<P> Interracial marriage is a form of marriage outside a specific social group (exogamy) involving spouses who belong to different socially - defined races or racialized ethnicities . In the past, it was outlawed in the United States of America and in South Africa as miscegenation . It became legal in the entire United States in 1967 when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in the case Loving v. Virginia that race - based restrictions on marriages violated the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution . </P> <P> Many jurisdictions have had regulations banning or restricting not just interracial marriage but also interracial sexual relations, including Germany during the Nazi period, South Africa under apartheid, and many states in the United States prior to a 1967 Supreme Court decision . </P>

When did it become illegal to prevent the marriage of an interracial couple in the united states