1967. The 1967 US Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia ruled that miscegenation laws were unconstitutional. Prior to 1967, many American states enforced miscegenation laws that prevented white people from marrying someone of a different skin colour, such as black. The term miscegenation was often used to imply that interracial marriages were unnatural.

The case of Loving v. Virginia was brought forward by Mildred Loving, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, after they had been arrested and imprisoned for breaking a law that prohibited interracial marriage. The couple had legally married in Washington, D.C., and returned to their home state of Virginia, where they were imprisoned for being married (ACLU, n.d.). After moving back to D.C., the couple were arrested a second time five years later for travelling together, when they returned to Virginia to visit family (ACLU, n.d.). Bolstered by the civil rights movement, Loving wrote to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and the couple were referred to the American Civil Liberties Union who represented them in the landmark case (ACLU, n.d.).

-Erna Kurbegovic and Colette Leung

• Pacoe, P. (2009). What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• ACLU. (n.d.). Loving v. Virginia: The Case Over Interracial Marriage. Retrieved from https://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/loving-v-virginia-case-over-interracial-marriage