When Mildred and Richard Loving were arrested in July 1958, in Virginia, for violating a state law that banned marriage between people of different races, such laws had been on the books in most states since the seventeenth century. But the Lovings never expected to be woken up in their bedroom in the middle of the night and arrested. The documentary brings to life the Lovings' marriage and the legal battle that followed through little-known filmed interviews and photographs shot for Life magazine.

Join Dr. Emily Auerbach, director of the UW-Madison Odyssey Project, and her former student, author Sherry Lucille, as they show clips from the film and lead discussion on the historical and contemporary challenges to interracial relationships. Dr. Auerbach is a Professor of English at the UW-Madison and co-host of Wisconsin Public Radio’s University of the Air. 

This event is part of a four-part series, Created Equal: America’s Civil Rights Struggle Film Discussion Series. Funding for the series was provided by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. For more information, visit http://createdequal.neh.gov/