Shanna Flowers

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Aubrey and Michelle Wright embody the typical boy-meets-girl American love story.

On Thanksgiving Eve 2002, she was out with her friend Susan at Corned Beef & Co. in Roanoke. He was out with his brothers.

The couple met, and they hit it off immediately. They made plans to meet at the same spot two nights later. Eight months later, they married.

"It was love at first sight," Michelle said with a smile one evening last week as she recalled meeting her husband.

One thing, however, distinguishes their love from most American couples. It reaches across racial lines. Aubrey, 32, is black. Michelle, 33, is white.

It wasn't that long ago their marriage would have been illegal. All of that changed because of Mildred Loving, whose funeral was Saturday in Caroline County.

In 1967, Loving, who was black, and her husband, Richard, who was white, won a U.S. Supreme Court case that toppled a ban against interracial marriage. It seems hard to believe today, but Virginia and 15 other states barred such unions back then.

"I thank Miss Mildred," Michelle said, seated next to her husband in their Vinton home.

Aubrey chimed in. "Her sacrifices ..."

"... are our gains," said Michelle, finishing her husband's thought.

In 1958, the Lovings drove to Washington, D.C., and were married June 2. They returned home to Caroline County.

Word spread that they had married. A month later, they were arrested in the middle of the night when deputies barged into their bedroom.

They pleaded guilty to violating the state's anti-miscegenation law. A judge sentenced them to a year in jail but suspended it on the condition the couple leave the state and not return for 25 years.

Photo by Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times

Aubrey and Michelle Wright sit with their son, 3-year-old Dominic, at their home in Vinton. They say race was not an issue when they met.

The Lovings' challenge opened the door for mixed-race couples to marry without prosecution. In 1960, there were 51,000 black-white unions in the U.S. In 2005, there were an estimated 422,000.

That interracial marriages were illegal is absurd. Such laws highlighted the hypocrisy of a society that refused to legally accommodate interracial love -- but looked the other way as white men fathered children with black mistresses. Thomas Jefferson, Strom Thurmond anyone?

I never heard of Loving v. Virginia until I moved here seven years ago. For me, the irony of the couple's struggle to love openly decades earlier was that I saw more interracial couples here than anyplace else I had lived.

Eight years after the Supreme Court ruling, Richard Loving died in a car crash caused by a drunken driver. His wife lost an eye. She was a reluctant civil rights pioneer and rarely granted interviews.

Last year, on the 40th anniversary of the ruling, Mildred Loving released a statement.

"Richard and I had to fight, but still were not fighting for a cause. We were fighting for our love," she wrote.

Until last week when I told them about it, the Wrights had never heard of the landmark Loving case.

"One couple could affect your life," Aubrey Wright said. "One couple could affect history."

"It's a marriage that opened doors for millions," the store manager added.

Both Aubrey and Michelle, a social worker, had dated people of different races in the past, so they felt no hesitation at falling in love. Michelle said that at first, she wasn't sure of Aubrey's race because he's fair-skinned. She asked him, but it wasn't an issue.

Both of their families accepted the relationship. The only surprise their families expressed was how quickly they got married after meeting.

Aubrey laughingly recalled the conversation with his stepfather when he dropped the news he was marrying Michelle. The older man put the younger one through the paces, asking a series of questions. None of them had anything to do with Michelle's race.

Did she have a job? Did she have a car? Did she have all her teeth? When Aubrey answered affirmative to all, his stepfather blessed the union by saying, "Well, she works for me."

Aubrey and Michelle said they have not experienced the type of hatred exhibited when authorities burst into the Lovings' bedroom.

But the Wrights said they have experienced stares. Michelle recounted some comments from strangers, usually older people.

"You don't look like the kind of girl that would marry a black man," a woman told her one time, eyeing Dominic, the couple's sandy-haired, 3-year-old son.

"I asked, 'What kind of girl does that look like?' Michelle said she responded.

The couple said they have friends of all races, including other interracial couples. Michelle said she occasionally worries about whether Dominic will be accepted as a biracial child.

The week that Mildred Loving died of pneumonia, the Wrights learned of her struggles and appreciate her sacrifices.

"What she did gave us our family," Michelle said. "Without the struggles she went through, it wouldn't be possible for us."

Aubrey added, "What she went through, she opened doors.

"And hopefully opened eyes."