The Loving Marriage Case: An American Beginning for Family Restoration

 

This blog post is offered by Jennifer Haskins, Regent Law 3L, and current Family Law student:

          In Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), the Court ruled that Virginia could not prohibit an interracial couple from exercising their constitutional right to marry solely based on racial classifications. Relying upon Naim v. Naim, 197 Va. 80, 87 S.E.2d 749 (1955), Virginia contended that the State’s legitimate purposes were “to preserve the racial integrity of its citizens” and “to prevent the corruption of blood,” “a mongrel breed of citizens,” and “the obliteration of racial pride.” Loving, 388 U.S. at 8. Virginia’s statutory scheme consisted of a selection of Virginia Codes on the matter including Va. Code Ann. §§ 20-54, 20-57, 20-58, and 20-59. Virginia convicted Mr. and Mrs. Loving of Va. Code Ann. § 20-58, which had prohibited any white person from marrying any colored person out of State with the intention of returning to Virginia married. Loving, 388 U.S. at 8. The punishment meant confinement in the penitentiary for up to five years. Id. at 2.  The High Court, however, held that such repugnant law violated the Fourteenth Amendment (id. at 8), as the state’s anti-miscegenation laws violated the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause and the freedom to marry under the Due Process Clause. Id. at 17-18. The Court correctly interpreted that the Fourteenth Amendment’s clear and central purpose was “to eliminate all official state sources of invidious racial discrimination in the States.” Id. at 14. Not only did the Court stop states from unlawfully denying couples their fundamental right to marry, but the Loving decision symbolically ended anti-miscegenation laws across the nation which had established a racial classification system originating back to America’s Colonial Period.

          In Colonial Virginia, many indentured servants and slaves had biracial children, identified as “mulattos.” Mulattos were defined as individuals with one-fourth or more “negro blood.” Brendan Wolfe, “Racial Integrity Laws (1924-1930),” Encyclopedia Virginia, Virginia Humanities, 4 Nov. 2015. Web. 1 Feb. 2021. Because indentured servants and slaves intermarried, it became difficult to distinguish slaves from servants. In 1691, the General Assembly outlawed interracial marriages and forced freed slaves to leave the colony.  In 1849, the General Assembly declared all marriages between whites and blacks were “absolutely void.”  By 1853, the General Assembly required that all births and marriages be recorded with racial identification of all parties.  Later, in 1866, the General Assembly defined “colored” as a person with one-fourth or more “negro blood.”  By 1910, the General Assembly further defined “colored” as a person with one-sixteenth or more “negro blood.”  On March 12, 1912, the General Assembly created the Bureau of Vital Statistics, requiring the race of all births be recorded.  In 1918, the Bureau of Vital Statistics required the identification of the races of all parties in marriages be recorded.  Eventually, in 1924, the General Assembly passed the famous “Racial Integrity Act,” once again prohibiting interracial marriages.  The 1924 Racial Integrity Act defined “whiteness” as a kind of purity in bloodline known as the “one drop rule.” Id. It established a racial classification system that literally defined all people, including Native Americans and Asians. In other words, anti-miscegenation laws served both to prohibit interracial marriages and to define individuals by their “race.”

Virginia was one of sixteen states to ban marriages based on racial classifications at the time of the decision. Loving, 388 U.S. at 7. The remaining fifteen states were Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia. Loving, 388 U.S. at 6 n.5. Before the decision, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming had already repealed their anti-miscegenation laws prohibiting interracial marriages.  Anti-miscegenation laws had permitted states to easily declare such marriages “void and null.” Kirby v. Kirby, 24 Ariz. 9 (1922) (holding that a husband had the right to annul his marriage because his wife was a “Negresse” with black blood). Some states had arrested blacks and whites who exercised their fundamental right to marry one another. In Kinney v. Commonwealth, 71 Va. (30 Gratt.) 858 (1878), an African American male was arrested for cohabitating with his Caucasian wife whom he married in Washington, D.C. In Pace v. Alabama, 106 U.S. 583 (1882), a black male was arrested for living with his girlfriend.

          Hence, the Loving v. Virginia decision overturned anti-miscegenation laws nationwide. Certainly, this historic decision overturned numerous cases, including Pace v. Alabama, 106 U.S. 583 (1883). This meant people could marry each other without the fear of prosecution. No longer could Virginia or Alabama or any other state place interracial couples in the penitentiary for one to five years. Ministers and religious leaders could marry interracial couples without interference from the government, also marking liberty for the religious community. The Supreme Court decision contributed towards the dismantling of America’s racial classification system.

While Loving symbolically ended an apartheid system that existed in the United States since the Colonial Period, it also restored marriage and families to what they ought to be – free of racial classification.