nobody ate. On a recent Sunday morning, Donyale Luna -a recent cover model for voguewas met for brunch in a small cafe in the west side of Central Point, Virginia. As soon as Ms.Luna entered the room, heads turned to watch her walk to one of the white leather couches that lined the sides of the lounge. Everyone it seemed held their breath while she pulled a cigarette out of her pocket, lit it using a matchbox, and after pocketing the matchbox lifted it to her lips, and said rather annoyed what are you all staring at? She quickly clapped her hands and scolded everyone in the room; Back to breakfast. It seemed news of the overnight success, that is the model Donyale Luna, had even reached this small town in the middle of nowhere. As people began talking excitedly over their eggs, the slender figure of Ms.Luna beckoned me over to one of the nearby couches. Paul Parnell: I can tell that youre used to being idolized by how you ushered away all those people. Donyale Luna: Well I wasnt born yesterday. Ive been in this business for a while now. PP: When were you born? Many consider your childhood to be a modern mystery. DL: I was born in Detroit. My mothers name was Peggy Freeman and although my birth certificate says otherwise, my fathers name was Nathaniel Luna, an Indigenous Mexican of Afro-Egyptian lineage. I went to the Cass Technical High School to learn journalism. I ended up being more interested

in theater and decided to try my luck with it. I always wanted to be a writer and have my work end up in the paper, I guess in a way that still happened PP: When did you begin thinking about modeling? DL: It was around the same time I was working on Andy Warhols Screen Test: Donyale Luna. PP: Oh thats right! I believe I have a quote from the critic Wayne Koestenbaum. Its in here somewhere.. here it is! Lets see, I believed he described you as pure diva, presenting a DL: delicious mobile excess of mannerism? You did your homework didnt you? Yes I remember that well. That man always dealt with me as though I was an object. Someone he could just write off. Sometimes I miss the gentleman of the 40s, quick to say sorry and always polite.

--------------------Anyway, when the photographer David McCabe saw me in Screen Test he was drawn to my acting skills and natural beauty. ----------------------

He offered me an interview with Richard Avedon an editor of Harpers Bazaar. After meeting the man, convinced of my future of modeling, I moved to New York where I started my career by appearing on the cover of Harpers Bazaar in January I believe. PP: Yes, that created quite a stir. DL: Well as you know its not everyday that a black model ends up on a caucasian magazine. It took some old fashioned effort to get me on that blasted cover. PP: Of course. Im sure your overnight success with Vogue didnt add to any of that ego. Tell me how, do you think, will your presence influence the fashion industry? DL: If it brings about more jobs for Mexicans, Chinese, Indians, Negroes, groovy. It could be good, it could be bad. I couldnt care less. PP: You claim you are multi-lineaged but seem to believe that that grants you permission not to care. Your old boyfriend, Sanders Bryant tells of a time you and he visited a museum of slavery artifacts in Dresden when you still lived in Detroit. When you saw those artifacts and the slave conditions, you broke down in tears. DL: Remember, this is Donyale Luna, who was going to be happy only, who had banished tears from her life. I grew up in a time that made me hate who I was, and finding the pieces of me that were culturally accepted by those who make the rules was how I became successful. Countinued on Page 6A

Donyale Luna, 1966 | Paul Parnell for Front Royal