Random Trailblazing Relationships That Helped To Change Taboo Against Interracial Marriage (12 items)

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  (#12) An Anonymous Interracial Couple Fought Segregation To End Laws Against Interracial Sex

  In addition to laws banning interracial marriage, many states also made it a crime for people of different races to have intercourse or even cohabitate. In 1964, a brave couple from Florida challenged the law, taking the case all the way to the Supreme Court. In McLaughlin v. Florida, the anonymous couple argued that a state law banning whites and Blacks from living together was unconstitutional. 

  The unanimous ruling at the Supreme Court declared that laws banning interracial cohabitation or "fornication" were illegal, directly countering the 1883 case of Pace v. Alabama. But it would take three more years before the Supreme Court ruled on interracial marriage.
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  (#7) Fears Of Interracial Relationships Led One Man To Turn On His Wife

  In 1924, the son of a wealthy New York family married a blue-collar woman whom headlines declared was "the Daughter of a Colored Man." According to the "one-drop rule," even a single drop of African blood made someone Black. So Alice Jones, who had at least one Black grandparent, qualified by the standards of the 1920s. Her marriage to Kip Rhinelander was short and tragic, all thanks to the huge scandal that pressured Kip to divorce Alice. Unfortunately, it worked.

  The three-year courtship and marriage ended when Kip sued Alice for "hiding" her ancestry and tricking him into thinking she was white. Kip's shame at being publicly linked to a Black woman drove the trial, as when his lawyer declared Kip would not tolerate "the undying disgrace of an alliance with colored blood."

  Alice was forced to show her nude body to the jury to prove that she had never lied about her race. The jury found in Alice's favor and she received alimony for Kip for 65 years.
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  (#4) Mildred And Richard Loving Were Banned From Virginia Until They Fought All The Way To The Supreme Court

  Their name became famous because of Loving v. Virginia, but Mildred and Richard Loving started out as a couple in love. Mildred Jeter met Richard Loving in the 1950s, when both lived in Virginia. Interracial marriage was illegal in their state, so they crossed the border to Washington, D.C. when they got married in June of 1958. But a few weeks later, Virginia charged the couple with breaking the law and sentenced them to one year in jail — or a 25-year ban from the state.

  The terrified couple moved to DC, but they were arrested again five years later for visiting Mildred's parents. They wrote to Attorney General Robert Kennedy for help, and a few years later their case was in front of the Supreme Court. On June 12, 1967, the court overturned all bans on interracial marriage, declaring, "Marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival."
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  (#3) Sammy Davis, Jr. And His Swedish Wife Challenged Social Conventions

  When entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr. married Swedish actress May Britt in 1960, their marriage was illegal in 31 states. In fact, John F. Kennedy even asked the couple not to appear at his inauguration because he feared a backlash from white Southerners.

  The pair did face a backlash: Britt was dropped by 20th Century Fox because of the interracial relationship, and their daughter, Tracey, says Sammy Davis, Jr. worried about the future for biracial children. "What will the world be like for Tracey? What will our legacy be for our children? Is it going to be any better."

  The couple tried to make the world a better place: in the 1960s, they were active in the Civil Rights Movement, and Sammy participated in the 1963 March on Washington. He also refused to perform at racially segregated nightclubs––a move which helped integrate nightclubs in Las Vegas and Miami Beach.
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  (#1) One Couple Was Sent To Prison Just For Living Together – And The Supreme Court Said It Was Legal

  In the wake of the Civil War, Missouri representative Andrew King proposed a constitutional amendment in 1871 that would ban marriage between whites and people of color. It failed at the time. But 10 years later, a Black man named Tony Pace and a white woman named Mary J. Cox were arrested in Alabama simply because they were living together. The law there was so broadly written that the couple didn't even have to be married to violate the law, and they were both sentenced to two years in prison for the crime.

  The couple appealed the conviction all the way to the Supreme Court, but in Pace v. Alabama, the court ruled that the law was not discriminatory because both received the same prison sentence regardless of race. The ruling would hold for more than 80 years. 
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  (#9) In The 1920s, The US Government Decided Asians Were Not White And Punished White People Who Married Asians

  Most laws against interracial relationships applied only to relationships between whites and Blacks — until the US Supreme Court ruled in 1923 that Asians were not white. In spite of being the original "Caucasians," in the case of US v. Bhagat Singh Thind the Supreme Court decided that Asian Indians could not become citizens because only "free whites" could become naturalized citizens. Thind, a veteran on World War I who fought for the US, went on to earn a PhD in spite of the court's ruling that he was ineligible for citizenship.

  Just one year earlier, in 1922, the Cable Act stripped the citizenship of any US citizen who married "an alien ineligible for citizenship," which targeted Asian American immigrants. The government then revoked the citizenship of Mary Keatinge Das, the wife of a Pakistani-American activist who was herself a natural-born citizen. Emily Chinn, another citizen who married a Chinese American immigrant, also lost her citizenship.

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