PARALEGAL COMMITTEE
In Remembrance
of the Loving Decision: A Reminder of Progress O O
ver fifty years have passed since the June 12, 1967 decision in which the United States Supreme Court deemed state laws meant to perpetuate the doctrine of White Supremacy unconstitutional in its Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967) decision. This decision provided the foundation for an equal existence in the United States following multiple conflicting decisions regarding race. Prior to the Loving decision, slave laws survived the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments as the United States Supreme Court left the interpretation of race equality to the states. States desiring to continue the separation of the races asserted the Fourteenth Amendment prescribed equal treatment and punishment, but did not consider the races equal. Such an example is Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 552, 16 S. Ct. 1138, 41 L. Ed. 256 (1896) in which the Supreme Court affirmed the Louisiana court’s decision based on the premise that “legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences” leaving to the states’ to define “whether...the petitioner belongs to the white or colored race.” In doing so, the Court allowed states to legislate according to race; thus, authorizing states to perpetuate White Supremacy and limit the mixing of the races. This premise began to change as exampled in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, 495 (1954) where the Supreme Court rejected Plessy v. Ferguson regarding the subject of “equal protection of the laws.” The Court found that colored students were not afforded the same level of education as white students ruling “in the field of education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place.” Id. The Court’s ruling ended segregation based on race in schools and laid the foundation for Loving. In Loving the question posed was whether the anti-miscegenation laws were constitutional; thus, deciding the equality of the races and the liberty afforded under the Constitution. In early 1958, Richard Loving asked Mildred Jeter to be his wife. Mildred accepted his
24
Dayton Bar Briefs February 2018
By Sharalie Albanese Chair, Paralegal Committee Ray A. Cox, Attorney at Law
proposal and plans ensued so that they might marry. Part of these plans included finding a place that would perform the marriage as Richard was white and Mildred was negro and Indian. Virginia law prohibited the union by its anti-miscegenation laws forcing them to travel to Washington where they were married in 1958. Loving at 2. Traveling to Washington DC was a common practice for such couples since the mid-1800’s. However, in 1924, Virginia passed the Act to Preserve Racial Integrity which sought to clearly define the criteria for who was considered “white.” A “white” person must have no more than one-sixteenth Indian blood and absolutely no colored blood. (“Instructions for Registration/Racial Integrity laws,” Piedmont Virginia Digital History: The Land Between the Rivers, accessed January 3, 2018, http://piedmontvahistory.org/archives14/ items/show/237.) Therefore, the Lovings had defied Virginia law. Not long after the Lovings returned home, they were indicted for violating Virginia’s interracial marriage laws. The Lovings were accused of leaving their home in Virginia to marry solely to evade the Racial Integrity Act and then returning to said home. (Va. Code 20-58) They pleaded guilty to the charges against them on January 6, 1959 and were sentenced to one-year imprisonment under Va. Code 20-59 for such offense. Judge Leon M. Bazille offered to suspend sentences on the condition the Lovings leave Virginia for a period of 25 years and not return together. Loving at 3. continued on page 25
937.222.7902