- [Narrator] On a hot summer night
in 1958,
law enforcement officers burst into the bedroom
of Mildred and Richard Loving
and placed them under arrest.
The Lovings hadn't gone on a crime spree,
but they were public enemies
in the eyes of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Mr. and Mrs. Loving
were thrown in jail for getting married,
an act prohibited in Virginia
all because the Lovings didn't share
the same skin color.
The legal battle that followed
culminated in the United States Supreme Court decision
of Loving versus Virginia,
which would forever cast the Lovings
among the heroes
of the Civil Rights movement.
Richard Loving, a white man,
and Mildred Loving,
a African American and Native American woman,
were married in Washington, DC
after falling in love as teenagers
in rural Virginia.
However, their return to Virginia
and cohabitation as husband and wife
violated the Commonwealth's anti miscegenation law
known as the Racial Integrity Act.
The act forbade interracial marriages,
specifically marriages between white people
and those who qualified as quote
colored, unquote.
After their arrest,
both Mr. and Mrs. Loving
pled guilty to violating
the anti miscegenation law.
Rather than serving one year in prison,
the Lovings accepted a suspended sentence
and were banished from Virginia for 25 years.
The Lovings later filed a motion
to vacate the state court judgment,
which the trial court denied.
The Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals affirmed.
The United States Supreme Court
granted cert.
The issue before the court was whether a state law
prohibiting marriage exclusively on the basis of race
was constitutional under the 14th Amendment.
In an opinion by Chief Justice Warren,
the court unanimously held
that state interracial marriage bans
violate both the Equal Protection Clause
and the Due Process Clause
of the 14th Amendment.
In so doing,
the court applied strict scrutiny.
To pass strict scrutiny,
a law's use of racial classifications
must be necessary to further a compelling state interest,
and be narrowly tailored to further that interest.
On the Equal Protection issue,
Virginia contented that a more deferential,
rational basis analysis should apply
because the statue punished members of both races equally.
The court rejected this argument,
noting that the law forbade only interracial marriages
involving white persons.
The court determined that the statute drew
a racial classification on it's face,
thus warranting strict scrutiny.
Applying the test,
the court ruled that Virginia's anti-miscegenation law,
which was based entirely on racial distinctions,
could have no legitimate purpose
other than to perpetuate racial discrimination.
The court concluded
the law had been created to further
white supremacy.
Further, the court reasoned that the restriction
on the freedom to marry
violated the principle purpose
of the Equal Protection Clause,
which was to eliminate racial discrimination
perpetrated by states.
In addition to invalidating the statute
on Equal Protection grounds,
the court also held that the law violated
the Lovings' due process rights,
emphasizing the long standing importance
of the individual right to marry,
the court held and individual's choice to marry
may not be invaded by the state.
In the court's view,
depriving individuals of such a fundamental right
on the basis of race,
violated the due process clause.
Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment
of the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals,
and overturned the Lovings' convictions.
Justice Stewart wrote separately
to emphasize his continued belief
that laws criminalizing behavior
only when perpetrated by a member
of a particular race
are repugnant to the Constitution.
Loving was a major step forward
for the Civil Rights Movement.
The court's ruling invalidated interracial marriage bans
in 16 states.
The ruling also affirmed the importance
of personal choice
in the exercise of the freedom to marry.
Nearly half a century later,
the court invoked it's decision in Loving
as a binding precedent
to extend marriage equality
to same sex couples
in the landmark case
Obergefell versus Hodges.
Citing the fundamental nature
of the marriage right,
the court affirmed in Obergefell
that which had been first decided by Loving,
that love wins.