Loving v. Virginia

The Court struck down laws banning interracial marriage as violations of equal protection and due process.

Overview

Richard and Mildred Loving, a white man and a Black woman, were sentenced to a year in jail for marrying in Virginia, with the sentence suspended on condition they leave the state for twenty-five years. Chief Justice Warren, for a unanimous Court, held that antimiscegenation laws were devices of white supremacy that violated equal protection, and that marriage is one of the basic civil rights of man. The decision ended three centuries of race-based marriage bans, and Loving is frequently cited in modern marriage equality jurisprudence as a foundation for the freedom to marry.