A Love That Many Waters Could Not Quench

On a July night in 1958, Sheriff Garnett Brooks and two deputies burst into a bedroom in Caroline County, Virginia, flashlights cutting through the darkness. Richard Loving, a white bricklayer, and his wife Mildred, a woman of Black and Native American descent, lay in their bed. Their marriage certificate from Washington, D.C., hung on the wall — but in Virginia, their love was a felony.

Judge Leon Bazile sentenced them to a year in prison, suspended only if they left Virginia for twenty-five years. The Lovings chose exile. For years they lived in Washington, D.C., separated from family, from the rolling countryside they called home. But they refused to let their love be erased.

When the ACLU took their case to the Supreme Court, attorneys asked Mildred what she wanted them to tell the justices. Her answer was simple: "Tell the court I love my husband." On June 12, 1967, Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered a unanimous decision striking down interracial marriage bans across sixteen states.

Song of Solomon 8:6-7 declares that love is "strong as death" and that "many waters cannot quench" it. The Lovings lived that verse. Arrest could not quench it. Exile could not drown it. A courtroom could not sentence it away. Their love burned with what Solomon called "the very flame of the Lord" — a fire no human law could extinguish.