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Essay about Anti-Miscegenation Statutes in the United States

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Analyze and evaluate each case independently by providing the following (about two paragraphs per case):
In 1948, Andrea Perez, a Mexican-American woman, and Sylvester Davis, an African-American man,filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Clerk W.G. Sharp (Perez vs. Sharp, October 1, 1948).Earlier, they had sought a marriage license from the Los Angeles County Clerk’s Office but were denied such because Perez was racially classified as white and Davis as negro.
“In this proceeding in mandamus, petitioners seek to compel the County Clerk of Los Angeles County to issue them a certificate of registry (Civ. Code, § 69a) and a license to marry. (Civ. Code, § 69.) In the application for a license, petitioner Andrea Perez states that she …show more content…

For that reason, legislative classification or discrimination based on race alone has often been held to be a denial of equal protection. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 [6 S.Ct. 1064, 30 L.Ed. 220]; Yu Cong Eng v. Trinidad, 271 U.S. 500 [46 S.Ct. 619, 70 L.Ed. 1059]; hill v. Texas, 316 U.S. 400 [62 S.Ct. 1159, 86 L.Ed. 1559]."
In 1958, two residents of Virginia, Mildred Jeter, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, were married in the District of Columbia.. They got married in Washington D.C. because in their home state of Virginia the law still forbade interracial marriages, known in those days as 'miscegenation'. After their marriage, they lived together in Caroline County, Virginia. The couple was then charged with violating the state's anti-miscegenation statute, which banned inter-racial marriages. In 1959 they were found guilty of violating the law and both were sentenced one year in jail, although they were promised the sentence would be suspended if they left the state and did not return for 25 years. The Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution (Constitution) prohibits classifications drawn by any statute that constitutes arbitrary and invidious discrimination. The fact that Virginia

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