Loving Loving
Critical Analysis
According to the data from the chart, what percent of Americans approved of “marriage between Black people and White people” in 1958?
Describe one trend in the data from the chart above.
Identify two reasons for this trend.
In 1958, two residents of Virginia, Mildred Jeter, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, were married in the District of Columbia. The Lovings returned to Virginia shortly thereafter. The couple was then charged with violating the state's antimiscegenation statute, which banned inter-racial marriages. The Lovings were found guilty and sentenced to a year in jail (the trial judge agreed to suspend the sentence if the Lovings would leave Virginia and not return for 25 years). If you were the Lovings, what would you have done?
The Loving case came after nearly 300 years of legislation in Virginia regulating interracial marriage and carefully defining which citizens could legally claim to be white. Two U.S. Supreme Court cases, Pace v. Alabama (1883) and Maynard v. Hill (1888), upheld the constitutionality of such laws. In 1924, the Act to Preserve Racial Integrity banned interracial marriage in Virginia while defining a white person as someone who had no discernible nonwhite ancestry.The Lovings took their case to the Supreme Court and in a unanimous 1967 decision, Loving v. Virgina, the Warren Court ruled that Virginia’s statute violated the 14th Amendment. Explain how Virginia’s racist law banning interracial marriage violated the 14th Amendment.
Identify another landmark Supreme Court Case that struck down a state’s racist statute that was also based on the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
When the Lovings took their case to the Supreme Court most Americans were firmly opposed to the idea of interracial marriage. Even by the time the court decided their case, less than one-fifth of Americans supported interracial marriage. Some people claim that the court should not issue rulings that go so strongly against public opinion. How would you respond to that claim?
In the case of Loving v. Virginia, amicus briefs—statements and information presented on behalf of organizations not directly involved with the case—were filed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Japanese-American Citizen’s League, and a consortium of Catholic bishops and other sympathetic organizations. Although sixteen states still had laws banning interracial marriage (Maryland repealed its law in response to the Lovings’ Supreme Court case), only North Carolina offered a brief on behalf of Virginia. Explain why organizations and institutions file amicus briefs.
6 percent of Americans currently oppose “marriage between Black people and White people” During the Civil Rights Era, interracial marriage was a contentious deeply divisive issue. Today, very few people are opposed to interracial marriage. Describe a contemporary issue regarding race that Americans are battling over, and explain how people will view that fight 50 years from now.
Ninety-four percent of U.S. adults now approve of marriages between Black people and White people, up from 87% in the prior reading from 2013. Shifts in the 63-year-old trend represent one of the largest transformations in public opinion in Gallup's history -- beginning at a time when interracial marriage was nearly universally opposed and continuing to its nearly universal approval today. Identify another issue or opinion that has changed quickly and dramatically; and identify one that has not changed.
Learning Extension
Read this very short Gallup report about the dramatic changes in public opinion about interracial marriage, learn a little big more about Mildred and Richard Loving, then stream the Emmy and Peabody award winning film, The Loving Story.
Action Extension
Learn how to pronounce Amicus Curiae then say it a whole lot! Flex it! Then file an Amicus Curiae brief in a case.
Visual Extension
Credit: Library of Virginia
Original Author: Bureau of Vital Statistics, State Board of Helath
Created: Probably mid-1920s