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Loving vs.Virginia

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Loving v. Virginia A Landmark Supreme Court Case of Interracial Marriages

Natasha Plotnikov GVPT 432 Professor Davis December 4th, 2013

Loving v. Virginia was a very important Supreme Court case. It played a significant role in the civil rights movement: the legalization of interracial marriage. The case evaluates the constitutional question whether a statutory law of Virginia is solely based on racial discrimination and if it violates the Equal Protection and Due process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Equal Protection Clause forbids states from denying any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws (Epstein, Walker, 2013). Nevertheless, for the couple it was just a fight to stay married and be treated as equal as every legally married couple. They were simply in love and never intended to be in the center of attention. Richard and Mildred Loving were residents of the small town of Central Point, Virginia. They had dated each other since they were teenagers. When they decided to get married Richard learned that marriage was illegal for them in Virginia because Richard was White and Mildred was a Black woman; therefore, they went to Washington DC for their ceremony (Loving, 2007). Mildred did not know that the State of Virginia forbade people of mixed races to get married at that time. They also were not aware of the punishment they were subjecting themselves in to. At that difficult time, many states were

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