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A major component of the slave system was a prohibition on inter-racial marriage. This began during the slavery era. Maryland was the first colony to ban inter-racial marriage (1664). Slavey was ended by the 13 Amendment, but the laws and national obsession on inter-racial marriage were unchanged. State laws and court rulings continued to ban inter-racial marriage well into the 20th century. The initial bans were reinforced in the 19th century by notions of Social Darwinism. Learened men spoke, inckluding men considered to be scientists, eloquently of natural law. Religious leaders insisted that there was Biblical and moral support for these bans. The curious aspect of this national obsession was that while the effort to ban inter-racial marriage was not accompanied by any special interest in protecting balck women from being preyed on by white men. Even men who championed these laws and the Segrigtionist system are known to have relations with blavk women. The most notable example here is Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Thurmond championed the Dixiecrat Movement (1948) and served as both governor and senator. He sset the record in the Senate for fillibusters in his efforts to block civil rights legislation.
These laws were strongest and most prevalent in the southern states. They were, however, not limited to the South or states with segregation laws. The laws were first passed in the colonial period. They unlike most colonial legislation were not based on Ebglish Common Law. Mixed race parents having children is termed myiscegenation. More than half of the states had these laws by the early 20th century, 28 states in 1915. These laws were in large measure of the slave system, but criminalization in the slave staes was improbable because so many slave owners fostered children with slave women. Affter emancipation (1863-65), this changed and state legislsatures throughout the South passed laws against mixed race marriages. Six southern states included this prohibition in their constitutions. The states laws varied substatially, but mosdt focused on marriages between whites and blacks.
Slavey was ended by the 13th Amendment, but the laws and national obsession on inter-racial marriage were unchanged. The amendment did not address civil rights. In fact, two sepae laws were passed to guarantee black rights (14th and 15th amendment). Neither specifically marriage. And most states proceeded to pass laws prohibiting inter-racial marriage.
The legislation and judicial proceedings connected with prohibitions on inter-racial marriage constantly refer to natural law, science, and God. A Pennsylvania Court that the law was not based on "prejuduce, nor caste, nor injustice of any kind, but simply to suffer men to follow the law of races established by the creator himself, and not to compel them to intermix contrary to their instincts." (1867). A Georgia Supreme Court insisted that "the God of nature made it otherwise, and no human law can produce it, and no human tribunal can enforece it." (1869). AThe North Carolina Supreme Court ruled that "the policy of prohibiting the inter-marriage of the two races is so well established, and the wishes of both races so well known." (1869). [King] The black codes passed by state legislatures after Reconstruction were challenged in the courts. This was the case for the laws proibiting inter-racial marriage. The supreme court ruled in Pace v. Alabama (1883) that the states had the right to prohibit inter-racial marrige. As a result, state laws and court rulings continued to ban inter-racial marriage well into the 20th century. As late as the 1960s, inter-racial marriage called miscegenation was illegal in 41 states.
The initial bans were reinforced in the 19th century by notions of Social Darwinism. Learened men spoke, inckluding men considered to be scientists, eloquently of natural law.
Religious leaders insisted that there was Biblical and moral support for these bans.
Laws addressing inter-racial marriage could get quite complicated because of how race was defined and what level of parentage defined clasification. In addition there were also orintals and Native Americans to be considered. Each state addressed these issues differently.
The laws pohibiting inter-racial marriage until the late-19th century were primarily based on tradition and assumed differences. The eugenics movement provided what was considerd as a scientific foundation for laws prohibiting inter-racial marriage. And important eugenicists spoke out to support these laws. Madison Grant called race mixing "a social and racial crime" and was a step toward "racial suicide". Grant and other eugenicists insisted thsat the nixture of "higher" racial types with "lower" racial types esulted in the decline of rhe reputed higher race. Grant wrote, "When it becomes thoroughly understood that the children of mixed marriages between contrasted races belongs to the lower type, the importance of transmitting in unimpaired purity the blood inheritance of ages will be appreciated at its full value." [Grant] Officials at the Eugenics Record Office expressed similar views, including Charles Davenport and Harry Laughlin. Civic leaders, government officials, authors, teachers, ministers, and a broad spectrum of Americans shared these sentiments, now apparently endorsed by science. This scientific endorsement was enormously influential at the time when science was rapidy transforming America and Europe. Soon to be president, Vice President Calvin Coolidge erote, "Biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend."
The curious aspect of this national obsession was that while the effort to ban inter-racial marriage was not accompanied by any special interest in protecting balck women from being preyed on by white men.
