AP WAS THERE: Supreme Court legalizes interracial marriage

This Jan. 26, 1965 file photo shows Mildred Loving and her husband Richard P Loving. Fifty years after Mildred and Richard Loving’s landmark legal challenge shattered the laws against interracial marriage in the U.S., some couples of different races still talk of facing discrimination, disapproval and sometimes outright hostility from their fellow Americans. (AP Photo)

By Associated Press June 11, 2017 3 min read

WASHINGTON (AP) – EDITOR’S NOTE: On June 12, 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court was wrapping up the final orders for the term. Among the cases before them was that of Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple who had been sentenced to a year in jail for violating Virginia’s ban on marriage between people of different races. The question posed by the Lovings’ plight was simple: Did Virginia’s law violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? The justices’ unanimous conclusion also was simple – yes, it does – and felled not only Virginia’s law, but similar laws in 15 other states.

In observance of the 50th anniversary of this landmark decision, The Associated Press is republishing its 1967 story by reporter Karl R. Baumann on the Supreme Court’s ruling.

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The Supreme Court sounded the death knell Monday for state laws outlawing racially mixed marriages.

While the unanimous decision specifically applied to Virginia’s antimiscegenation law, the language of Chief Justice Earl Warren’s opinion was so sweeping as to make it clear that similar statutes of 15 other states could not stand under legal attack.