Anti-Miscegenation Laws in 38 States Criminalize Black-White Relationships

By 1900, 38 states had laws criminalizing marriage or sexual relations between Black and white people. Southern states treated such relationships as criminal even when consensual; Black men accused of sexual relations with white women faced lynch mobs without trial. The enforcement was entirely one-directional: white men who raped Black women faced no prosecution. The laws were not struck down until Loving v. Virginia in 1967.