The Supreme Court struck down bans on interracial marriage
On this day · 12 June 1967
On June 12, 1967, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that no state could forbid a couple to marry because of their race.
In 1958, Richard Loving, a white man, and Mildred Jeter, a woman of Black and Native American descent, married in Washington, D.C., then returned home to Virginia. There, their union was a crime. Convicted under the state’s Racial Integrity Act of 1924, they were handed a one-year sentence, suspended only if they left Virginia for 25 years.
The Lovings appealed, and on June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court ruled for them unanimously. Writing for the Court in Loving v. Virginia, Chief Justice Earl Warren held that the bans violated both the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.
“The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.”
The decision wiped out anti-miscegenation laws still on the books in 16 states. June 12 is now marked each year as Loving Day, and the ruling remains a cornerstone of American marriage law.
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