The landmark story of how interracial love and marriage changed American history—and continues to alter the landscape of American politics
When Mildred and Richard Loving wed in 1958, they were ripped from their shared bed and taken to court. Their crime: miscegenation, punished by exile from their home state of Virginia. The resulting landmark decision of Loving v. Virginia ended bans on interracial marriage and remains a signature case—the first to use the words “white supremacy” to describe such racism.
Drawing from the earliest chapters in US history, legal scholar Sheryll Cashin reveals the enduring legacy of America’s original sin, tracing how we transformed from a country without an entrenched construction of race to a nation where one drop of nonwhite blood merited exclusion from full citizenship. In vivid detail, she illustrates how the idea of whiteness was created by the planter class of yesterday and is reinforced by today’s power-hungry dog-whistlers to divide struggling whites and people of color, ensuring plutocracy and undermining the common good.
Not just a hopeful treatise on the future of race relations in America, Loving challenges the notion that trickle-down progressive politics is our only hope for a more inclusive society. Accessible and sharp, Cashin reanimates the possibility of a future where interracial understanding serves as a catalyst of a social revolution ending not in artificial color blindness but in a culture where acceptance and difference are celebrated.
- ISBN10 0807041017
- ISBN13 9780807041017
- Publish Date 13 February 2018 (first published 6 June 2017)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Beacon Press
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 248
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780807041017