Loving v. Virginia

Questions for Further Study

• 1.: The Commonwealth of Virginia had a long legal history pertaining to African Americans. Compare this document with Virginia’s Act III: Baptism Does Not Exempt Slaves from Bondage (1667) and the Virginia Slave Code (1860). How were the antimiscegenation laws in effect in Virginia as late as the 1960s an outgrowth of the commonwealth’s history?
• 2.: What was the “one drop rule”? Why was this “rule” important in the nation’s racial history?
• 3.: On what fundamental constitutional basis did the Warren Court negate Virginia’s laws against interracial marriage? Did the Court use the same principle in its decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954)? Explain.
• 4.: What impact did the Court’s decision in Loving v. Virginia have on the debate involving same-sex couples? According to some people, how does the logic of the decision extend to such couples?
• 5.: According to the entry, the “last wall in the edifice of American apartheid had been taken down” through the Court’s decision in this case. Do you agree with this conclusion?