Loving v. VirginiaLoving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967),[1] was a landmark civil rights case in which the United States Supreme Court ended all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States. Mildred Delores Jeter, a black woman, and Richad Perry Loving, a white man, were residents of Virginia. They had been married in The District of Columbia in June 1958, as they were not allowed to marry in Virginia due to Virginia's Racial Integrity Act, a state law banning marriages between any white person and any non-white person. Upon their return to Caroline County, Virginia, they were charged with breaking this law. On January 6, 1959, the Lovings pled guilty and were sentenced to one year in prison, with the sentence suspended for 25 years on condition that the couple leave the state of Virginia. |
The trial judge in the case, Leon M. Bazile, proclaimed that:
“
Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the
interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows
that he did not intend for the races to mix.
”
The Lovings moved to the District of Columbia, and on November 6, 1963, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion on their behalf in the state trial court to vacate the judgment and set aside the sentence on the grounds that the violated statutes ran counter to the Fourteenth Amendment. This set in motion a series of
lawsuits which ultimately reached the Supreme Court.
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the convictions in a unanimous decision. In its decision, the court wrote:
“
Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a
basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment
requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. 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
"
“
Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the
interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows
that he did not intend for the races to mix.
”
The Lovings moved to the District of Columbia, and on November 6, 1963, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion on their behalf in the state trial court to vacate the judgment and set aside the sentence on the grounds that the violated statutes ran counter to the Fourteenth Amendment. This set in motion a series of
lawsuits which ultimately reached the Supreme Court.
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the convictions in a unanimous decision. In its decision, the court wrote:
“
Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a
basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment
requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. 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
"
MarriageDC - Our Marriage Was Once Illegal, Too!
