Mildred Jeter Loving

Mildred, sometimes called Millie, is one of the novel's narrators. She is a teenager when she first meets Richard Loving, and she falls in love with him over the coming years. Because she is black and Richard is white, many people do not condone their relationship. However, Mildred cares only about her feelings for Richard. She seems, in many ways, typical of the teenage girls of this time and place. She has an illegitimate son by the time she begins dating Richard, and she becomes pregnant with her second child before she and Richard are married. Society's expectations of people during this time period were different from modern expectations. Mildred defies a series of the standard rules of the time. When she is arrested, she lists off the things she is ashamed of, including being pregnant out of wedlock.

Mildred wants only to live a simple...