At the time Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter married, nearly half of U.S. states had anti-miscegenation laws on the books. Mildred was of black and Cherokee descent and Richard was a white man. In their home state of Virginia, interracial marriage was a felony, so when the couple returned to Virginia after getting married in Washington, D.C., they were convicted of violating the Virginia law and sentenced to one year in jail. They agreed to leave the state in lieu of serving their sentences, but only under the condition that they would never again enter the state together. Continue Reading