•
•
•
•
|
|
|
|
•
•
•
•
|
Pace v. Alabama (1883), the Court upheld an Alabama law that punished interracial fornication more severely than when the partners were of the same race. Since both partners were punished equally, it said, there was no violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. This became known as the “equal discrimination” or “equal application” exception. The Racial Integrity Act of 1924 of Virginia, was a law that required a racial description of every person be recorded at birth, and prevented marriage between "white persons" and non-white persons. The Facts of the Loving v. Virginia case Mildred Jeter (an African American woman) and Richard Perry Loving (a Caucasian man), were residents of the Commonwealth of Virginia who married in June of 1958 in the District of Columbia . They purposely left Virginia to evade a state law banning marriages between any white person and a non-white person. Upon their return to Virginia , were arrested at night in bed and charged with violation of the ban. The couple pleaded 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 Lovings moved away from their home in Virginia to the District of Columbia , and in 1963 began a series of lawsuits seeking to overcome their conviction on 14th Amendment grounds, ultimately reaching the Supreme Court. The case was decided on 12 June 1967 by vote of 9 to 0; the Court declared Virginia’s anti-miscegenation statute, the "Racial Integrity Act of 1924", unconstitutional, thereby ending all race -based legal restriction on marriage in the United States. 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 discriminations. 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. Despite this ruling, such laws rested unenforced in several states until 2000 when Alabama became the last state to remove its law against mixed-race marriage. Read the Books 
Phyl Newbeck - Virginia Hasn't Always Been for Lovers: Interracial Marriage Bans and the Case of Richard and Mildred Loving
Watch the Movie 
Mr. and Mrs. Loving - 1996Starring Lela Rochon, Timothy Hutton, and Ruby Dee. |
|
