Mildred Jeter Loving, a Caroline County woman who demolished the last legal bulwark of racial segregation in America, has died.

Mrs. Loving was 68, and her cause to live in Virginia as a black woman with her white husband, Richard Loving, led to a landmark civil-rights case in 1967 that abolished anti-miscegenation laws nationwide.

Despite the influence of her lawsuit, "she was a very humble woman," said her daughter, Peggy Fortune, who also lives in Caroline.

Mrs. Loving died Friday at her home in Milford after falling ill with pneumonia, according to Bernie Cohen, the Spotsylvania County attorney who took her case in 1963.

Cohen described her as an unpretentious woman who was not expansive about her place in history. "Her view was simple: 'It's a good case, and I'm glad it helped so many people.'"

Legal scholars observed the 40th anniversary of Mrs. Loving's lawsuit last June. In the case, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Virginia's law against interracial marriage as unconstitutional, along with the laws of 15 other states that still had such statutes on their books.

The court had ruled in previous landmark civil rights decisions that segregated public school systems and laws prohibiting voting based on race were unconstitutional.

"Throughout American history, laws against miscegenation were the first to appear and the last to go," said Kim Forde-Mazrui, who directs the Center for the Study of Race and Law at the University of Virginia.

At one time, as many as 41 states had laws banning interracial marriage, said Phyl Newbeck, the author of "Virginia Hasn't Always Been for Lovers: Interracial Marriage Bans and the Case of Richard and Mildred Loving."

"The ironic thing is Mildred never wanted to be a civil rights activist or pioneer," Newbeck said. "She simply wanted to be married to Richard."

She and Richard Loving, who died in a 1975 car crash caused by a drunken driver, grew up in Caroline, where their childhood friendship blossomed into romance. They went to Washington to marry in 1958.

"They both were very rural people," Newbeck said. "They'd grown up in Caroline County. And here they were living in Washington, D.C., and they were very unhappy. It wasn't really defiance. They just wanted to go home."

Shortly after returning to their home in Central Point, they were awakened in the night by a Caroline sheriff's deputy who arrested them for violating the state's ban on interracial marriage. The Lovings pleaded guilty to cohabiting as man and wife and received a one-year suspended sentence provided they leave Virginia and not return for 25 years.

They moved to Washington, and with the help of American Civil Liberties Union lawyers --whom they contacted at the suggestion of then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy -- they challenged the Virginia ban so they could return home.

Kent Willis, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia, said Mrs. Loving served as a reminder "of what individuals with courage and strength can accomplish, not just for themselves, but for all of us."

Legal scholars say that by the time the Lovings went to court, public support for segregation was waning.

The Supreme Court had sidestepped the same questions the Lovings' lawsuit presented by declining to hear an appeal from an Asian-American and a white person in Virginia who challenged the state's ban against integrated marriages in 1955. A dozen years later, the court was ready to issue a decision.

"Her courage corrected a monstrous wrong, and it helped Virginia turn its back on a segregated past," Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said.

In addition to her daughter, Mrs. Loving's survivors include a son, Sidney Jeter of Tappahannock; two brothers, Lewis Jeter of Clinton, Md., and Douglas Jeter of Milford; and eight grandchildren. Funeral arrangements are pending.

Mrs. Loving, who lost her right eye in the crash that killed her husband, suffered from advanced arthritis and recently became gravely ill with pneumonia, said Cohen, now 74 and retired from his law practice. He visited her shortly before her death at home.

"It was the house that Richard built with his own two hands when they were married."

Contact Lawrence Latané III at (804) 333-3461 or llatane@timesdispatch.com.

Contact Michael Paul Williams at (804) 649-6815 or mwilliams@timesdispatch.com.