Mildred Loving Dies

Mildred Loving, who challenged Virginia's ban on interracial marriage, a hateful vestige of segregation, in the landmark case Loving v. Virginia, has died. The link to the story in the New York Lawyer is here. Loving and her husband, Richard, who died in 1975, "changed history in 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld their right to marry. The ruling struck down laws banning racially mixed marriages in at least 17 states." Chief Justice Earl Warren handed down the unanimous decision of the Court, declaring that "restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the equal protection clause." For more information about the case, go to The Right to Marry section of the Exploring Constitutional Law website, which is maintained by Professor Douglas Linder of the University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School. The site also explores issues relating to gay marriage.