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The plaintiffs, Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving, were residents of the Commonwealth of Virginia who had been married in June of 1958 in the District of Columbia, having left Virginia to evade a state law banning marriages between persons of different races. Upon their return to Virginia, they were charged with violation of the ban, pled guilty, and were sentenced to one year in prison, with the sentence suspended for 25 years on condition that the couple leave the state of Virginia. The trial judge in the case, Leon Bazile, echoing a common sentiment of the time, proclaimed that
Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.
The Lovings moved to the District of Columbia, and in 1963 began a series of lawsuits seeking to overcome their conviction on Fourteenth Amendment grounds, ultimately reaching the Supreme Court.
Other related archives1963, 1967, District of Columbia, Fourteenth Amendment, Racial Integrity Act of 1924, United States, United States Supreme Court, Virginia, marriage, miscegenation, plaintiffs, race
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Facts", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page |
