Essay on Loving v. Virginia (388 U.S. 1)

Mildred Loving was born on July 22, 1939 in Central Point, Virginia. She was African-American and a Native American descent who married a white man named Richard Loving and had three kids. Mildred Loving and her husband were both activists and both defeated Virginia’s ban on interracial marriage in 1967. The couple met in high school, started dating, and once Mildred became pregnant at age 18, they decided to get married. The couple were not aloud to get married in their home state, because of the Virginia Racial Integrity Act of 1924, so they drove to Washington D.C and got married there. A few weeks later when they returned, two sheriffs showed up at their house and told them they had violated the law of the Virginia Racial Integrity Act. The act prohibited

The Petitioners were married in the District of Columbia pursuant to its laws. Shortly after their marriage, the Petitioners returned to Virginia and were charged by a grand jury with violating Virginia’s ban on interracial marriages. The Petitioners pled guilty to the violation and left the State of Virginia pursuant to a condition of their judicial sentence. The Petitioners filed suit in a Virginia state court to have the sentence vacated pursuant to the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The state court denied the motion to vacate the sentences. The Supreme Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s decision based on the rationale that the State had a legitimate purpose in preserving the

The day was February 20,2003, in the city of Portsmouth where two Portsmouth police officers had pulled a vehicle over who was driven by David Lee Moore. While listening to police radio they had heard that the man they pulled over who went by the nickname “chubs” was driving on a suspended license. The officer’s soon determined that chubbs was indeed driving on a suspended license. The officers who made the stop arrested chubbs for the misdemeanor of driving on a suspended license. This violation could have lead to chubbs serving a 1-year in jail and a $25,000 fine, according to Va Code Ann 18.2-11. The officers then searched the vehicle in which chubbs was driving. During the search of the

Virginia case which served to take down interracial marriage bans in Virginia. Richard and Mildred Loving pleaded guilty to violating the Racial Integrity Act on January 6. The judge of the court sentenced Richard and Mildred Loving to one year in jail, but would suspend the sentence if they left their hometown of Central Point, Virginia for 25 years, they could only reason they would be allowed to return home was to visit family members but they would have to do so separately. As a couple, they traveled to Washington D.C. to live. Five years later they were arrested for the second time, this time they were arrested for traveling together while attempting to visit family in Virginia to celebrate Easter.

In Virginia it was a state law made for a white person marrying a black person or black person marry white person, if you break this law you're going to jail. Constitutionality statutes called into questioning. Restricting to marry each other basis on race central meaning the Equal Protection Clause. Loving V. Virginia, an interracial couple 23-year-old white construction worker, name Richard Loving and 17 year old black girl Mildred Jeter, they're childhood couple. This wouldn't make a difference. They were against "Virginia's miscegenation Law" eject from marrying whites and blacks. Loving and Mildred went to Washington, D.C. to be wed coming to their hometown in Virginia in 1958, they were charged with cohabitation unlawful were sent to

Before this case, a number of states had anti-miscegenation statues in place, criminalizing love in the name of racism. This case brought an end to the acceptance of scientific racism in the realm of marriage in that showed such legislation not as sound or logical but as hateful and unconstitutional. Loving’s legacy is strong even today, as it played a pivotal role in the groundbreaking same sex marriage case, Obergefell V. Hoges, paving away for the legalization of gay marriage. Without this case and the intervention of the federal government, states could have very well continued their practice of anti-miscegenation policies. The atrocities committed upon the Lovings and the millions of couples affected by such hateful policies are an embarrassment to our nation’s history. This case acted as a federal resolve to past and future Americans fighting for the right to love. Loving V. Virginia led the nation away from its dark past and towards a more equal future, filled not with “scientific” defenses for racism but with scientific defenses against

On June 2, 1958 Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving went to Washington D.C. to get married and they went back to Virginia a few days later. But because Mildred was of African-American and Native American decent, and Richard was white they were arrested for violating the state law that prohibits interracial marriage. At the time, Virginia was one of 17 states, including Texas and Alabama, that had laws prohibiting interracial marriage (Wolfe). The Supreme Court Case Loving v. Virginia is an important of part of American history that has had a huge impact on racial equality and has helped change the definition of marriage in the United States forever.

