Michael Burks

Every American Deserves Some Loving: an Analysis of the Social and Legal Factors That Overturned Anti-miscegenation Law in the United States Michael Burks

Anti-miscegenation sentiment arose out of racist, social values and was then implemented into the courts to sanction, criminalize, and marginalize those engaging in and supportive of interracial relationships, protecting an anti-miscegenation social hegemony. Essentially, law became a tool to justify and protect racist, anti-miscegenation values during a time when those social values were no longer accepted by all Americans as inherently correct. A pseudo-jurisprudence shared by racist legal professionals and anti-miscegenation social values allowed anti-miscegenation law to persist. It is thought that in Loving the Warren Court rode a wave of social and legal progressivism to ending the predominance of pseudo-jurisprudence. This work unearths how interracial relationships were so controversial that even the Warren Court felt uneasy about ruling in Loving.