How Interracial Marriage Bans Ended | Loving v. Virginia
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 20 дек 2017
- I wrote a new book all about the Supreme Court. Order your copy today! amzn.to/45Wzhur
Patreon: / iammrbeat
Band: electricneedleroom.net/
Twitter: / beatmastermatt
Corrections:
4:20 The arrow points to Mississippi. Alabama is to the east.
In episode 23 of Supreme Court Briefs, a woman with darker skin and a man with lighter skin get married and get arrested and kicked out of the state of Virginia. For several years, they fight for their marriage all the way to the Supreme Court.
Check out Cypher's video about the film "Loving" here: • Loving (2016) | Based ...
Check out cool primary sources here:
www.oyez.org/cases/1966/395
More sources:
www.nytimes.com/2017/06/11/us...
time.com/4362508/loving-v-virg...
www.britannica.com/topic/Lovi...
www.mixedracestudies.org/wordp...
billofrightsinstitute.org/edu...
www.encyclopediavirginia.org/...
time.com/4533385/life-magazine...
www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/0...
Mildred Jeter, a woman of both African American and Native American ancestry, discovers she is pregnant, and Richard Loving, a Caucasian, is the father. The two decide to get married, and they live happily ever after. The end.
Except wait. Nope, in the state of Virginia, interracial marriages are illegal. So Jeter and Loving go up to Washington, D.C., where interracial marriages are legal, tie the knot on June 2, 1958, and return home to live with each other back in Virginia. Well somehow word must got out about the couple, because shortly thereafter, the local sheriff ordered a late night raid of their home.
So yeah, in the middle of the night, police not only burst into their home but also into their bedroom, hoping to catch them having sex, which also was illegal. The Lovings were actually sleeping, and awoke to being arrested for violating Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act, the law that said whites and non-whites could not marry each other.
The Lovings pled guilty, and the judge sentenced them to one year in prison. However, their sentence was suspended as long as they moved out of Virginia and never returned as a married couple for 25 years.
So the Lovings moved up to the same city where they got married, Washington D.C. The Lovings did occasionally sneak back down to Virginia, but for five years they lived in DC and basically hated it. As Mildred and Richard’s family grew in DC, they missed their family back home, and probably the clean country air. In 1964, tired of living as an exile, Mildred wrote Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Kennedy referred her letter to the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, who then reached out to the Lovings.
The ACLU’s two volunteer cooperating attorneys, Bernie Cohen and Philip Hirschkop, filed a motion on behalf of the Lovings to the Virginia Caroline County Circuit Court, requesting it to allow the marriage since denying it broke the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The County Circuit Court didn’t respond, so Cohen and Hirschkop sued the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. After no luck there, the ACLU helped the Lovings appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court. While the Virginia Supreme Court also upheld the constitutionality of the interracial marriage ban, it did get rid of the sentence banning the Lovings from the state of Virginia.
It’s important to note that during all of this, Mildred and Richard Loving got a lot of national media attention. They absolutely were not looking for all of this attention, but it obviously did help raise awareness of their struggle, especially after Life Magazine came out and took pictures of them.
Anyway, the ACLU pretty much expected all the pushback from the state of Virginia, so they were well prepared to appeal to the Supreme Court. The Lovings decided to stay home on April 10, 1967, when the Court heard oral arguments. By that time, nine years had passed since they got married.
On June 12, 1967, the Court announced it had unanimously sided with the Lovings, overturning their convictions and ruling Virginia’s interracial marriage ban as unconstitutional. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote the opinion, which stated that Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act went against both the Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Said Warren: “The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.”
My book about everything you need to know about the Supreme Court is now available!
