The Right to Marry: Loving v. Virginia

Abstract

In June 1958, Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving left their native Caroline County, Virginia, for a visit to Washington, D.C, where they got mar ried. They then returned to Virginia and took up residence in the home of the bride's parents. Early in the morning a few weeks later, everyone in the house was asleep?Mr. and Mrs. Loving down stairs, Mr. and Mrs. Jeter upstairs?when the Lovings awoke to find three police men in their bedroom with flashlights. The intruders arrested and jailed the Lovings. The charge? Their marriage violated state law. He was white, and she was black. By marrying in D.C. to avoid a Virginia law prohibiting interra cial marriage, they had committed a serious crime. In January 1959, Judge Leon M. Bazile sentenced the couple to a year in jail. He suspended the sentences on the condition that both accused leave Caroline County and the state of Vir ginia at once and do not return together or at the same time to said county and state for a period of twenty-five years. They moved to Washington, D.C, where they lived with Mrs. Loving's cousin Alex Byrd and his wife Laura. They continued to live in their home away from home, and this is where they raised their three children, Sidney, Donald, and Peggy. In 1963 they determined to take a stand against the injustice that had forced