Separate but equal was a legal doctrine in United States constitutional law, according to which racial segregation did not necessarily violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which nominally guaranteed "equal protection" under the law to all people. Under the doctrine, as long as the facilities provided to each "race" were equal, state and local governments could require that services, facilities, public accommodations, housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation be segregated by "race", which was already the case throughout the states of the former Confederacy. The phrase was derived from a Louisiana law of 1890, although the law actually used the phrase "equal but separate".
Immorality Act was the title of two acts of the Parliament of South Africa which prohibited, amongst other things, sexual relations between white people and people of other races. The first Immorality Act, of 1927, prohibited sex between whites and blacks, until amended in 1950 to prohibit sex between whites and all non-whites. The second Immorality Act, of 1957, continued this prohibition and also dealt with many other sex offences. The ban on interracial sex was lifted in 1985, but certain sections of the 1957 act dealing with prostitution remain in force as the "Sexual Offences Act, 1957".
Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), was a landmark civil rights decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that laws banning interracial marriage violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The case involved Mildred Loving, a woman of color, and her white husband Richard Loving, who in 1958 were sentenced to a year in prison for marrying each other. Their marriage violated Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which criminalized marriage between people classified as "white" and people classified as "colored". The Lovings appealed their conviction to the Supreme Court of Virginia, which upheld it. They then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear their case.
Perez v. Sharp, also known as Perez v. Lippold or Perez v. Moroney, is a 1948 case decided by the Supreme Court of California in which the court held by a 4–3 majority that the state's ban on interracial marriage violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Loving Day is an annual national celebration held on June 12, the anniversary of the 1967 United States Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia which struck down all anti-miscegenation laws remaining in sixteen U.S. states. In the United States, anti-miscegenation laws were U.S. state laws banning interracial marriage, mainly forbidding marriage between two different races, until the Warren Court ruled unanimously in 1967 that these state laws were unconstitutional. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in the court majority opinion that "the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State."
The race of the future is a theoretical composite race which will result from the ongoing racial admixture.
Harry Lee Carrico was a member, Chief Justice, and Senior Justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia. His tenure as an active Justice of the Court, at more than 42 years, was the longest of any justice excluding William Fleming, who served nearly 44 years, from 1780-1824. Because current law requires active judges and Justices in Virginia to retire or take senior status on or shortly after their seventieth birthdays, Justice Carrico's longevity record likely will not be challenged.
Mildred Delores Loving and Richard Perry Loving were an American married couple who were the plaintiffs in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia (1967). Their marriage has been the subject of three movies, including the 2016 drama Loving, and several songs. The Lovings were criminally charged with interracial marriage under a Virginia statute banning such marriages, and were forced to leave the state to avoid being jailed. They moved to Washington, D.C., but wanted to return to their home town. With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), they filed suit to overturn the law. In 1967, the Supreme Court ruled in their favor, striking down the Virginia statute and all state anti-miscegenation laws as unconstitutional, for violating due process and equal protection of the law under the Fourteenth Amendment. On June 29, 1975, a drunk driver struck the Lovings' car in Caroline County, Virginia. Richard was killed in the crash, at the age of 41. Mildred lost her right eye.
Pace v. Alabama, 106 U.S. 583 (1883), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court affirmed that Alabama's anti-miscegenation statute was constitutional. This ruling was rejected by the Supreme Court in 1964 in McLaughlin v. Florida and in 1967 in Loving v. Virginia. Pace v. Alabama is one of the oldest court cases in America pertaining to interracial sex.
Marriage in the United States is a legal, social, and religious institution. The marriage age in the United States is set by each state and territory, either by statute or the common law applies. An individual may marry in the United States as of right, without parental consent or other authorisation, on reaching 18 years of age in all states except in Nebraska, where the general marriage age is 19, and Mississippi, where the general marriage age is 21. In Puerto Rico the general marriage age is also 21. In all these jurisdictions, these are also the ages of majority. In Alabama, however, the age of majority is 19, while the general marriage age is 18. Most states also set a lower age at which underage persons are able to marry with parental and/or judicial consent. Marriages where one partner is less than 18 years of age are commonly referred to as child or underage marriages.
Cohabitation in the United States is loosely defined as two or more people, in an intimate relationship, who live together and share a common domestic life but are neither joined by marriage nor a civil union.
Interracial marriage has been legal throughout the United States since at least the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia (1967) that held that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional via the 14th Amendment adopted in 1868. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in the court opinion that "the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State." Interracial marriages have been formally protected by federal statute through the Respect for Marriage Act since 2022.
Naim v. Naim, 197 Va. 80; 87 S.E.2d 749 (1955), is a case regarding interracial marriage. The case was decided by the Supreme Court of Virginia on June 13, 1955. The Court held the marriage between the appellant and the appellee to be void under the Code of Virginia (1950).
Bernard S. Cohen was a civil liberties attorney and Democratic member of the Virginia House of Delegates. On April 10, 1967, appearing with co-counsel Philip Hirschkop on behalf of the ACLU, Cohen presented oral argument for the petitioners in Loving v. Virginia before the U. S. Supreme Court. On June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Cohen's clients, declaring bans on interracial marriage unconstitutional, thus invalidating the anti-miscegenation laws of 15 states.
Anti-miscegenation laws are laws that enforce racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalizing interracial marriage and sometimes also sex between members of different races.
In the United States, anti-miscegenation laws were passed by most states to prohibit interracial marriage, and in some cases also prohibit interracial sexual relations. Some such laws predate the establishment of the United States, some dating to the later 17th or early 18th century, a century or more after the complete racialization of slavery. Nine states never enacted such laws; 25 states had repealed their laws by 1967, when the United States Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that such laws were unconstitutional in the remaining 16 states. The term miscegenation was first used in 1863, during the American Civil War, by journalists to discredit the abolitionist movement by stirring up debate over the prospect of interracial marriage after the abolition of slavery.
2000 Alabama Amendment 2, also known as the Alabama Interracial Marriage Amendment, was a proposed amendment to the Constitution of Alabama to remove Alabama's ban on interracial marriage. Interracial marriage had already been legalized nationwide 33 years prior in 1967, following Loving v. Virginia, making the vote symbolic. The amendment was approved with 59.5% voting yes, a 19 percentage point margin, though 25 of Alabama's 67 counties voted against it. Alabama was the last state to officially repeal its anti-miscegenation laws.
