Speaker 1: All right, it is time for the way black history fact.
Speaker 1: In today's way black history fact comes from history dot
Speaker 1: com and we are talking about Loving versus Virginia. So
Speaker 1: for those who don't know, Loving versus Virginia was a
Speaker 1: Supreme Court case that struck down state laws banning interracial
Speaker 1: marriage in the United States. The plaintiffs in the case
Speaker 1: were Richard and Mildred Loving, a white man and a
Speaker 1: black woman whose marriage was deemed illegal according to Virginia
Speaker 1: state law. With the help of the American Civil Liberties
Speaker 1: Union the ACOU, the Loving's appealed to the US Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: which ruled unanimously that so called anti missagenation statutes were
Speaker 1: unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Demendment. Decision is often cited as
Speaker 1: a watershed moment in the dismantling of Jim Crow race laws.
Speaker 1: So what is missagenation? Loving case was a challenge to
Speaker 1: centuries of centuries of American laws banning misagenation, i e.
Speaker 1: Any marriage or interbreeding among different races. Restrictions on missagenation
Speaker 1: existed as early as the colonial era, and of the
Speaker 1: fifty US states, all but nine states had a law
Speaker 1: against the practice at some point in their history. Early
Speaker 1: attempts to dispute race based marriage bans and court met
Speaker 1: with little success. One of the first and most noteworthy
Speaker 1: cases what was eighteen eighty three's Paced versus Alabama, in
Speaker 1: which the US Supreme Court ruled that in Alabama antime
Speaker 1: missagenation law was unconstitutional because it punished black people and
Speaker 1: white people equally. In eighteen eighty eight, meanwhile, the High
Speaker 1: Court ruled that the states had the authority to regulate marriage.
Speaker 1: By the nineteen fifties, more than half the states in
Speaker 1: the Union, including every state in the South, still had
Speaker 1: laws restricting marriage by racial classifications, and Virginia into racial
Speaker 1: marriage was illegal under nineteen twenty four's Racial Integrity Act,
Speaker 1: while those who violated the law risked anywhere from one
Speaker 1: to five years in a state penitentiary. All right. The
Speaker 1: central figures in Loving versus Virginia were Richard Loving and
Speaker 1: Mildred Jeter, a couple from the town of Central Point
Speaker 1: in Caroline County, Virginia. Richard a white construction worker, and
Speaker 1: Mildred a woman of mixed Black and Native American ancestry.
Speaker 1: The longtime friends who fallen in love in June of
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty eight. They exchanged wedding vows in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Where interracial marriage was legal, and then return home to Virginia.
Speaker 1: On July eleventh, nineteen fifty eight, just five weeks after
Speaker 1: their wedding, Lovings were woken in their bed at about
Speaker 1: two am and arrested by the local sheriff. Richard and
Speaker 1: Mildred were indicted on charges of violating Virginia's anti misagination law,
Speaker 1: which deemed interracial marriages of felony. When the couple pleaded
Speaker 1: guilty the following year, Judge Leon M. Zile sentenced them
Speaker 1: to one year in prison, but suspended the sentence on
Speaker 1: the condition that they would leave Virginia and not return
Speaker 1: together for a period of twenty five years. Following their
Speaker 1: court case, the Lovings were forced to leave Virginia and
Speaker 1: relocate to Washington, d C. The couple lived in exile,
Speaker 1: the nation's capital, for several years, and raised three children,
Speaker 1: sons Sydney and Donald, and a daughter, Peggy, but they
Speaker 1: longed to return to the hometown. In nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: a desperate Mildred Loving wrote a letter to US Attorney
Speaker 1: General Robert F. Kennedy asking for assistance. Kennedy referred the
Speaker 1: Lovings to the ACLU, which agreed to take their case.
Speaker 1: The Lovings being their legal battle. In November nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: with the aid of Bernard Cohen and Philip Hirshkopp, two
Speaker 1: ACLU young lawyers, the couple filed the motion asking for
Speaker 1: Judge Basil to vacate their conviction and set aside their sentences,
Speaker 1: and Basil refused. Cohen and Herkshop took the case to
Speaker 1: the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, which upheld the original ruling.
Speaker 1: Following another appeal, the case made its way to the
Speaker 1: United States Supreme Court in nineteen sixty seven, and Supreme
Speaker 1: Court announced its ruling and Loving versus Virginia on June twelfth,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven, in a unanimous decision that justice is
Speaker 1: found in Virginia's interracial marriage law was in violation of
Speaker 1: the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. These people are
Speaker 1: the reason why you can now marry whoever you want.