Much have been said and written about interracial relationships and marriages because much has transpired concerning this issue. In pre-colonial times, records show that early European settlers had no problem in having a relationship with the Native American Indians and in fact they were even the favorite subjects of early romantic novelists. Even the interracial relationships between African blacks and white settlers could be maintained openly. 

It was only when large plantation owners made a move to legalize their slavery of the African Black race that stigma, violence and eventually civil unrest became synonymous with interracial relationship. Plantation owners took to raping the young daughters of their African slaves and were never punished for doing so. Contrastingly however, an African male could be punished or even brutally killed once caught or accused of looking at white women. The so called Anti- miscegenation laws prevented the interracial relationships and unions even if both parties desired such union.  

Even after the civil war and the abolition of slavery, interracial relationship was still taboo because the anti-miscegenation law was still upheld in several American states. It was only in 1955 that Civil Right Movement was sparked into action when a black Chicago teenager was brutally murdered by two white men because the young man whistled at a white woman. The public outcry came not only from Americans of different races but also from international communities. 

Three years after the incident and with civil rights activists still fighting for issues about civil rights violations, an African American from Virginia, Mildred Jeter married Richard Loving, a white American from District of Colombia. Eventually, they were accused of violating Virginia’s anti-miscegenation laws as a result of their interracial relationship. They appealed all charges against them until their case was elevated to the Supreme Court level. 

In 1967, the law favored their side when the Supreme Court ruled that the anti-miscegenation laws violated the Rights to Equal Protection of the Fourteenth Amendment. The SC further ruled that under the American constitution, the right to marry an individual of whatever race or creed rests solely on the individual and that the State has no right to infringe on such rights.    

Civil Rights activists scored a victory and since then interracial relationships and unions were no longer affected by the anti-miscegenation laws and the public views about interracial relationships changed as well.   

However, the stigma that went along with interracial relationships still existed although unspoken. Individuals who fell in love and pursued their interracial relationships had the wrath of their family to contend with. To some it meant the family member will be disowned, disinherited or the non-American party to the relationship, who is usually a woman, was mistreated.  

Couples of interracial relationships who fought the odds against their marriage somehow manage to make their union successful. Whatever problems they may have regarding cultural differences and ethical values are often given a chance to be threshed out. They fought for this relationship and defied their family as well as the society they belonged to. It would be a shame to give in to petty squabbles and give their detractors a chance to say “I told you so.” 

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