5.22.2017
Contact:
Farrah Parkes
lovingproject50@gmail.com
Philadelphia – The Loving Project Exhibit will open Friday, June 9, three days before the 50th anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court decision that legalized interracial marriage. The exhibit will be open to the public on Saturdays in June at the Bill Russell Gallery in Fishtown.
The multimedia exhibit includes portraits of interracial married couples along with audio of them discussing the role of race in their relationships, from dating and marrying to dealing with in-laws and parenting multi-racial children. The exhibit features a diverse array of couples across age and racial/ethnic groups and includes same-sex couples. The exhibit simultaneously celebrates the legacy of the Lovings while also highlighting the work that still needs to be done to address the unique challenges experienced by interracial couples.
The Loving Project Exhibit is a collaboration between Brad Linder and Farrah Parkes, the producers of The Loving Project Podcast, and Cathie Berrey-Green and Al Green, local photographers. Both pairs are interracial married couples. The Loving Project Podcast is a yearlong podcast series, with new episodes released every other Monday featuring a different interracial couple from the Philadelphia area. The podcast is available at www.lovingproject.com as well as on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, and other podcast distribution venues.
In the 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision, the Supreme Court ruled that state laws banning marriages between individuals of different races were unconstitutional. Since then, the number of interracial couples has grown; recently the Pew Research Center released a report indicating that one-sixth of all newlyweds now marry someone of a different race or ethnicity. The report also notes that while attitudes towards interracial relationships have grown increasingly positive over time, such couples continue to face discrimination.