It’s frightening to consider that the government can dictate whom you are allowed to love. Yet, America has a long history of policing Black, brown, and mixed-race families. With Trump’s administration seemingly intent on dragging us back to the 1940s and ’50s, could interracial marriage be at risk? NewsOne explores interracial marriage and how Trump and his allies might undermine an institution that has been legal in this country since 1967.
Interracial marriage in America is most certainly taken for granted. Its history paints a picture of racism, tyranny, and white supremacy, very similar to other historical institutions in this country. Interracial marriage became legal in 1967 after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Loving v. Virginia. The case involved a Black woman named Mildred Loving and her white husband, Richard Loving. The couple was arrested and sentenced to a year in a Virginia prison because of their relationship.
Their case reached the Supreme Court, which ruled that marriage is a constitutional right and that the freedom to marry whomever one chooses is protected by the 14th Amendment.
Fast forward 58 years to a hyper-conservative Supreme Court that has already gutted Roe v. Wade and affirmative action. Now, many Americans fear that Loving v. Virginia could be next, which means millions of Americans could be punished for marrying outside their race.
What’s even scarier is that in the Dobbs case, which was used to overturn Roe v. Wade, the legal reasoning that Justice Alito used to overturn it could also be applied to undo Loving v. Virginia, according to the ACLU.
Supreme Court Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson also voiced her fear that interracial marriage could be next to get gutted by the court, drawing attention to the parallels between modern civil rights cases and the ones of the past.
“Some of these questions about sort of who decides and the concerns and legislative prerogatives, et cetera, sound very…
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