Amazon: amzn.to/3Jj3ZnS
Bookshop (a collection of indie publishers): bookshop.org/books/the-power-of-and-frustration-with-our-supreme-court-100-supreme-court-cases-you-should-know-about-with-mr-beat/9781684810680
Barnes and Noble: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-power-of-our-supreme-court-matt-beat/1142323504?ean=9781684810680
Amazon UK: www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=the+power+of+our+supreme+court&crid=3R59T7TQ6WKI3&sprefix=the+power+of+our+supreme+courth%2Caps%2C381&ref=nb_sb_noss
Mango: mango.bz/books/the-power-of-our-supreme-court-by-matt-beat-2523-b
Target: www.target.com/p/the-power-of-our-supreme-court-by-matt-beat-paperback/-/A-86273023
Walmart: www.walmart.com/ip/The-Power-of-Our-Supreme-Court-How-the-Supreme-Court-Cases-Shape-Democracy-Paperback-9781684810680/688487495
Chapters Indigo: www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/the-power-of-our-supreme/9781684810680-item.html?ikwid=The+Power+of+Our+Supreme+Court&ikwsec=Home&ikwidx=0#algoliaQueryId=eab3e89ad34051a62471614d72966b7e
how could you possibly deny love for people named Loving?
It was like they had figurative blindfolds on & earplugs in, in order to ignoring all the glaringly obvious signs they were in the wrong for denying them
It's a very fitting name!
@@ryansenft3315
I love that it allows their holiday (non-national holiday) to be called LOVING DAY!!!
The Warren Court was kinda amazing. Thanks for joining the show, and we've gotta do it again sometime.
Absolutely. The ability of Warren to unite justices time and time again was exceptional, and often for huge cases like this one. Thanks for sending some of your subscribers my way, and yes, let's do it again in 2018. :)
Earl Warren is my favorite Supreme Court Justice
Marriage is a cultural, not necessarily law. It is recognized by law for purposes of inheritance and obligations. SCOTUS failed to cite, that it is protected by First Amendment - Freedom of Expression x2. The two persons express their love and desire to become spouses.
Warren court was an abomination
@@iammrbeatdamn 2018
His name was loving
how fitting!
Great film ☺️ sad though the poor guy
And hers was Jeter. Kinda rhymes with "cheater" if you ask me.
@@FeLiNe418
French
JETER: to throw oneself (into, out of, etc.)
She threw herself into her husbands arms ❤
Latin Roots
JETER: Stone, Rock
She was her husband’s study, reliable rock 🪨
See kids, there is no problem with writing a letter to the attorney general or your local politician :-)
Derrek McNab My friend wrote to our senators and the White House.
Always worth a shot!
Didn't that end up badly for them? I mean yeah it's great for equality and freedom and liberty and all that good stuff but they didn't seem too happy with the spotlight
@@AjarTadpole7202 no because Virginia lifts their travel ban and the Supreme Court ruled the racial integrity act as unconditional. It went well.
hmm...alabama seems to have moved a bit to the west...
+Connor Higgins The first mistake I ever made!
I haven't heard of this court case. It is crazy how only about half a century ago, you couldn't marry among racial lines.
+Flame Fusion Most definitely. Seems like such a foreign culture.
Think about how even more recently, you couldn't marry people of the same sex.
@@e-cap1239
People should be able to marry and be with whoever they want of A different race ⁉️
Or of the same sex that is those people's business nobody else's especially if they're not harming you or anyone else just want to be the hell together which I feel is everyone's right as long as it's not underaged children
Americans unfortunately still believe in the pseudoscience of race. Putative “race” is neither scientific nor biblical. It is a worthless social construct with only one purpose-discrimination. It won’t disappear as long as we talk about it constantly as if it were real. Says the graduate of Robert E. Lee High School (with supposedly interracial marriage). Ethnicity is a better construct and legally, nationality.
Well, not in every state. By 1967, it was only banned in the South.
I feel like this has got to be the best-named Supreme Court case, Or one of the best at least. Loving is just such a fitting name for someone who would wind up, Well, Making more loving legal.
The Chad Loving vs the Virgin Virginia
"catch them having sex"
wow, perverted much?
