Loving v. Virginia 1967
| Author | Daniel Brannen, Richard Hanes, Elizabeth Shaw |
| Pages | 601-606 |
Page 601
Appellants: Mildred Jeter Loving, Richard Perry Loving
Appellee: Commonwealth of Virginia
Appellant's Claim: That Virginia state laws prohibiting interracial marriages violate the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection and due process clauses.
Chief Lawyer for Appellants: Bernard S. Cohen
Chief Lawyer for Appellee: R.D. McIlwaine III
Justices for the Court: Hugo L. Black, William J. Brennan, Jr., William O. Douglas, Abe Fortas, John Marshall Harlan II, Potter Stewart, Chief Justice Earl Warren, Byron R. White
Justices Dissenting: None (Justice Thurgood Marshall did not participate)
Date of Decision: June 12, 1967
Decision: Ruled in favor of the Lovings by finding Virginia's laws banning interracial marriage unconstitutional.
Significance: The Court emphasized that all racial classifications are suspect and subject to strict scrutiny by the courts. Protecting an individual's freedom to choose a marriage partner, the ruling outlawed all state laws prohibiting interracial marriage.
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In the United States at the beginning of the twenty-first century, Americans considered the freedom to choose a marriage partner a fundamental right. The idea that government could interfere with that choice was unthinkable. Yet, as late as 1967 laws prohibiting "miscegenation" were on the books in sixteen states. Miscegenation refers to marriage between a Caucasian (white) and a member of any other race. It was not until June of 1967 that the U.S. Supreme Court finally declared such laws unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia.
Virginia was one of the sixteen states with miscegenation laws in 1967. Three laws applied: (1) Provision 20-57 of the Virginia Code automatically voided all marriages between "a white person and a colored person" without any legal hearings; (2) 20-58 made it a crime for any white person and colored person to leave Virginia to be married and then return to live in Virginia; and, (3) 20-59 provided punishment by declaring interracial marriages a felony leading to a prison sentence of not less than one nor more than five years for each individual involved. Although
Richard and Mildred Loving fought all the way to the Supreme Court for their right to be married in any state.
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penalties for miscegenation had been common in Virginia since slavery times, Virginia's codes were based on the Racial Integrity Act of 1924. This act absolutely prohibited a white person from marrying anyone other than another white person. Virginia passed the act following World War I in a time of distrust for anyone not Caucasian. The miscegenation codes were...
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