The Supreme Court decided Loving v. Virginia by a vote of nine to zero in 1967.
The case involved Richard Loving, a white man, and Mildred Loving, a Black and Native American woman, whose interracial marriage violated Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law. The couple had married in Washington, D.C., in 1958 and were later prosecuted after returning to Virginia.
In its unanimous ruling on June 12, 1967, the Court held that laws banning interracial marriage violated the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote the opinion.
The decision invalidated interracial-marriage bans across the United States. It is sometimes remembered primarily as a Virginia case, but its constitutional ruling applied nationally. June 12 is now commemorated by many people as Loving Day.