I know the internet hasn't been invented yet but damn, let people have their privacy
My grandparents(My grandmother black, my grandfather white) got married about a year after the decision. And, while living in MASSACHUSETS, the state that is more liberal than American, got a cross burned on their lawn. I hate the world.
I was said to learn that Mr. Loving died in a car accident a few years later. Wish they could have grown older together.
I recall that in the film "Loving" it was brought out that the couple was not allowed to live in the home they had owned in Virginia due to the racial law.. Despicable!
Great video and happy holidays!
+City Beautiful Thanks so much and same to you!
"The last state to give them off the books was Alabama..."
Me: Oh so I guess they probably held it for like 2-3 years at max because it was at this point undefendable.
"...in 2000"
Me: *spits water* What in the actual godforsaken world?!
SWEET HOME ALABAMA
A lot of interracial marriages in the US wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for this case. Thanks Mildred and Richard Loving.
Not every state had that stupid law.
@@lettiegrant9447 no but unfortunately most of the South did. The South is still backwards too.
@@damonika09yeah the in south people don’t like children getting sec change operations and they like the second amendment, and people there don’t have millions of pronouns, such savages
Such a fitting title...
I love the fact that their names were Loving. The ACLU must have also recognized that.
Mr. Beat it's the judicial equivalent of striking gold
You could argue Brown v. Board of Education is also a fitting title. :)
Mr. Beat True because school makes me board 😉😉😉
I live in Virginia I always find myself ashamed of it when it comes to Virginia's past like how we were the first to adopt eugenics as one of the big ones.
The name of this case was so fitting
On a related note, the case which legalized same-sex marriage could have been called 'Love v. Beshear' (except for that the court took 'Obergefel v. Hodges' as the primary case, and consolidated the other cases with it).
I think the court had made the right decision because if you like someone you should be able to marry them no matter what race or gender they are!
+Mummy Neo I think most people agree with you!
The seniors in my family still despise inter racial marriage
@@christianweibrecht6555 I do as well as a black person
@@mickkeker1990 no it isn't, if your so concerned about keeping "racial purity" then you are honestly missing out on the beauty and experiences that others have to offer you, sad asf man, enjoy your blue balls and shrinking mind while your at it but don't you dare infringe on other's right to get with and marry who they want.
@@davidmartinez688 Yeah, like what great experience and privilege comes deleting off your roots and nativity? No white person should ever do that. Disgusting.
A grave sin, I think as a Scotsman and a Brit I think we should be proud of the fact that in the 1770s we even then allowed interracial marriage. It does make me wonder whether the case of Joseph Knight had some influence on the American Revolution.
Lol. Fix your economy
I can’t imagine being arrested for simply being married to someone of a different race.It is amazing that one couple can change the such racist laws across the nation forever.There are still some people that believe interracial marriage is bad in the small,Southern town I live in.It is so stupid that some people are still struck in the 1960s.
We've come a long way, but still have a way to go.
The fuck are you talking about??? How much further could we possible go???
Mick Keker There are still quite a few laws on the book that keep systemic racism in place.
I like the fact that the Supreme Court said that interracial marriage is not unconstitutional since my girlfriend is a Native American woman and I’m a Caucasian man who are in love with each other. Happy Valentines Day!
The surname Loving is strikingly fitting
Probably one of my favorites👍
Keep the good work!
Thank you for these! I teach 11th grade English and we've been covering major Supreme Court Cases and analyzing opinions. I've shown this, the Korematsu v. US, and the Roe v. Wade videos and I really think these help introduce the background of these cases to my students. Continue doing a great job and making these videos, which are very student friendly!
Amazing.
Amazing vídeo! Thank you for having made it!
Thank you so much :D
My man Earl Warren.
if you think about it, Earl Warren is single-handedly responsible for bringing a lot of babies into the world that otherwise wouldn't have happen, man is a life-saver gotta give him props
@@douggoldwater1734 mixed crap 💩
Damn! In the land of the free, it took a looooong while for some to actually be free.
