Mildred Loving, a Black and Native woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, married in Washington, DC, in 1958. When they returned home to Caroline County, Virginia, police arrested them under the state's Racial Integrity Act. They were sentenced to a year in jail, suspended if they left Virginia for 25 years. They moved to Washington and, with help from the American Civil Liberties Union, challenged the law.
Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote that the freedom to marry is a basic civil right and that the law existed only to maintain white supremacy. The ruling invalidated bans in Virginia and 15 other states.
Interracial marriage has grown since. Pew Research Center found that in 2015, 17 percent of US newlyweds married someone of a different race or ethnicity. Loving was also cited in Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 decision recognizing same-sex marriage.