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Loving v. Virginia
June 12, 2007 marked the 40th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia on June 12, 1967 which struck down the remaining interracial marriage bans in 16 states in the United States, ending race discrimination in marriage.
Read the Loving v. Virginia decision.
A wide array of legal and civil rights groups combined efforts to celebrate the Loving 40th Anniversary:
- as a milestone in the fight against racial inequality,
- for its importance in securing the freedom to marry as a civil right,
- for its embodiment of the importance of social justice activism and independent courts, and
- for its relevance to today's ongoing battles against unfair exclusion from marriage.
The celebration consisted of a series of five ads in Roll Call and The Politico starting on June 4th and running through the Anniversary on June 12th. Also, the organizations held a press conference and a reception on Capitol Hill to mark the decision's precise anniversary on June 12th.
Read Mrs. Mildred Loving's Full Rare Public Statement, Supporting Freedom to Marry for all Americans
"When my late husband, Richard, and I got married in Washington, DC in 1958, it wasn't to make a political statement or start a fight. We were in love, and we wanted to be married.
...Not a day goes by that I don't think of Richard and our love, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the 'wrong kind of person' for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry.
...I am proud that Richard's and my name are on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That's what Loving, and loving, are all about."
— Mrs. Mildred Loving Read Mrs. Loving's full statement here
View the series of ads that appeared in Roll Call and The Politico
View the invitation for the Loving v. Virginia 40th Anniversary celebration.
Sponsors of the Loving v. Virginia 40th Anniversary celebration:
Asian American Justice Center Freedom to Marry Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Hispanic National Bar Association Lambda Legal Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund National Black Justice Coalition National Center for Lesbian Rights
Read the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund's Statement on the 40th anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia decision.
Read the NAACP LDF's brief in the New York marriage case, discussing the commonalities of discrimination and how the Loving v. Virginia case supports gay people's freedom to marry.
A description of the Loving case from Evan Wolfson's book, Why Marriage Matters, now available in paperback:
When the question of race discrimination in marriage came before the U.S. Supreme Court (the Court had actually gotten it wrong in previous decades and ducked the question repeatedly in the years following Perez), it was in a 1967 case brought by a black woman, Mildred Jeter, and a white man, Richard Loving. The couple had had to leave their home state, Virginia, in order to get married where their love was allowed. The law in Virginia, like that of many other states, provided: "All marriages between a white person and a colored person shall be absolutely void without any decree of divorce or other legal process." An interracial marriage was considered a non-starter, contrary to the very "definition" of marriage.
Back from their honeymoon, the Lovings were arrested one night in their own bedroom—with their wedding certificate hanging over their bed—and prosecuted for the "crime" of "evading" their state's discriminatory law and violating Virginia's same-race restriction on marriage. Mildred and Richard were convicted of marrying the "wrong" kind of person, their marriage was pronounced an un-marriage, and they were given a choice of a year in prison or twenty-five years exile from their home state. They chose exile, got a lawyer, and sued to defend their family. The Lovings lost in state courts all the way up; the trial judge went so far as to declare: "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay, and red, and he placed them on separate continents[.] The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix." The Virginia Supreme Court upheld the discriminatory "definition" of marriage, and the case came before the U.S. Supreme Court, which reversed, declaring, "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."
Today this seems self-evident, but remember that when the California Supreme Court struck down discrimination in marriage, polls showed 90% of the public opposed marriage equality for interracial couples. As late as 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court finally got Loving right, the polls showed 70% opposed. Imagine the injury to our nation if the opposition had prevailed with arguments like "let the people vote" or attacks on "activist judges," and had cemented discrimination into our Constitution. Would we ever have secured the equality and freedom that most of us consider to be our nation's commitment and defining greatness?
Decades since these revolutions in marriage, the controversies surrounding the changes are hard for many of us to believe and yet (ask Senator Santorum) these same controversies are still very alive. Most, if not all, of us agree that the changes were important and right. And few, if any, of us would want to go back to a time when marriage was the way it was before — before couples could divorce, before women could speak for themselves, before marriage was understood as a relationship of consent and equality, before married couples decided for themselves when and whether they would have children, and before laws saying you could not marry someone of the "wrong" race because of the "definition" of marriage.
