Volume 45, Issue 13

Central Point Times

Monday, June 12, 2017

Layout Editor: Desmond Carnell, Tootsie Roll

From Court To Heart

By CHRISTINE BANDEJAS Today, we celebrate a watershed moment in the history of the civil right movement in America, 50 years ago today, the United State Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Marriage is one of the basic rights of a man fundamental to our very exciting survival The case was brought by Mildred Loving, a black woman who was married to Richard Loving, a white man. At the time interracial marriage was outlawed in Virginia and a number of other states across the country. June 1958, the couple traveled to Washington, D.C. -- where interracial marriage was legal -- to get married. When they returned home, however, they were arrested and sentenced to one year in jail for violating the states Racial Integrity Act. According to court documents the trial judge suspended the Lovings sentence for a period of 25 years on the condition that they leave the State and not return to Virginia together for 25 years. As an interracial couple, Mildred and Richard Loving challenged laws in effect in Virginia and 18 other states which prohibited interracial marriage. The most striking thing about Mildred and Rich ard Loving is that they never wanted to be known. They didnt want to change history or face downracism. They just wanted to come home to Virgin ia to be near their families. The Lovings werent radicals. They were just two people in love. The Lovings had no idea they were going to change America. Nor did they particularly want the role I wasnt involved with the civil rights movement, Mildred explains at one point. We were trying to get back to Virginia. That was our goal. It wasnt until 1967, when the case went to the Supreme Court, that they seemed to realize it was about more than just them. The Supreme Court recognized the merits of Mr. and Mrs. Lovings claims and overturned all race-based restrictions on marriage. 50 years later Loving vs. Virginia still has a profound significance for another group of citizens who wish to marry but are not allowed; gay and name to that of her husband upon marriage. Over time people had arguments that things need it to be differently so during 1971 the Supreme Court refuses to hear challenge to a Minnesota supreme court and allowing prohibition of the same sex marriage. The right to woman to own property in their own name took place in New York it traveled all over. The public national disused Same sex marriage. Same sex marriage started in 1993 when the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled the laws denying same sex marriage. After the Hawaii court decision raised the possibility that states could recognize same sex marriage, 32 states that legislate including Hawaii adopted statutory language defining marriage as a relationship between a man and woman, including Alaska which adopted both a statute and the nations first constitutional provision prohibiting same-sex marriage. Also Nebraska adopted a constitutional provision limiting marriage to relationships between a man and a woman. As a result all 40 states had statutory and or constitutional provision limiting marriage to opposite sex couples by the end of 2000. This shows that same sex marriage is a big thing, it came a long way and people still have problems with it. After all the processing of it becoming a law itself. Through my research I found that the Supreme Court heard a case in 1967 and that it would change marriage laws across the nation. A statement was made that This parallels a similar argument made in the 1960s concerning interracial marriage, an argument that U.S. News tackled in a June 1967 article called Now That Mixed Marriage Is Legal.... I really dont understand the last lesbian couples. The Co-Counsel American Foundation for Equal Rights, quotes, They both believe that the freedom to marry is a constitutional right A few years ago before Mildred Loving passed he said, She believe all Americans, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should also have that same freedom to marry. Thats what Lov ing vs. Virginia and loving each other are all about I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richards and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. Thats what Loving, and loving, are all about. Today we salute the courage of Richard and Mildred Loving, whose efforts laid the groundwork to ensure that someday that all americans will be equal.

No Name In the Streets

By DESMOND CARNELL In honor of the 50th yanniversary of the Loving v. Virginia trial, I chose to review a book that divulges into the civil rights movement head first, and doesnt hold back on any vivid detail. Throughout the history of America, there has always been discrimination amongst those of a different shades of skin. Even today people are discriminated for their race, sexuality, nationality, and even gender. There are many affected every day by those who bash and hate others for things they cant help. But few have been able to fight against it. James Baldwin is a person who was able to witness the Civil rights movement and watch the idols of it rise and fall. James Baldwin first came about in the writing industry as an essayist in 1955. In the his book No Name in the Streets, major events of the civil rights movements are depicted, such as the Martin Luther King.Since Martins death, something has gone away. Perhaps even more than the death itself, the manner of his death has forced me into a judgment concerning human life and human beings which I have always been reluctant to make. Overall the book truly puts the reader in the eyes of an african-american who was troubled as a child during the civil rights movement. It shows the struggle he faced merely as a person of different color, and how all the events affected him.

