Interracial Marriages Celebrate 40 Years Legal!

In 1967, the Supreme Court made a ruling heard around the world. The Loving couple was at the forefront of this change, spear heading the fight against a Virginia law making interracial marriages illegal. Thanks to the Supreme Court, the law was changed and for the first time since June 12, 1967, interracial marriages are a rarity no more.

When the Census Bureau tallied the number of interracial marriages in 1970, the still "taboo" lifestyle only birthed 65,000 reported marriages. From then until now things have changed a little.

"The racial divide in the United States is a fundamental divide. . . But when you have the 'other' in your family, it's hard to think of them as 'other' anymore. We see a blurring of the old lines, and that has to be a good thing because the lines were artificial in the first place," says Michael Rosenfeld, a Stanford University sociologist.

Moreover, the "blurring of the old lines" has certainly lifted the "taboo" from the 1970's. When the Census Bureau revisited the topic of interracial marriage again in 2005, the number had grown to a whopping 422,000 couples.

We must remember these numbers are representative of Black-White marriages only and when other forms of interraciality are added to the marriage count, interracial marriages make up more than 7% of America's 59 million unions.

The boundaries in 1967 were very rigid and Sidney Poitier's film "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" tried to use a comedic approach to lessen the rigidity of those lines.

Through time, society has become more accepting of those in interracial marriages, but couples know they still face more adversity than some same race couples do.