Loving v. Virginia was an important Supreme Court case http://lovingday.org/the-loving-story, but it was also the story of a real couple. Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving grew up in Caroline County, Virginia. They fell in love and decided to get married. Unfortunately, getting married was not as simple in 1958 as it was today. Mildred was black and Richard was white. There were laws that forbade people of different races to marry each other. This was true in many states, including Mildred and Richard's home state of Virginia. However, interracial marriage was legal in Washington, DC at that time. Therefore, they decided to drive to DC, get married, and return to Virginia to begin their life together.
<snip> This proved to be a short term solution. The law in Virginia not only forbade interracial marriage ceremonies, but it also forbade interracial couples from getting married elsewhere and returning to Virginia. One night, while they were asleep, the newly-married Lovings were awakened by the police in their bedroom. The Lovings were taken to jail for the crime of being married.
<snip> At the time of the Loving decision, sixteen states from Delaware to Texas had laws banning interracial couples. Loving v. Virginia (1967) made it illegal for these states to enforce those laws.
Here is a great Interactive Map where you can see which U.S. States had law against interracial marriage and when those laws changed http://lovingday.org/legal-map
Here is a history of U.S. Civil Rights cases http://lovingday.org/civil-rights
Here is a video clip of Obama thanking Civil Rights leaders before a performance of "Music from the Civil Rights Movement is" at the White House http://video.pbs.org/video/1410865290/ The entire 60 minute concert can be viewed here.
Here is a Teaching Tolerance lesson about language of the Civil Rights movement http://www.tolerance.org/activity/whos-voting-now.
