
On this day in 1967: Loving v. Virginia and interracial marriage
CNN
Editor's note: This story was originally published for CNN on April 13, 2017.
A century after the end of the Civil War, more than a dozen states still had laws on the books banning interracial marriage. Enter Mildred and Richard Loving, a Virginia couple whose June 12, 1967, Supreme Court ruling dealt a major blow to miscegenation laws.
The couple married in 1958 in Washington -- where interracial marriage was legal -- then moved to their home in Central Point, Virginia. Weeks later, the local sheriff came into their home in the middle of the night and they were charged with violating several Virginia codes, including one that made it "unlawful for any white person in the state to marry any save a white person."
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