The fact of their cohabitation here as man and wife shall be evidence of their marriage. Also they used Punishment for marriage: If any white person intermarry with a colored person, or any colored person intermarry with a white person, he shall be guilty of a felony and shall be punished by confinement in the penitentiary for not less than one nor more than five years. The Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia referred to 1965 case Naim v. Naim to make a decision to on if this case they had Loving v. Virginia was in the means of constitutional. In the court case Naim, the state court concluded that the State’s legitimate purposes were “to preserve the racial integrity of its citizen,” and to prevent “the corruptions of blood,” “a mongrel breed of citizens.” and “the obliteration of racial pride.” obviously an endorsement of the doctrine of White

The idea of the one-drop rule was applied to these laws causing it not only to be a widely excepted rule by the countries populous, but also as a legally accepted one. Hollinger explains that “The principle was sharpened under Jim Crow, when opposition to social equality for black was well served by a monolithic notion of blackness accompanied by legislation that outlawed as miscegenation black-white marriages.” [10] These laws rested upon the constructed notion that blackness was somehow indicated by biological factors. A perfect example of this is that “Law regulating interracial marriage and the conduct of free people of color defined blackness as a genealogical quantum” In some places even those who had “one-sixteenth “black blood” [were] legally black,” [11] and therefore denied the right to marry a white person. Anti-miscegenation legislation, which has implied use of the one-drop rule, has a long history in the United States with the final anti-miscegenation law was struck down in Loving vs. Virginia as recently as 1967. These laws were created to maintain racial purity, and have been instrumental in solidifying both the idea of race and different racial categories in the United States.

In What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America, Peggy Pascoe examines the history of miscegenation and how it laid the foundation of white supremacy in the United States. While visible forms of white supremacy such as segregation helped mask the importance of miscegenation laws, Pascoe argues that miscegenation laws was a national movement tied inseparably to gender and sexuality that went beyond the Black/White dynamic, which courts and bureaucracies of local marriage officials used to produce race in America. Pascoe goes on to argue that the core of miscegenation laws reached beyond the realm of romance as courts began to condemn the respectability of interracial relationships by equating them with illicit sex rather than marriage. Thus, this idea of unrespectable, unnatural, and immoral relationships became women into the fabric of the American society.

The United States Supreme Court was, and still is today, the important backbone of America’s judicial system. This court deals with numerous cases throughout the year and keeps the country and government fair with its decisions. However, being responsible for giving justice where it is due, the Court is sometimes faced with hard choices that will make a lasting impression on the U.S. and its people. In the case of Loving v. Virginia, it did just that. As a Supreme Court landmark case, Loving v. Virginia definitely indicated a critical moment of change in civil rights for America and interracial couples everywhere.

Justice Warren in the unanimous opinion of the Court, states that the anti-miscegenation statutes cannot stand constituently with the Fourteenth Amendment and violated equal protection. Virginia argued that its miscegenation statutes punished both white and black participants in an interracial marriage equally and served the legitimate state purpose of preserving the “racial integrity” of its citizens by referencing the decision in Naim v. Naim, 197 Va. 80, 87 S.E.2d 749 (1955). The Court rejected the Virginia’s contention and stated: “The clear and central purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to eliminate all official state sources of invidious racial discrimination in the States.” The “equal application” argument put forward by Virginia

We hear multiple people weigh in on the court case and give their opinions and expose the cultural issues that are occurring. Reverend Sykes for instances tells us that he has “ never seen a jury of white people favor on the side of a colored man” and we also hear from Dolphus Raymond talks about that "the hell white people give coloured folks, without even stopping to think that they're people too." This shows that many people are very aware of what is going on in this time period but either choose to ignore it or tend to join in on the hazing and racism. As sad as it is to say, that is very similar to the culture that happens today. We typically ignore the issues that are occurring today or with some people tend to join in on the attack and the racism or other cultural issues that go on.

The case is about a couple living in Virginia, Mildred Loving, a black woman and Richard Loving, a white man. Mildred got pregnant when 18 years old in Washington D.C. hence avoided

In 1931 two white women were riding the train along with the other men (the blacks and whites). When the fight broke out the blacks had won and let the white men off the train, however when the white men got off the train, they reported the incident to the local sheriff and that’s when the train stopped in Scottsboro, Alabama and everyone on the train was arrested. That’s how it all started in Scottsboro, Alabama and it was just the beginning of the case. The two women on the train Victoria Price and Ruby Bates were about to be in serious trouble because Ruby Bates was a minor and in that time it was a federal crime to take a minor across state lines for the reason of prostitution. The only way they could get of trouble in their situation was to say the black men raped them. In the time of 1931 rape was sanctioned by death. Usually they would’ve responded by a lynching, which was when they hung someone who was suspected of a crime, but for this case the citizens of Scottsboro wanted to hold a trial instead. The trial wasn’t fair at all because the outcome had been decided before the trial even