Mildred Loving, a black woman who was criminalized for marrying a white man, died last month at the age of 68, but her name will forever evoke the U.S. Supreme Court case that legalized interracial marriage. After the Loving’s 1958 nuptials, they were imprisoned and banished from their home state for violating Virginia’s ban on racially-mixed unions. The couple’s appeal led to Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 ruling that struck down all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States.

Loving died at her home in Central Point, Va. Her husband, Richard Loving, passed in a car accident in 1975.

The Lovings “weren’t out to fight any crusade,” says Ken Tanabe, founder of Loving Day (www.lovingday.org), an educational project that promotes the commemoration of the landmark decision. “They were two people in love, who wanted to live together and be happy.” Tanabe’s parents, who are Belgium and Japanese, married shortly after the Loving’s victory. “They’re not the law-defying type,” he says. “If it weren’t for the case, there’s a good chance I would not have been born.”

June 12, the date of the unanimous ruling, is known as Loving Day and observed nationwide. “It’s the celebration of her life and the legacy of her family,” says Jungmiwha “Jummy” Bullock, president of the Association of MultiEthnic Americans, the organization that helped modify the 2000 U.S. Census to allow Americans to mark all the racial and ethnic categories that applied to them. Today, there are 4.3 million interracial couples in the United States, according to the census.

“Even four decades after the decision, many people are simply unaware of its impact on society at large,” adds Bullock, who is of Korean and African American descent. “[Loving Day] allows us to create a dialogue around the complexities around race that we still have to grapple with.”