Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), was a landmark civil rights decision of the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled that laws banning interracial marriage violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Beginning in 2013, the decision was cited as precedent in U.S. federal court decisions ruling that restrictions on same-sex marriage in the United States were unconstitutional, including in the Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges (2015).
Chief Justice Earl Warren, the author of the Supreme Court's unanimous opinion in Loving v. Virginia
Graves of the Lovings in the St. Stephen's Baptist Church cemetery, Central Point, Virginia
The Equal Protection Clause is part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "nor shall any StateĀ ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." It mandates that individuals in similar situations be treated equally by the law.
Congressman John Bingham of Ohio was the principal framer of the Equal Protection Clause.
This drawing by E. W. Kemble shows a sleeping Congress with a broken Fourteenth Amendment. It makes the case that Congress ignored its constitutional obligations to Black Americans.
The Court that decided Plessy
The U.S. Supreme Court Building opened in 1935, inscribed with the words "Equal Justice Under Law" which were inspired by the Equal Protection Clause.