Perez v. Sharp

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In 1948, in the case Perez v. Sharp the Supreme Court of California recognized that interracial bans on marriage violated the Equal Protection Amendment of the Federal Constitution. 198 P. 2d 17. The plaintiffs won their case by a narrow margin; the vote was four to three. The landmark decision was written by Justice Roger J. Traynor.

[edit] Facts

The Plaintiffs, Andrea Perez (a white woman) and Sylvester Davis (a black man) filed suit to compel the county clerk of Los Angeles to issue a marriage license. At the time, a California law stated that ". . . no license may be issued authorizing the marriage of a white person with a Negro, mulatto, Mongolian or member of the Malay race." (Civil Code, section 69) California had banned interracial marriage since 1850, when it first enacted a statute prohibiting whites from marrying blacks or mulattoes.

[edit] Significance

By its decision in this case, the California Supreme Court became the first court of the twentieth century to hold that a state anti-miscegenation law violates the Federal Constitution. Kennedy, Randall (2003). Interracial Intimacies. Vintage Books, 259-266. ISBN 0375702644. It preceded Loving v. Virginia, the case in which the Supreme Court invalidated all such state statutes, by 19 years, and antedated the civil rights milestones such as Brown v. Board of Education from which Loving benefited.