In the year 2000, Alabama, as you say, removed the anti-miscegenation article from its state Constitution. Alabama had made laws against racial intermarriage and cohabitation soon after the Civil War. These laws were written into the Constitution of 1901, the last time the Constitution was revised before 2001. I was living in Birmingham at the time and remember that the impetus for revision was primarily the updating of outmoded and unwieldy laws affecting business operations . Removing the anti-miscegenation provision, which had not been enforceable since 1967, was a by-product. Anti-miscegenation laws tell us that the state believed that it could control, and for the good of society should control, whom people love, cohabitate with, and marry. Laws affecting LGBTQ couples are today’s version of that belief.
Anti-miscegenation laws come from valuing and desiring to maintain “racial purity” (of the white race), which comes from a core belief in white supremacy. How frightening and reprehensible to see this attitude returning to endanger our democratic society and haunt our lives!