Loving Day Honors Mixed-Race Marriage, Fights Prejudice - TIME

In February 1961, Barack Obama's parents did something that was illegal in 22 states and that 96% of the population disapproved of: they got married.

In fact, interracial marriage, sex and cohabitation would remain illegal in much of the U.S. for another six years. Then on June 12, 1967, in the case Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court unanimously struck down the country's anti-miscegenation laws, allowing interracial couples across the country to marry.

June 12 has since become a grass-roots holiday in the U.S., especially for multiracial couples and families. Known as Loving Day, the celebration commemorates the 1967 case and fights prejudice against mixed-race couples, and is a reason to throw an awesome, inclusive party.

In 1958, Richard and Mildred Loving got married in Washington, D.C., where interracial marriage was legal. But one night when Richard, who was white, and Mildred, who was black and Native American, were sleeping in their Virginia home, three police officers burst inside, shined flashlights in their faces and told them that their Washington marriage certificate was "no good."

The newlyweds were arrested and threatened with jail time.

He sentenced Richard and Mildred to a year in jail each, citing an 1883 Supreme Court case that said if a mixed-race couple were punished equally, there would be no discrimination.

Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered the opinion, writing that anti-miscegenation laws "deprive the Lovings of liberty" and that the "freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness."

On June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court agreed.

Virginia's anti-miscegenation laws had been on the books for 305 years.

As late as 1987, a full 20 years after the case, only 48% of Americans said it was acceptable for blacks and whites to date. That number has since jumped to 83%, according to the Pew Research Center. In 2010, the center estimated that 1 in 7 new marriages in the U.S. is now an interracial coupling. In 1961, the year Obama's parents married, only 1 in a 1,000 marriages included a black person and a white person; today, it's 1 in 60.

Now Loving Day is the biggest multiracial celebration in the U.S.