Copy these vocabulary terms! Civil Rights: rights that every person should have regardless of his or her sex, race, or religion Invalidate: a formal termination Miscegenation: marriage between people of two different races Statute: an established law or rule Precedent: an event that is used as an example to deal with a similar situation.

Loving v. Virginia 1967 A landmark civil rights decision of the United States Supreme Court which invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage.

The case was brought by Mildred Loving, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, who had been sentenced to a year in prison in Virginia for marrying each other.

Their marriage violated the state’s anti-miscegenation statute which prohibited marriage between people classified as “white” and people classified as “colored.”

The Supreme Court's unanimous decision held this prohibition was unconstitutional, ending all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States.

The decision was followed by an increase in interracial marriages in the U.S., and is remembered annually on Loving Day, June 12.

Beginning in 2013, it was cited as precedent in U. S Beginning in 2013, it was cited as precedent in U.S. federal court decisions holding restrictions on same-sex marriage in the United States unconstitutional.