Yeah, unfortunately many of our freedoms are being revoked
I really like the way you describe these cases !
This makes me loose faith in my state
But still Not as bad as Alabama. (damn 2000 though)
have faith in your dictionary- (just one o in lose).
@@normanspurgeon5324 I'm sure he meant that he became a "loose faith" (in his state).
Every state has its own run of horrible history. Oregon country, which (on the USA side) included Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and parts of Wyoming and Montana, banned Black ppl from living anywhere within its territory.
And it wasnt until well into the start of the 20th century that the last parts of those bans were removed so that Black ppl cud own homes in Oregon (no clue when the other states ended their bans on Black ppl, im an Oregonian not an Idahoian or whatevs).
The whole reason Oregon banned Black ppl was this bullshit racial purity argument. Like they didnt even want Black ppl here as slaves bcuz they feared that cud corrupt their racial purity.
No state isnt at least somewhat disgustin in its history and its weird how folks always try to act like some states were the bad ones while others were the good ones.
Alabama: interracial marriage big no but siblings yes yes yes
@@neverletmego6414HAHAHA SOUTH INCEST . You realize Oregon has higher incest rates than most of the south ? And look at incest rates in Africa or Asia and get back to me liberal
President During this time: Lyndon B. Johnson
Chief Justice: Earl Warren
Argued April 10, 1967
Decided June 12, 1967
Case Duration: 63 Days
Decision: 9-0 in favor of Loving
Shoot, looks like I've been camping in Mississippi without even knowing it. Apparently it's on Georgia's doorstep. XD
Yeah yeah :D
These are great. You need to co many more
Atha Sorrells and Robert Painter, an interracial couple fought the state of Virginia in 1925 to obtain a marriage license and won. That was 42 years before Loving v. Virginia.
I’m really enjoying the Supreme Court Briefs! Any chance of doing Deshaney v. Winnebago?
It's so fitting that that his name was Loving.
I’m “Loving” these videos 😉
Congrats! This was my 2,700th video on my watch later list
@@viditsinha9707 huh
Could you do Reynolds v. Sims, one of my favorite SC cases?
What a Loving decision ❣
The craziest thing about all this is that Bobby actually read the letter and did something about it when he was Attorney General of the United States. Do you think that would happen today LMAO fuck no I mean heck no
Good video of facts with an unbiased approach - A plus
I love how you say that he discovers the father, as like she didn't know lol
Would this be considered a substantive process case as opposed to a procedural case since it questioned the actual law(act)?
It would be both.
Substantial due process concerns itself with fundamental liberty rights everyone has, like the right to get married. If a right is a fundamental liberty right, any law affecting it is subject to strict scrutiny analysis in the courts, where the state must show a compelling gov't purpose that is the least restrictive as possible.
4:21, HOLD UP, that is Mississippi, not Alabama, you just lost ONE subscriber for that
I'm joking, i love your videos
Fun Fact: Alabama's ban on interracial marriage wasn't lifted until 2000 because they had to get an expert from Mississippi to edit the constitution, Alabama having banned literacy in 1869.
4:21 "Sweet home Mississippi"
Check out Cypher's video here: ruclips.net/video/PgRzTmiT0r0/видео.html
Which Supreme Court cases would you like me to cover in 2018?
Mr. Beat As you probably know, the Supreme Court is currently in a term with hugely important cases on which they will decide. Why don't make a series when the cases are decided about the most interesting SCOTUS-cases from this year. So basically about Gill v. Whitford, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, Carpenter v. United States, that Chris Cristie gambling case and the one on working rights?
I think you should cover other cases related to free speech of students like your video on Morse v. Fredrick.You should also cover Tinker v. Des Moines,Bethel School District v. Fraser,and Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier.Those cases,along with Morse v. Fredrick,is the most referred to cases in determining other forms of student speech.It is really interesting.You should also take Lennart Elbin’s suggestion too!
Lennart, I actually do think it's a good idea to cover some of those cases after they are decided, as they are definitely historical.
