There is a poignant significance to the passing last week of Mildred Loving at a time when a biracial senator leads the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Their stories are connected by time, skin color and a Supreme Court decision.
Mildred and Richard Loving had been married only five weeks in 1958 when the sheriff burst into their Central Point, Va., bedroom with two deputies.
They shined flashlights in their eyes and a menacing voice demanded, "Who is this woman you're sleeping with?"
When Richard pointed to their marriage certificate on a wall, the sheriff responded, "That's no good here."
Their District of Columbia marriage license was "no good" because Richard was white and Mildred was black in a small Virginia town in 1958, when it was one of 16 states that banned interracial marriage.
