MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
When Silick Strickland (ph) and her husband first got together, they were teenagers, focused more on themselves than the attitudes of people around them.
SILICK STRICKLAND: We were young enough that we sort of were like, well, of course, it'll work out 'cause we're in love.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
It did work out. They've been married almost four decades. But Strickland can remember when their marriage would have been illegal, a union between a Black woman and a white man.
STRICKLAND: To me, it was just the strength of how much I really liked this man that got me through some of the real difficult times that we have had.
MARTIN: A Supreme Court case decided 58 years ago today made it possible for Strickland to marry the love of her life. Loving v. Virginia struck down state laws banning interracial marriage.
INSKEEP: Most appropriate name for a Supreme Court case ever. To mark the anniversary, known as Loving Day, more than 250 interracial couples shared stories with us.
THOMAS RIGGS: I think the biggest challenge for me was not fully understanding what it meant to be Black in America.
MICHELLE AL HOURI: His, you know, family, his background, they didn't necessarily have interracial couples and relationships. And so that was a big difference and a big change.
NINA SOLIS: We never really thought about it until the rest of the world kind of pointed it out to us.
MARTIN: But in their relationships, they grew and changed together.
RIGGS: Because of her patience and the stories she's entrusted to me, I've started to feel and understand in ways that I never had before.
AL HOURI: There was this embracing on both sides to get to know each other very well, understand our backgrounds, understand our histories.
SOLIS: Despite, like, the different expectations, the different background, the different education, the different lives, like, a lot of the same things that brought us together when we were teenagers is what keeps us together now.
INSKEEP: That was Thomas Riggs (ph), Michelle Al Houri (ph) and Nina Solis. Timothy Watring (ph), a pastor in Philadelphia, preaches to his congregation about the defendants in Loving v. Virginia.
TIMOTHY WATRING: It seems like Richard and Mildred were just caring for one another, doing what they thought was right. And they've inspired more people with Loving Day and with their relationship.
MARTIN: Valin Jordan (ph) uses the day to reflect on what her relationship has taught her about herself.
VALIN JORDAN: Matthew (ph) and I talk regularly and often about love needing to, you know, change you from the inside out. And what I mean by that is that it has actually gone deep into your souls and has caused you to turn inside out. And in that turning inside out, like, you're better for your partner, but you're also better for the world.
INSKEEP: And those are lessons she hopes to pass on to her newborn daughter.
JORDAN: We made sure to do her newborn photos on Loving Day. We intend to continue to make it a special day and a special moment and to bring attention to it because it matters.
MARTIN: The couples who spoke with us also shared what they love most about their partners.
STACEY MANLEY: I fell in love with Anna's (ph) mind, and her values, really.
MICHELLE YANG: He is such a great father. He can really get on the level of our 11-year-old.
RICHARD KUBE: There was really a compassion and really a openness, a friendliness. It's just really an opening for me to other ways of being connected.
INSKEEP: The voices of Stacey Manley (ph), Michelle Yang (ph) and Richard Kube (ph) all reflecting on Loving Day.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I COULD WRITE A BOOK")
HARRY CONNICK JR: (Singing) How to make two lovers of friends. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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