Thanks for the suggestions. Of the ones you listed, I am probably most likely to tackle Tinker first.
For decades, l have been fascinated by this case. ln lsrael, "miscegenation" is still impossible; not that living together as married is in any way illegal, as, unlike what many leftists/liberals lyingly claim, lsrael does uphold "international law," and marriages performed legally in other countries are recognized. But the sad fact remains that lsrael is today the only country without a Muslim majority which has not entered the 21st century!
Richard Loving died in a car accident in 1975, Mildred in 2008.
Mr. Beats needs an American Geography lesson. At 4:18 calls out Alabama while pointing at Mississippi.
the fact that this was only 60 years ago is bone-chilling
Why Virginia state slogan is "Virginia for lovers" Because It does not sound right for a state bans interracial marriage for that long. Does it have anything related to this case?
55 years ago today.
4:19 so you could marry your cousin but not someone of a different race?
Yeah.
1958? Like really, I had to double check and… seriously, interracial couples were banned in the second half of XXth century somewhere in the US? How was that possible?
Oh, this is just barely scratching the surface of ridiculous laws that were in-place back then.
my country decriminalized homosexuality 7 years before that happened
Omg 2000 Alabama!
Instead of Alabama you showed Mississippi Mr. Beat!!!
Great story- hard to believe the supreme court got it right.
Virgina is my state!
Evil brody me too. We need to make it great again.
Same
I guess all the Virginia peeps here
love has no color
So it is for stupidity.
@@xenomorphexidious9102 l will marry your s****r😏
Was Earl Warren a top justice?
It’s so crazy how Bans like this tore the country apart and even till this day. The issue of interracial marriage even till this day is a problem. I’m happy for Cases like this. I’m all for interracial marriages. Also, just like Brown Vs BOE, the states defied the Supreme Court decisions which shows we don’t really follow laws when the Court sets them
Nobody noticed the arrow pointing to the wrong state? 4:18
wrong alabama
That's Mississippi, the left handed Alabama.
4:20. Mississippi
Do kelo V. New London
Meanwhile everyone screamed that's just the way things are, that's just the way God intends things to be, why are you rocking the boat on behalf of race mixers, etc. There did not seem to be any rational reason to hope things would ever change, and yet they persisted.
Also, thanks for exposing me to the word invidious.
I claimed religion as A reason. Not THE reason. And since you agree with me that it was A reason, what's your point? That religion was used on both sides of the argument? Well obviously I can't argue with that since there is so much evidence that it's true.
Sorry. I didn't see that as an actual intention of mine. My initial reaction was just to paint a picture of how and why people felt like this was the way things were and should remain. Mainly because in the present day I run into a lot of "well that's just the way it is and the way it's supposed to be" and a refusal to imagine that things could be any other way.
True. I think it was more just racism and not so much religion.
Why do you care how someone loves Also race is just a social construct and god isn’t real and all humans Came from Africa
@@asnekboi7232 We care cus we see it different. Not cus "oh you're disgusting cus you're so dark", but cus you know science and history about races to be against this unnatural decision.
Still won't delete the idea that we're different, even if humans have phenotypes, not races.
God was never real.
Africa is home to humanity, but not to all kinds of humans, as Eurasia invented different species of humans it's own way.
4:20 The arrow points to Mississippi!
4:21 Alabama boi
Bernie Cohen and Philip Hirschkop huh? I am so suprised!
?
@@kayvan671 just a Cohencidence
@@myxi4689
K
Amen. If you get a chance see the movie “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”
Oh Alabama
Does that means I can sue my state if they banned it.
Yes
and you'll win
“racial integrity” 😭 the fuck is that
2000 was now now
0:25 Theend
Mississippi was the last, Alabama was in 1993.
Dang i didn't know RFK was involved!
I would really love like a nice happy video for once please
4:21 bruh really
Damm Alabama, 2000?!!????
