Celebrating How Loving Changed the Law

Ken Tanabe is busy! Between his full time job in graphic design and his work on LovingDay.org, Tanabe’s time is accounted for, and then some. Tanabe seems to enjoy the demands on his time, particularly the role he plays advocating knowledge of and education around the subject of Loving Day.

Ken Tanabe was born in Washington DC, the son of a Japanese father and a Belgian mother. Both of his parents immigrated to the United States, and Tanabe was the first in his family to be born here.

Growing up, “we never made a big hoopla about the fact that our household was mixed,” Tanabe reflects. “We were who we were.” Tanabe’s family effortlessly and equally balanced the cultural backgrounds and sensibilities of both parents, “though each culture manifested itself in its own way,” he added.

As is the case with many families, his mother’s culture did surface in several ways, most notably in Tanabe’s case in the fact that his French is much better than his Japanese. As an adult, though, he makes a conscious effort to travel to and visit his cultural antecedents, alternating trips to the Far East with those to Europe. This allows him to explore aspects of his cultural background first-hand.

Tanabe moved to New York City as a young-adult to attend Graduate School at Parsons School of Design. As he was doing research to identify possible subjects for his Thesis work, he stumbled upon information about Loving vs. Virginia, a landmark case which led to the repeal of anti-miscegenation laws which had made it illegal to marry interracially in the United States.

“In a way I found the Loving case by accident, not an insignificant blip on the social/cultural radar, but one which I felt should be more widely known and understood,” said Tanabe. Because of his own mixed upbringing, the facts and outcome of the case resonated with him.

For those of you who are not familiar with these, Loving vs. Virginia (1967) was a case that ultimately went to the United States Supreme Court. Richard and Mildred Loving had spent time in jail for the “crime” of being married to eachother, and were forced to move from their Virginia home as a result of their persecution. On June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court overturned the Lovings’ criminal convictions and repealed all laws against interracial marriage.

Loving Day, which shares the date of the Supreme Court decision, is the celebration of those events and a recognition of the freedoms and a sense of liberation for many who have chosen to enter into unions that transcend and embrace cultural differences.

As a student at Parsons, design was a primary element of Tanabe’s thesis, and he felt that designing a website to expose more people to the facts and outcome of the Loving case would be a strong premise. Tanabe also felt that creating awareness as stimulus for on-going education would be an important achievement as well.

The product of his work was LovingDay.org.

A visit to the site will quickly demonstrate the educational aspirations of Tanabe’s vision. The organization’s mission is to “fight racial prejudice through education and to build multicultural community”.

But it also becomes clear through a look at photos and press surrounding Loving Day events dating back to 2004 when he launched the site, the same year he graduated from Parsons, that a large part of Tanabe’s ability to educate comes from bringing people together to celebrate the day in a positively demonstrative way.

Since the site’s launch over 13 events have sprung-up around the country across 9 states. The most significant of these are LovingDay.org’s own event in New York City, and The Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival in Los Angeles, an annual event which launched in 2008 to great interest and success. LovingDay’s New York City event attracted over one thousand people in its fifth year.

According to Tanabe, “it has been a gratifying surprise to see something that I conceived originally with educational goals actively building through a sense of connection as a common rallying point for our multicultural community. Every culture needs its rituals and traditions, and Loving Day is becoming one of those for the mixed community. It’s about shared experience.”

“Our Loving day celebrations were intended to be outward-facing activities, not inward-facing. It’s about inclusion, not exclusion.”, he added.

Tanabe views success as seeing the idea gaining traction across the country, and spurring interest among other individuals and groups that are in no way directly connected to him to start new celebrations.

Right now there are lots of small, dedicated and active groups that are approaching this specific dialog of multiculturalism in their own geographies with their own sets of parameters. However, adds Tanabe, “not to be disparaging of strong local efforts, if it weren’t for the internet, there would be very little going on at the national level, if anything.”

What he and some others are trying to do is “no small feat. Obviously the election and inauguration of President Obama is advancing the dialog significantly, creating more opportunity.”

Tanabe’s reaction to Obama’s election is one of “joyous disbelief”. 

“If you’d asked me when I began this process how long it would be before we had a President of color, I’d have thought maybe three decades,” he said.

LovingDay.org continues to grow in a grass-roots way, with more people showing their interest in starting their own events every year and participating in existing events.

Even though Loving Day is a once a year event, there is interest in the learning resources year-round, and Tanabe actively fields many requests from students, teachers and others to speak on the subject.

Photo Credits: Lead Photo, Veras Images; Body Loving Day Photos, Veras Images & Michael Kirby; Mildred & Richard Loving Photo, Bettmann/Corbis