>The Supreme Court's landmark ruling in Loving v. Virginia (1967) overturned state laws against interracial marriage as a violation of the equal protection clause of the Constitution. It involved a mixed race couple who had married in Washington D.C., which had legalized interracial unions in 1873, and found that their marriage was not recognized in Virginia, which had a statute dating to colonial times forbidding unions between whites, blacks, and Native Americans. The date the ruling was handed down (June 12) has been often recognized as Loving Day.