And viewed from the distance of time, we can see that society was not hurt by these changes, despite the discomfort, scare-tactics, and threats at the time. Quite to the contrary, society is, in fact, stronger because of these changes. Alarms such as those today sounded by Governor Mitt Romney, Senator Rick Santorum, and other opponents of marriage equality have been made and exposed as false time and time again, after much needless divisiveness and harm to families in our country.
View a Map of States Banning Interracial Marriage in 1967
At the time of the Loving v. Virginia decision in 1967, only 30% of the American public supported interracial marriage. According to a Gallup poll in May 2007, 46% of the American public support ending discrimination against same-sex couples in marriage, 50% more than supported the Loving decision.
NBJC's YouTube Commercial "Loving Vs Virginia: 40th Anniversary of Interracial Marriage"
Notable Interracial Couples/Multiracial People
Interracial Couples- Past Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and Cecilia Suyat
- Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Virginia Lamp
- US Senator from Kentucky Mitch McConnell and US Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao
- US Senator from Virginia Jim Webb and Hong Le
- Jeb and Columba Bush
- Republican (ex Sec of Defense) William Cohen and Janet Langhart
- US Senator from Florida Mel Martinez and Kitty
- Sydney Poitier and Joanna Shimkus
- Heidi Klum and Seal
- David Bowie and Iman
Multiracial People
- Barack Obama
- Tiger Woods
- Keanu Reeves
- Halle Berry
- Naomi Campbell
- Dean Cain
- Sammy Davis, Jr.
- Johnny Depp
- Ben Harper
- Grant Hill
- Derek Jeter
- Angelina Jolie
Other Loving Day Celebrations
Loving Day is a website which promotes the celebration of the Loving v. Virginia decision on June 12th. In 2006, celebrations occurred in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, and other cities. The website also includes the history of interracial marriage and resources on the internet for interracial couples and multiracial people.
Loving Decision Conference 2007 was held on June 21-24, 2007 in Chicago, Illinois to discuss the next 40 years of multiracial communities.
Marriage Equality USA gathered with a diverse group of community organizations to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of this landmark decision as well. This celebration took place at the Lighthouse Community Center, 1217 A Street in Hayward, CA on Sunday, June 10th from 1-6 pm. The Loving Day celebration was free to the public and family friendly. The day's events included screenings of films highlighting the struggles for marriage equality, interactive story telling activities, and a panel discussion. Also featured at this event was the Marriage Equality Movement Family Story Quilt, a project of Marriage Equality USA that intersperses photos and stories from Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) families and allies.
Read their press release.
Links and Resources
Association of MultiEthnic Americans (AMEA) is an international association organizations dedicated to advocacy, education and collaboration on behalf the multiethnic, multiracial and transracial adoption community.
Mavin Foundation builds healthy communities that celebrate and empower mixed heritage people and families. Their projects explore the experiences of mixed heritage people, transracial adoptees, interracial relationships and multiracial families.
Multiethnic Education Program: MEP (CA) provides educators and families culturally competent resources and strategies for our increasingly diverse society.
The Fortieth Anniversary of Loving v. Virginia: The Legal Legacy of the Case that Ended Legal Prohibitions on Interracial Marriage
In Part One of this series for FindLaw, Joanna Grossman considered the personal and cultural legacy of Loving. In this Part, she considers its legal legacy: What role has the opinion played in American law?
The U.S. Conference of Mayors passed a resolution in support of ending the exclusion of gay couples from marriage.
(View the Resolution) (Read the Press Release)Learn more about what's going on in New York and take action now! (Link)
As you may know, Maine's constitution provides for referendum on bills enacted into law. (Link)
The Human Rights Campaign released a statement and a factual rebuttal on a television spot produced by the National Organization for Marriage. In the ad, actors make disproven claims about marriage for lesbian and gay couples. (Link)