Reading these laws and court cases one is struck by the absurdity of the arguments used. Some are virtually uncomprehensibe. One of the nost stunning was the very recent statement by the Virginina judge who had sentenced the Lovings for violating the state's law on inter-racial marriage. He told them, "Almighty God created the races, white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and he he placed them on separate continents. And but for the jnterference with his arrangements there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix"." (1959) Now besided demonstrating rather startling ignorance of a range of intellectual disciplines, the logic involved is bind bogling. In his statement the underlying premise was that blacks belong in Africa. Of course unsaid is the fact that slavers brought blacks unwillingly to Virginia and other states. Even more startling, using the jufge's logic, white Americans don't belong in America! One could almost laugh were it not for the fact that the American laws prohibiting inter-racial marriage as well as segragationist and eugenics laws served as a model for the NAZI Nuremurg Laws.
Laws prohibiting inter-racial marrige remained in effect through World War II. The NAZI Holocaust in Europe and actual scientific work in biology and genetics undercut the foundation for these laws. As with other racist laws, it was the courts which struck down laws prohibiting inter-racial marriage not concerted action by legislatures. The Supreme Court in the rather aptly named decession Loving v Virginia declared bans on inter-racial marriage illegal (1967). (Ironically the Virginia slogan to attract tourists was "Virginia is for lovers.) The court ruled that laws limiting who people can marry violate "one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of hapiness by free men ..." This landmark decision by a 9-0 vote ruled that Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute ("Racial Integrity Act of 1924") was unconstitutional because it denied the plantifs the equal protectiion of the law quaranted by the 14th amendment.
I grew up in Washington, D.C. A black friend lived next door but I was only 11 years old and blissifully ignorant of the issues of race in America. I don't ever recall a conversation about race in our home. We moved to Montgomery, Alabama (1953). I remember coming home from school for lunch one day. I was in the 6th grade. We were having the house painted. I recall the conversation while eating my Cambell's chicken noodle soup. I'm not sure what brought up the topic, but the painter told my mother that he would should his daughter before she married a black person--and he
did used a different term for black person. I remember being shocked. The topic of blacks and whites marring had never really occurred to me before, but the way the painter spoke shocked me. I never realized until that point that such hate existed.
Fast forward 20 years. I was teaching in a newly integrated South Carolina high school. It was a fascinating experience. I taught American history and various social sciences. The students considered me a little exotic. They were never quite sure what
to expect when they came into my class. We had lots of guest speakers and did some roll playing. We went on lots of field trips. We visited facilities like the State Hospital and a Head Start center. One summer my students organized a work experience at a migrant labor center. We even went on a field trip to an abortion
clinic. (I wanted to have a picnic in a strip mine, but couldn't find one close enough.) My students playfully accused me of wanting to protect the "Naugas" as in Naugahyde, which I though was a good joke. We did a unit on the Women's Movement which was a learning experience for me. I remember that the boy's
assured me that there were things that girls just couldn't do. The next day I showed them some photographs of Soviet women which resulted in an interesting discussion.
It was our class discussions on race, however, that elicited the most discussion. Most of my students looked on blacks as a problem and believed that blacks had not played an important role in building America. I told them some rather basic things such as lave labor through cotton exports was a major factor in financing the
industrialization of the United States. Then I told them blacks helped the Union win the Civil War or that many of the calvalry soldiers riding to the recuse on the Wrstern frontier were blacks. My students didn't believe it at first. Then we went to the library
and we looked up US. export data in the 19th century as well as information about black soldiers and Buffalo soldiers. The students were incredulous. We discussed why this was never depicted in movies and television at the time.
I must say that our principal was rather flexible about all of this. I recall though that once he called me into his office. A rather upset woman was sitting there who he introduced as the mother of one of my students. He explained that the mother complained that I was promoting inter-racial marriage in my classes. I was rather
surprised to say the least. While we did talk about all sorts of things in class, this was not one that I recalled even coming up. After talking with the mother a while, I found out what she was taking about. We discussed the Civil Rights Movement in some
detail in my sociology class. Most of my students insisted that bad things had happened, but that now racial prejudive no longer existed. My respnse to this was to ask the girls how their parents would resond if they made one of two announcemrnts: I'm going to marry 1) a black banker or 2) a white ditch digger. My students were
mostly college bound high school seniors. Instantly each of them, who cared to be honest, that racial prejydice was alive and well. In my discussions with the upset mother, all I could tell her was that one thrust of my classes was that all people are equal. And if the students accepted that, one correlation was that some may indeed
choose marriage partners of a different race, but that was a far cry from promoting inter-racial marriage.
Even men who championed these laws and the Segregtionist system are known to have relations with black women. The most notable example here is Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Thurmond championed the Dixiecrat Movement (1948) and served as both governor and senator. He sset the record in the Senate for fillibusters in his efforts to block civil rights legislation.
Grant, Madison. The Passing of the Great Race (1916).
King, Colber I King. "Marriage in the march of time," The Washington Post (February 12, 2005), p. A19.
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