Love Is Blind
By EBREN TINNER Same Sex marriage took place during the civil time, things during 1967 changed over time from today and from back in the day. People nowadays make a big deal out of marriage itself. In 1967 the supreme court overturned the laws of prohibiting interracial couples from marrying each other. From back in the day blacks and whites were treated differently, blacks didnt have as much freedom but whites did. The reason people made a big deal out of things is because whites and blacks couldnt marry each other. Now its allowed without any problems although you might have people that have complaints about it and a law that you cant marry each other. So during 1969 the first no fault divorce took place with the law and how it adopted in California. California was the first to adopt what we are called now no-fault divorce in the United States in 1969. Specifically, they report that states that adopted nofault divorce, that means that you are not required to have a compelling reason to end the marriage if you are to be granted a divorce. You dont have to have a reason, other than you want to. There is no fault assigned to one or both partners. experienced a decrease of 8 to 16 percent in wifes suicide rates and a 30 percent decline in domestic violence In 1971 the Supreme Court upholds a Alabama law which automatically changed a womans legal sur-

Racism In Marriage

words Now that mixed marriage is legal im as suming that they are coming off that colored people are allowed to date know without an issue. There are still questions towards gay marriage itself. 1.8 million marriages each year in the United States, and about 8,000 are interracial and about 2,400 of those are marriages between negroes and white people. Overall theres an issue between blacks and whites dating, and also gays being together.

This quote was stated during statements about how others feel towards same sex marriage. Under our Constitution the freedom to marry or not to marry a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State. Things that are runned under the constitution goes the way they want it to run until changes are made. Same sex marriage was legalized in California June 28, 2013. There was much joy when it took place.

people of color illegal. 1871, United States Congressman Andrew King proposed a constitutional amendment making interracial marriage illegal in By KRISTY MCLAURIN every state across the country. In 1883, the U.S Supreme Court ruled that state-level bans on interracial marriage do not violate the 14th amendment. During the 1960s, marrying someone of a differ- The ruling held for more than 80 years. In the 1964 ent race not socially acceptable, and in many places Supreme Court case McLaughlin v. Florida, the illegal. court unanimously ruled that laws banning interraIn 1664 Maryland passed the first British colo- cial sex violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the nial law making it illegal for whites and slaves to U.S. Constitution. In 1967 the U.S. Supreme Court marry. Then in 1691 Virginia banned all interracial unanimously overturned Pace v. Alabama (1883), marriages. Those who broke the law were often ex- and in the ruling of Loving v. Virginia the court iled or executed. In the 1800s more states made banned all laws forbiddin interracial marriage. interracial marriage and sexual relations between

The Loving Trial

By DESIREE BARTE

In the year 1967, the charges held against Mil dred and Richard Loving, were unanimously dropped by the Supreme Court; dismissing the state of Virginias law that forbids interracial marriage and punishes both violators. This ruling legalized interracial marriage in every state and today we celebrate this victory after 50 years. Mr. and Mrs. Loving married in 1958 in Washington D.C. Five weeks later, in their hometown of Central Point, Virginia, they were arrested late at night and put in jail. This was because someone privately reported them to the police for their illegal marriage. Illegal because in Virginia, at the time, mixed couples were banned. The local judge gave them a one year sentence, but suspended it if they agreed to immediately leave the state and to stay away for the next 25 years. For the next five years they lived in Washington as exiles, only to be arrested again

when they reentered the state to visit Mildreds family. When they were released on bail, they sent a letter to General Robert Kennedy, an attorney at the time, for help and this led American Civil Liberties Union into taking interest in their case. The Lovings wanted to permanently live in Virginia, where both of their families have lived in for generations, and wanted to fight for that right. It never was like a lot of other places, Richard explains. It doesnt matter to folks around here. They just want to live and be left alone. Thats the way I feel. Back in the 60s, there were 18 states including Virginia that outlawed the marriage of black and white persons. The judge back from when the Lovings were arrested in 1958, later wrote that the Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and He placed them on separate continents, and but for the interference with His arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. Richard and Mildreds lawyers Philip Hirschkop and Bernard S. Cohen appeal to the Supreme Court were based on the claim that Virginias anti-miscegenation laws violate the equal protection clauses of the 14th amendment. The state of Virginia stated that the amendment doesnt include antimiscegenation and that there isnt a right constitutionally protected to freely choose your spouse

in marriage. The Lovings saw that their fight to stay in Virginia will affect the lives of many other interracial couples, but they didnt see themselves as champions of civil rights. As Richard Loving said We have thought about other people, but we are not doing it just because somebody had to do it and we wanted to be the ones. We are doing it for us because we want to live here. The Lovings were allowed to live together as a married couple in Virginia, on June 12 1967, Chief Justice Earl Warren of the Supreme Court said that Marriage is one of the basic civil rights of man fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the States citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State. Thus through a long and perfluous trial, the Loving couple was then a loving couple.