A Young Negro Man and White Woman Denied Marriage License in Little Rock, Arkansas - LDF Files Suit

Press Release
September 10, 1968

Cite this item
A Young Negro Man and White Woman Denied Marriage License in Little Rock, Arkansas - LDF Files Suit preview

Cite this item

  • Press Releases, Volume 5. A Young Negro Man and White Woman Denied Marriage License in Little Rock, Arkansas - LDF Files Suit, 1968. dbf2dbf0-b892-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/b8616e6b-58b9-467f-bfee-56006f04152c/a-young-negro-man-and-white-woman-denied-marriage-license-in-little-rock-arkansas-ldf-files-suit. Accessed November 23, 2025.

    Copied!

    September 10, 1968 

Interracial marriage 

LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS--A young Negro man and white woman have been denied 

a marriage license here because Arkansas law states that "all marriages of 

white persons with Negroes or mulattos are declared to be illegal and void." 

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) cooperating 

attorneys John Walker and Burl Rotenberry will file a suit on the couple's 

behalf in the U. S. District Court here Moniay, September 9. They will seek 

to have the state law declared unconstitutional and to have a court order 

the county clerk issue the couple a license. 

Twenty year-old Michael D. Higgins and 19 year-old Susan E. Lane 

applied for a license in Putlaski County and were told by the county clerk, 

R.S. "Bob" Peters that Arkansas law would not allow marriages between the 

races. 

When the couple reminded Peters of the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court ruling 

that interracial marriages could not be declared unlawful, he told them that 

he had read about the decision somewhere but had had no official word to change 

this action. He said until some official word was given he would not issue 

them a license. 

LDF attorney Rosenberry contacted Peters later and asked him to 

reconsider the matter. Peters refused on the same grounds, saying that he 

had had no word from state officials to act on any grounds other than the 



nineteen century law forbidding interracial marriage. 

Peters claimed that the matter made no difference to him one 

way or another. 

Release to: N.Y. Times - New York 

U.P.I. —- New York 

A.P. - New York

Copyright notice

© NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.

This collection and the tools to navigate it (the “Collection”) are available to the public for general educational and research purposes, as well as to preserve and contextualize the history of the content and materials it contains (the “Materials”). Like other archival collections, such as those found in libraries, LDF owns the physical source Materials that have been digitized for the Collection; however, LDF does not own the underlying copyright or other rights in all items and there are limits on how you can use the Materials. By accessing and using the Material, you acknowledge your agreement to the Terms. If you do not agree, please do not use the Materials.

Additional info

To the extent that LDF includes information about the Materials’ origins or ownership or provides summaries or transcripts of original source Materials, LDF does not warrant or guarantee the accuracy of such information, transcripts or summaries, and shall not be responsible for any inaccuracies.