The 1967 Loving Vs. Maryland Decision Changed The U.S.

There was a landmark civil rights decision by the Supreme Court in 1967. It was Loving vs. Virginia. The Loving's were an interracial couple who were fighting the state law (which was in many states at the time) that said people could not marry outside their race.

On June 12, 1967, the United States Supreme Court declared Virginia's law against interracial marriage to be unconstitutional (violating both the Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment). That decision meant that states could not tell a person who they could or could not marry (except for a person of the same sex, which was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2015).

As the chart above shows (from the Pew Research Center), the Loving decision changed the face of this country. Since 1967, those marrying outside their race/ethnicity have climbed form about 3% of all marriages to 17% of all marriages. This is a good thing, because those marriages recognize a simple fact -- regardless of race or color (or religion or any other factor), we are all the same. And in a country that claims to value equality, that is an important concept.

Below are some other charts from the Pew Research Center study.