Interracial Marriage in the U.S. was Legalized Because of Pre-Marital act
Mildred Delores Jeter was a young woman who was dark skinned but considered herself to be more Native American than black. In 1957 she fell in love with a white man by the name of Richard Perry Loving. They were six years apart but still a young love flourished between them and at the age of 18, Mildred found herself pregnant. The couple decided that they would do things right and get married. Unfortunately, the couple lived in Virginia, a state which was still under the Racial Integrity Act of 1924. The Act made the marriage of whites and non-whites a criminal offense.
To get around the law, the couple traveled to nearby Washington D.C. where interracial marriage was legal. They got married in June of 1958 and then returned home to Virginia. A month later, an anonymous tip had the police raiding the couple’s home in the early hours of the morning. The police had been hoping to catch the couple in the act of lovemaking as that was also an illegal offense in Virginia. The police found the couple sleeping in the same bed and when questioned by police, Mildred told them that she was Richard Loving’s wife by pointing to the marriage certificate on the wall.
The police responded that the certificate was not valid in Virginia and the couple was arrested. On January 6, 1959, the couple pleaded guilty to living as man and wife “against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth.” They were both sentenced to a year in prison but the sentence was suspended as long as they left Virginia and did not return together for 25 years. The couple moved to the District of Columbia but over the years struggled with the sentence. Both of their families had lived in Virginia for generations, and it was a struggle to never be able to visit their families together or even be allowed to live in their home state.
The Lovings, by 1964, had had enough of being forced away from their home and family. They appealed the decision with the help of the ACLU and the case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. It was then decided in a unanimous ruling that the convictions against the Lovings be overturned. The Supreme Court ruled that anti-miscegenation laws were racist and that the rights of an individual to marry someone of any race could not be infringed upon by the state.