On This Day in History: June 12

Interracial marriage is finally legalized in the U.S.

Subscribers can listen to the audio of this post here.

Some guy on Twitter said racism doesn’t exist anymore in America, and anyone who says otherwise is just a race-baiting social justice wanker. But to give you an idea as to just how fresh the egregious laws are that helped create institutionalized racism, interracial marriage didn’t become legal in the U.S. until 1967. Nineteen-sixty-fucking-seven.

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: June 12, 1967--

They were called “anti-miscegenation” laws and enforced throughout numerous states, not just the southern ones. You couldn’t marry or even have sex with someone of another race. It was all about keeping the white race “pure” and was mostly designed to prevent whites from having relationships with Black people, but also with other races. If two non-whites from different races decided to get it on, like an Asian and a Native American, no one gave much of a shit. Although this was often used as an extra level of punishment for Black people. In numerous states they were onlypermitted to marry/have sex within their own race.

Mildred Loving was a woman of color living in Virginia. Her exact ancestry is uncertain, but from a legal perspective what mattered was that she wasn’t white and had the audacity to marry a white man, Richard Loving, and—gasp!—have children with him.

In 1958, Mildred was 18 and pregnant with Richard’s child, so they got married in neighboring Washington, D.C., where it was legal, and returned home. The marriage violated Virginia’s “Racial Integrity Act,” and some anonymous crudpuddle ratted them out to the 5-0. Being such hardened criminals, the police of course raided their house of evil. Being sick bastards, the po po wanted to catch them in the act of having sex, since interracial intercourse was also illegal in Virginia. But, like most married couples, they spent 99% of their mattress time asleep. Startled awake, Mildred pointed to the marriage certificate on the wall, and the cops were like, “Nope. Doesn’t count. You’re under arrest.”

It was illegal for them to marry out of state and return to Virginia. They were convicted and sentenced to a year in prison each, which they avoided by agreeing to leave the state and not return for 25 years. They moved to D.C., but six years later were all, “Fuck this. We want to visit our families.” So, Mildred and Richard, with the help of the ACLU, took their case to the state supreme court and lost, then appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States.

On June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of the Lovings, striking down all anti-miscegenation laws throughout the U.S. as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause under the 14th Amendment.

Nineteen-sixty-fucking-seven.

Get access to cool shit:

Get the book ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY SH!T WENT DOWN.