Thursday, February 5, 2009

Did You Know?

Baby Illegal?

BALTIMORE, Md., Aug. 2, 1956
A White woman, Miss Shirley Howard, whose baby was fathered by a Black man, John Moses Billy, will be tried here under a 1715 Maryland law condemning “any White woman who shall suffer or permit herself to be got with child by a colored man or mulatto.”

United States Supreme Court Rules

On June 12, 1967, the nation’s highest court voted unanimously to
overturn the conviction of Richard Loving, a White man and Mildred Loving, a Black woman, a young couple from rural Caroline County, Virginia who were arrested, jailed and banished from the state for 25 years for violating the state’s Racial Integrity Act. The court’s decision struck down the anti-miscegenation laws which were written to prevent the mixing of the races. These laws were on the books in more than a dozen states including Virginia.

Interracial Couples Today

Since that ruling almost 42 years ago, interracial marriage has become more common, but remains relatively rare. Sociologists estimate that 7 percent of the nation’s 59 million marriages are
mixed-race couplings. And even now, interracial marriage remains a source of quiet debate over questions of identity, assimilation and acceptance.

2 comments:

VonnaB said...

What became of the illagel baby case?

Black Buzz said...

The Baby was put up for adoption.

The Court did not find said women in question and she later moved to another state.