Maryland was the first of the British colonies to forbid interracial marriage. That was in 1664. Interracial marriage came to be called miscegenation (a particularly ugly sounding word) and was still illegal in Maryland until 1967. Two University of Maryland SDS members were among the first wave of interracial couples to marry when the "miscegnation" laws were finally overturned. One of them was the first Black woman to live in a UM women's dorm.

Although celebrated in grade school Maryland history classes as the colony of "religious toleration", toleration stopped at the color line. Similar misegnation laws became commonplace even after the American Revolution established (in theory) the concept of equal rights for all. Vermont was the only state to never introduce such legislation.

Then the Supreme Court stepped in and decided the Loving v. Virginia case.

Mildred Jeter (a black woman) and Richard Perry Loving (a white man) were Virginia residents who got married in DC in 1958 to avoid Virginia's Jim Crow marriage laws. When they returned to Virginia, they were arrested. They pleaded guilty and were sentenced to one year in prison, with the sentence suspended for 25 years on condition they leave the state. Judge Leon Bazile had this to say,

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."

The Lovings moved to DC and in 1963 began a series of lawsuits to overturn their conviction on Fourteenth Amendment grounds. The Supreme Court agreed with them in 1967 and the Virginia law was declared unconstitutional.

This ruling ended all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States.

Among the first Old Line State lovers to celebrate the freedom to marry irrespective of race were UM SDS members Debbye Stone (who now prefers to be called "Strongheart" ) and Mark Steiner who spoke their wedding vows in 1968. Since they could not find a wedding cake that displayed an inter-racial couple, Debbye's mom colored in the bride at the top of the cake to symbolize Debbye's actual African American skin tone.

Debbye Stone' s mom has kept the cake decoration in her china closet ever since.

In 1996 a made-for-TV movie based on the Lovings case called Mr and Mrs. Lovings starring Timothy Hutton, Lela Rochon, Ruby Dee, Bill Nunn, & Corey Parker aired on Showtime Network. It featured original music by Branford Marsalis. Too bad it's not available on Netflix.