Interracial marriage and Loving v. Virginia

Laws restricting interracial marriage

Anti-miscegenation laws were statutes that restricted marriage according to racial classifications. The historical term derives from Latin roots associated with “mixing” and “kind.” Although the labels and classifications varied, these laws used government power to enforce racial separation in intimate and family life.

Maryland enacted an early colonial restriction in the 1660s. By 1750, all Southern colonies, along with Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, had prohibited at least some interracial marriages. Virginia later treated marriages between people assigned to different racial categories as legally void.

California's Supreme Court became the first state high court to invalidate such a law in 1948. Nevertheless, approximately half the states still had interracial-marriage restrictions during the 1950s. By 1967, sixteen states continued to maintain them, concentrated across the southeastern United States.

Religion and “natural law” arguments

Courts and legislators sometimes defended racial marriage restrictions by appealing to tradition, social hierarchy or their interpretation of divine intention. A New Jersey court later observed that these policies had repeatedly been presented as rooted in an unchangeable natural order.

In an 1869 decision, Georgia's Supreme Court invoked a permanent hierarchy among races and framed that hierarchy in religious terms. That reasoning reflected the racial ideology of the period rather than a neutral constitutional principle. Such arguments also illustrate how religious language can be used to support a social order that denies equal treatment.

Changing law and public opinion

Law and public opinion did not change at the same pace. Gallup reported very limited approval in 1958. Opposition remained widespread when the Supreme Court ruled in 1967, yet constitutional protections do not depend on majority approval.

Attitudes changed markedly during the following decades. A 2013 Gallup report found 87% approval of marriages between Black and white people, with a reported margin of error of two percentage points. The historical polling is useful for tracing social change, but it does not determine the meaning of constitutional equality.

The history has often been compared with the legal path toward marriage equality for same-sex couples. The issues have distinct histories, but both involved disputes over whether states could exclude a class of couples from civil marriage. Massachusetts recognized same-sex marriage in 2004, and the Supreme Court extended that right nationwide in 2015. Further website pages discuss Massachusetts, the 2015 Supreme Court proceedings, and the remaining territorial questions.

The Loving case

Richard and Mildred Loving married in the District of Columbia in 1958 because Virginia law prohibited their marriage at home. After returning to Virginia, they were arrested in July 1959 and charged under the state's Racial Integrity Act. They pleaded guilty.

The trial court imposed one-year jail sentences, suspended on the condition that the couple leave Virginia and not return together for 25 years. The order separated them from their home and community while treating their marriage as a criminal act.

Virginia's statute divided people into rigid racial categories and applied ancestry rules inconsistently. These categories were social and legal constructions designed to preserve white supremacy, not scientifically coherent descriptions of human variation.

In 1963, Mildred Loving sought federal help as national civil-rights legislation was being debated. She was directed to the American Civil Liberties Union, whose attorneys challenged the convictions. The trial judge declined to set them aside and justified separation through his interpretation of divine design. Virginia's highest court upheld the law, and the case then reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

The 1967 decision

On 12 June 1967, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed the convictions. Chief Justice Earl Warren's opinion concluded that Virginia's law violated the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Court treated marriage as a fundamental personal freedom. It held that a state could not restrict that freedom through racial classifications intended to maintain racial hierarchy. The ruling invalidated the remaining interracial-marriage bans in sixteen states.

Some unenforceable provisions remained written in state codes for years after the decision, but they had no constitutional force. Interracial couples could marry throughout the United States without state exclusion based on race.

Why the case remains important

• It applied exacting constitutional review to a racial classification.
• It recognized marriage as a fundamental individual choice.
• It linked equal protection with substantive personal liberty.
• It rejected state-enforced racial hierarchy even amid substantial public opposition.

References and further reading

These sources supported the historical archive. External pages may have changed since the essay was first assembled.

1. Lewis v. Harris: plaintiffs' brief opposing dismissal, Superior Court of New Jersey, 8 May 2003.
2. Eddie Becker, Chronology on the history of slavery and racism.
3. Perez v. Sharp, 198 P.2d 17 (California, 1948).
4. Interracial marriage in the United States, historical overview.
5. Scott v. State, 39 Georgia 321 (1869).
6. Douglas Martin, Mildred Loving, who battled a mixed-race marriage ban, The New York Times, 6 May 2008.
7. Racial Integrity Act of 1924, historical summary.
8. Text and context of Virginia's 1924 act, University of Virginia archive.
9. Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967).
10. Gallup, U.S. approval of Black-white marriage, 25 July 2013.