{"id":60242,"date":"2020-10-28T20:31:34","date_gmt":"2020-10-28T20:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=60242"},"modified":"2020-10-28T20:36:39","modified_gmt":"2020-10-28T20:36:39","slug":"bernard-cohen-lawyer-in-landmark-mixed-marriage-case-dies-at-86","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=60242","title":{"rendered":"Bernard Cohen, Lawyer in Landmark Mixed-Marriage Case, Dies at 86"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bernard Cohen, Lawyer in Landmark Mixed-Marriage Case, Dies at 86<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>
\n2020-10-15<\/p>\n

Neil Genzlinger<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nBernard S. Cohen<\/a>, left, and Philip J. Hirschkop<\/a>, co-counsels in Loving v. Virginia<\/em><\/a>. The Supreme Court\u2019s landmark unanimous ruling in that case in 1967 struck down bans on interracial marriage. Francis Miller\/The LIFE Picture Collection, via Getty Images<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

With Philip J. Hirschkop<\/a>, he brought <\/em>Loving v. Virginia<\/a> to the Supreme Court, which struck down laws against interracial marriages.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cDear Sir,\u201d began the letter from Washington<\/a> that found its way to Bernard S. Cohen<\/a> at the American Civil Liberties Union<\/a> in June 1963. \u201cI am writing to you concerning a problem we have. Five years ago my husband and I were married here in the District<\/a>. We then returned to Virginia<\/a> to live. My husband is white, and I am part Negro and part Indian.\u201d<\/p>\n

The letter, from Mildred Loving<\/a>, went on to explain that when she and her husband, Richard, returned to Caroline County, Va.<\/a>, to live, they were charged with violating Virginia\u2019s law against mixed-race marriages<\/a> and exiled from the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was that simple letter that got us into this not-so-simple case,\u201d Mr. Cohen said later. The not-so-simple case was Loving v. Virginia<\/em><\/a>, which Mr. Cohen and his co-counsel, Philip J. Hirschkop<\/a>, eventually took to the Supreme Court. In a landmark unanimous ruling in 1967, the court said that laws banning interracial marriage, which were in effect in a number of states, mostly in the South, were unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

Mr. Cohen died on Monday at an assisted-living center in Fredericksburg, Va<\/a>. He was 86…<\/p>\n

Read the entire obituary here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With Philip J. Hirschkop, he brought Loving v. Virginia to the Supreme Court, which struck down laws against interracial marriages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,1467,8,20,693],"tags":[31189,31188,9543,9365,24061,2754,2640,9545,9366,25362,1335,2327],"class_list":["post-60242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-law","category-media-archive","category-usa","category-virginia","tag-aclu","tag-american-civil-liberties-union","tag-bernard-cohen","tag-bernard-s-cohen","tag-loving-vs-virginia","tag-mildred-loving","tag-new-york-times","tag-philip-hirschkop","tag-philip-j-hirschkop","tag-richard-and-mildred-loving","tag-richard-loving","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60242"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60247,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60242\/revisions\/60247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}