Jenn Phillips of Trolley Square in Wilmington is a one-woman pep squad for interracial love.

And shes hoping people will get excited with her on June 12 at Wilmingtons First Unitarian Church for what she believes is Delawares first Loving Day celebration.

The Loving Day party is an afternoon of music and fun to celebrate a June 12, 1967, Supreme Court decision that made it legal to be part of an interracial couple. It is a day precious to Phillips, the daughter of an interracial marriage.

Her parents married in Michigan in 1969, benefiting from the Supreme Court ruling.

As a child I had kids who said its not possible to have one black parent and one white, says Phillips, knowing that everyday acceptance of interracial couples in restaurants and check-out lines has evolved more slowly than the law.

I want our Loving Day event to give everyone a sense of home, comfort, freedom, dignity and so many other things Ive been looking for, says the 42-year-old graphic designer.

As she points out, even President Obama, the product of an interracial union, gets hassled about his birth.

On June 12 at 12:30 pm, the churchs Allies for Racial Justice, which Phillips co-chairs, is hosting an afternoon of free music and games on the church lawn. Its a time for networking and food, when Phillips expects that people will get that its not necessary for her to have the same skin color as her husband Jack Walker, for the two to love each other and have a lot in common.

The Delaware celebration is thought to be the only Loving Day party in the region. And members of First Unitarian in Brandywine Hundred are inviting people in interracial relationships and marriages to remember that 44 years ago the Supreme Court repudiated white supremacy in marriage.

Loving is the last name of Richard Loving, a white man who was part of the Supreme Court ruling that struck down Virginias miscegenation laws meant to enforce racial segregation.

In 1958 Loving and Mildred Jeter, a black woman, married in the District of Columbia and moved to Virginia, where they were arrested. At their 1959 trial the judge brought God into the ruling, writing that: Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. … The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.

Tags: Marriages