On this date in 1977, the first legal interracial marriage in North Carolina occurred.
That state officially recognized John A. Wilkinson's marriage to Lorraine Mary Turner in April of that same year. Wilkinson was black, and Turner was white.
North Carolina was one of over 15 states in 1967 whose laws were eventually changed to accept interracial marriage legally.
By the Color of Our Skin:
The Illusion of Integration and the Reality of Race,
by Leonard Steinhorn and Barbara Diggs-Brown,
New York: Dutton
