High Court Ends Fla. Interracial Sex Ban

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Press Releases, Volume 2. High Court Ends Fla. Interracial Sex Ban, 1964. 4cd79a7e-b592-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/45948c12-5e1b-4807-b738-19ed10fc1eb7/high-court-ends-fla-interracial-sex-ban. Accessed December 04, 2025.

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    10 Columbus Circle 
New York, N.Y. 10019 
JUdson 6-8397 

NAACP 

Legal Defense and Educational Fund 
PRESS RELEASE 
President 

Dr. Allan Knight Chalmers 

FOR RELEASE 

Saturday, 
December 12, 1964 

Director-Counsel 

Jack Greenberg 

 Ccatiance Hallea Mot 
; HTGa COURT ENDS FLA, 

INTERRACIAL SEX BAN 

WASHINGTON---The U.S. Supreme Court said this week that Florida 
cannot make it a crime for Negroes and whites who are not married 
to occupy the same room at night. 

This ruling came six weeks after attorneys of the NAACP Legal 

Defense Fund argued before the high court in behalf of a Miami 

Beach couple---Miss Connie Hoffman, white and Dewey McLaughlin, 

Negro, 

The couple were arrested and convicted under a Rlorida:'‘ *- 

law that made it a crime for a "Negro man and white woman...who are 

not married to each other (to)...habitually live in and occupy in 

the night time the same room." 

"We find nothing," wrote Justice Byron R. White in the Court's 

unanimous decision, "which makes it essential to punish promiscuity 

by one racial group and not that of another. 

"There is no suggestion that a white person and a Negro are any 

more likely habitually to occupy the same room together than the 

white or the Negro couple or to engage in illicit intercourse if 

they do," he said. 

Jack Greenberg, director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense 

Fund commented that the Supreme Court "did the obvious in striking 

down this conviction, 

"As a legal matter, this knocks on the head the ultimate 

superstition upon which racial differences in law are supposed to 

be justified." 

The Supreme Court did not deal with the Legal Defense Fund's 

argument against Florida's law prohibiting interracial marriage. 

t Leen states still have laws against interracial marriage: 
Alabama,“Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North 
and South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia~--all members of 
the.old confederacy. Also the border states of Delaware, Maryland, 
West thee Missouri, Oklahoma, Kentucky, indtena and Wyeming, 

case was argued by two members of the Legal Defense Fund 
Board of Daregtors illiam ae Seas Jr. of Philadelphia, Pa. 
and ieee . 8 

Defense Fana® sreeneetes eak enemas CRORE Aone dot ed. ba. be 
New York and G.E. Graves, Jr. of Miami, Florida, loca B cistk steam, 

Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Information—Night Number 212 Riverside 9-8487

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High Court Ends Fla. Interracial Sex Ban

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