From Loving v. Virginia To Barack Obama: The Symbolic Tie That Binds

Abstract

INTRODUCTION|The year 2017 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the 1967 United States Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia, which declared anti-miscegenation laws to be unconstitutional. For many, the Loving decision represents a symbolic turning point in the history of United States racial politics. Some even celebrate the Loving decision and the argued subsequent "biracial baby boom" as the beginning of a post-racial United States. Indeed, statistics indicating that fifteen percent of all new marriages are interracial and polls suggesting that a majority of Americans today approve of interracial marriage are cited as evidence of the erosion of racial boundaries and tensions...