Alabama? Sweet Home Alabama? Ban interracial marriage but fine with relative-marriage?!?
Where did they originally get married? If it was outlawed in Virginia,how did they get married there?
Dale Gribble Thanks Dale. Those that believe in the idea of a "living constitution" have examples like yours in mind. They believe( as opposed to strict constructionists) that the decisions of the S.C. must be adapted to the norms of the times and respond to issues in new ways, ways that the Founding Fathers couldn't imagine( like same sex marriage).
The 14th amendment is often one brought up by justices who do view the document as a more "living document." If you think about it, it could be applied to many things, and can be a slippery slope.
This explains why so many people voted for Trump despite not liking him. They constantly brought up they were really "voting for a Supreme Court justice." I'm not a fan of judicial activism, and it's unfair to label all of the current justices that way, but there is so much fear about who these nine people are. Look at the backlash against Merrick Garland, who was really a fairly moderate guy.
Dale Gribble Good point.Judge Scalia often expressed annoyance over cases that were brought to the court when in his view,they were issues that should have been decided by elected legislatures. Once the court decided to hear a case,their decision would be based on the constitution,one way or the other,because the arguments would be about the constitutionality or not,of a decision or action. If you want,you can see Scalia and other S.C. justices on RUclips.
I go back and forth about Scalia. Sure, he always said he was a strict constructionist, but often he was guilty of also interpreting the Constitution in a way that likely fit his worldview. If he was a bit more principled, he might just be one of the greatest justices in American history. In DC v Heller, for example, if he was principled he would have also saw to it that the legislative branch handle that issue.
A life well lived indeed 👏
Notice that California and Oregon had anti-miscegenation laws, before 1967.
because of discrimination against Asians.
fun facts: 5:08 , one of the judge was White and one was Black but both were whites
the fact that the supreme court might repeal this is sad
Clarence Thomas probably would start it too if he got paid enough
Great couple!
Alabama: Last state to eliminate ban on intertacial marriage
Also Alabama: First state to have same siblimg sex
Let's see how the comments look...(hoping for the best, expecting the worst).
4:21, you're pointing to Mississippi there. Alabama is the next state over to the east.
+Jeremy Edmond Yeah, I corrected it in the description.
They're practically the same state to be honest.
Why is this video unlisted?
+Dario Guerra I haven't officially released it yet lol. So Congratulations on first!
Mr. Beat I'm here now so it's public. YAY!
Dario Guerra how did you find the link to this video?
I accidentally put it on the Supreme Court Briefs playlist early!
Ah yes, the famous Alabama-Louisiana border
This supreme court case has a very fitting name
Why did they break in there house at 2am when they could have rang the bell in day time
They wanted to catch them having the thing
So they could arrest them on that pretext
4:21
Why can’t the lower court judges be expelled for interpreting the constitution this way?
Because that's not how it works.
I am way oversimplifying (ie. I'm wrong), but the basic function of the court is to find out what happened in the case, and apply the appropriate consequence based on the evidence. In the US, the court does this mostly by basing their judgements on precedent, or case law, meaning decisions made by a higher court on the same issue. A lower-court judge doesn't base their decision on the constitution, but the higher court's ruling on the constitution as it pertains to the case. (assuming it is a constitutional issue)
Even if a judges ruling is later overturned by a higher court, that doesn't mean that the previous ruling was "wrong" because of it. What would make a ruling wrong, would be going against precedent and established law, in a matter where all the information needed to make the "correct" ruling have been brought into the attention of the court.
Difficult constitutional questions are deliberated in the SC, precisely so that those decisions can then be applied by the lower courts in the future, to solve similar cases. But as a general rule, you cannot be punished for doing something that was not against the law at the moment you did it.
Why can’t all Democrat lawmakers be thrown In jail for interpreting the second amendment as entire gun groups being banned ?
Richard got a big head
wait interracial marriage was legalized in alabama only in 2000?
The law criminalizing interracial marriage still existed, but the state couldn't enforce it.