On: Interracial marriage in America

by: Joshua Howell

Loving v. Virginia
They had gone to bed together, as those who are married tend to do. But when Mr. and Mrs. Loving awoke in the twilight of the following morning, the couple found themselves surrounded by the local sheriff, deputy and jailer.

“Who is this woman you’re sleeping with?” demanded the sheriff, pointing a flashlight toward their eyes.

“I’m his wife,” responded the no doubt indignant spouse.

Realizing what was wrong, the husband immediately pointed to their marriage certificate on the wall, which had been issued to them in Washington, DC.

“That’s no good here,” stated the officer.

Mr. and Mrs. Loving

And it wasn’t. Mrs. Loving was black, Mr. Loving was white, and this was Virginia 1958, where Statute 4546 had banned interracial marriage since 1662. Never mind that Mildred Loving was more Native American than African-American (the “one drop rule” was still in effect). Never mind that the county in which they lived had liberal views on race. The Lovings’ marriage was a felony (a violation of the “peace and dignity of the Commonwealth”) and the two were promptly arrested.

What ensued would go unresolved until three years after the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

After spending several nights in jail, the Lovings accepted a plea bargain, and were immediately exiled from their home state. According to the deal, the two could never return simultaneously, lest they be arrested for the same crime.

In their time away, the couple would raise three children, and etch out something of a living in Washington State. But in 1963, with the civil rights movement waxing, the Lovings yearned to return home, and made their minds to mount a legal attempt to do so. They first contacted then Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and queried whether the Civil Rights Act would grant them the ability.  It wouldn’t, Mr. Kennedy responded, but he did put them in contact with the sympathetic American Civil Liberties Union. The group was happy to oblige, and together, they initiated Loving v. Virginia, a challenge which would eventually work its way to The Supreme Court.

Then-Chief Justice Warren authored the majority opinion, saying: Laws like Virginia’s were unconstitutional because they “cannot stand consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment” for reasons which “reflect the central meaning of those constitutional commands.” “Distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry,” the court ruled, were “odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.”

Thus, 16 states with anti-miscegenation laws saw their books overturned.

45 years on
Since Loving v. Virginia, interracial marriage has steadily increased; it is now six times that of the 1960s. But couples like the Lovings remain a rarity due to the slow rate of black and white intermarriage.

In the Lovings time, a mere one in one thousand new marriages was between a black person and white person. Now that number rests at a higher, but still low, one-in-sixty. As a share of 2008 interracial marriages, those between blacks and whites account for only 11 percent (compared to the 41 percent which were White and Hispanic, and the 15 percent which were white and Asian).

This dearth is caused by a plethora of factors, which require a marked degree of interpretation.

First, whites and blacks are not prone to intermarrying in the first place. Less than ten percent of whites do, and only 16 percent of blacks. (In the meantime, 26 percent of Hispanics and 31 percent of Asians married someone of a different race or ethnicity in 2008.)

Second is extant taboos, which harken back generations, and won’t be resolved for many more. This generation of black parents (whose children are now in college) were old enough in the 60s to be cognizant of America’s rampant racism.

Third, even among those blacks and whites who do intermarry, the race of the sexes goes in the opposite direction: black men are more than twice as likely to “marry out” than black women.

Is this what we’d like to see? Yes and no. It’s good that the two races in America with the most bad blood are slowly reconciling their differences. But it would be heartening to see a more precipitous increase, implying much more social dynamism than the current evidence suggests.

Still, it’s worth acknowledging that in six months, voters will either remove or reseat America’s first interracial President.

Were they alive, the Lovings might be proud.

Readers who enjoyed this editorial might also enjoy: Obama and gay marriage - Too soon?