Loving v. Virginia

The Loving v. Virginia (1967) U.S. Supreme Court decision, which rendered antimiscegenation laws unconstitutional, was the final element in a series of civil rights legislative and judicial actions that dismantled legalized segregation in the United States. The plaintiffs—Mildred Delores Jeter, of mixed African American and (Rappahannock) Indian ancestry, and her White fiancé, Richard Perry Loving, both of Central Point, Virginia—were married in Washington, D.C., on June 2, 1958. The Lovings returned to Central Point and resided with Mildred's parents while Richard worked to build a new house for his pregnant bride. On July 11, 1958, as the Lovings lay asleep in bed, the sheriff, accompanied by two additional law enforcement officers, burst into the couple's bedroom and arrested them for the felony of miscegenation. Two separate [Page 859]warrants along with an indictment were issued for Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter, respectively.

Mildred and Richard Loving. Married couple Mildred and Richard Loving answer questions at a press conference the day after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in their favor in Loving v. Virginia (June 13, 1967). The Court, in a unanimous decision, overturned Virginia's antimiscegenation statute, which had resulted in the Lovings' arrests shortly after their 1958 marriage.

Source: Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.

The Lovings were in violation of Virginia's 1924 Act to Preserve Racial Integrity, a law passed during the apex of the American eugenics movement, which promoted ideals of racial purity. The racial integrity act was the culmination of Virginia's three-centuries-long obsession with racial purity, as demonstrated by the earliest statutes recorded by the legislature of the Virginia Colony dating back to 1630. From the colonial era until the end of the 19th century, the Virginia General Assembly enacted no fewer than forty statutes against mixed marriages. Despite such laws, interracial liaisons persisted. Hence, Virginia's 1924 act, forbidding intermarriage between Blacks and Whites, served to tighten any loopholes in previously enacted legislation and to stiffen the penalty for those who violated the law. Prior to 1930, however, several multiracial couples, who were denied marriage licenses by vital statistics clerks, successfully sued in the Virginia courts, claiming in each case that the spouse in question was not Black but rather American Indian. Mildred Loving, whose Central Point community was composed of people of mixed Black, White, and Indian ancestry, laid claim to an exclusive Native American identity as indicated on her District of Columbia marriage license. Nevertheless, as a result of earlier challenges to the racial integrity act, the Virginia General Assembly in 1930 enacted legislation that recognized as Indian only those residing on reservations. All others, even those of unquestionable Indian ancestry, were classified as Negro and forbidden to marry Whites. Hence, Mildred Loving's claim to an exclusive Indian identity did not exempt her from the racial integrity law.

Miscegenation was a felony, and the penalty for violation was a year in the penitentiary. On January 6, 1959, Judge Leon M. Bazile suspended the sentence provided that the couple leave the state and not return as husband and wife for 25 years. The Lovings immediately moved to Washington, D.C. In 1963, they petitioned the Virginia Supreme Court to vacate the 1959 judgment and to set aside their sentence. Bazile, who had handed down the earlier decision, denied the motion, stating that God had not intended for the races to mix. The couple returned to the District of Columbia and wrote a letter to Robert Kennedy, then U.S. attorney general, requesting his assistance. The Attorney General's Office forwarded the letter to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Bernard Cohen, a young lawyer who at the time was doing pro bono work for the ACLU, took the case. Another lawyer, Philip J. Hirschkof, signed on as cocounsel when he joined the Cohen firm. Both men were aware that the case was destined for the U.S. Supreme Court, but two earlier attempts to overturn state antimisce-genation laws, in the cases of Nairn v. Nairn (1955) and McLaughin v. Florida (1964), caused the lawyers to question whether the High Court was ready to take such a drastic measure.

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