Bernard Cohen, the lawyer in the landmark Mildred and Richard Loving case, died Oct. 12, at an assisted-living center in Fredericksburg, VA. He was 86.

Mildred Loving was black, and Richard Loving was white. They had married in 1958. Five weeks later, they were in their home in Caroline County when the county sheriff and two deputies burst in and arrested them. They pleaded guilty to violating Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act, and were sentenced to a year in jail.

After preliminary legal work, Cohen brought the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote, “Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State.”