Examples Of Anti Miscegenation Laws

Anti-miscegenation laws in the US were created to strictly enforce racial segregation of interracial relationships. A problem with biracial mixing is that it does not allow one to be discriminated against as easily. For example, a person could be half white, but does not look white at all. The dominant culture does not know how to face and handle these interracial relationships, so they banned them from getting married. Anti-miscegenation laws have its roots between whites and blacks following slavery. Laws were later passed that barred Asians from marrying Whites. In 1850, an anti-miscegenation laws stated that it was illegal for a

to the same degree. Thus, ... because its miscegenation statutes punish equally both the white and the Negro participants in an interracial marriage, these statutes, ... do not constitute an invidious discrimination based upon race.

Discrimination is when someone has a bias opinion on a specific crowd of people due to their race, sex, religion, or order of rank. This basically goes hand in hand with the phrase judging a book by its cover meaning the person with the negative opinion will not give the other individual a fair chance for the reason being they are being stereotypical and not thinking of the other person’s talent, or character. A modern day example of discrimination would be if a male employer were to compensate a female employee a lower pay due to her gender. At some time in everyone’s life due to today society, we have all been victimized by discrimination. Whether it may be a dirty look from a random person, or the way you dress, talk, and even look.

political debate over the decisive issue of gay marriage forces us to rethink our commitment to

The United States Supreme Court was, and still is today, the important backbone of America’s judicial system. This court deals with numerous cases throughout the year and keeps the country and government fair with its decisions. However, being responsible for giving justice where it is due, the Court is sometimes faced with hard choices that will make a lasting impression on the U.S. and its people. In the case of Loving v. Virginia, it did just that. As a Supreme Court landmark case, Loving v. Virginia definitely indicated a critical moment of change in civil rights for America and interracial couples everywhere.

The idea of the one-drop rule was applied to these laws causing it not only to be a widely excepted rule by the countries populous, but also as a legally accepted one. Hollinger explains that “The principle was sharpened under Jim Crow, when opposition to social equality for black was well served by a monolithic notion of blackness accompanied by legislation that outlawed as miscegenation black-white marriages.” [10] These laws rested upon the constructed notion that blackness was somehow indicated by biological factors. A perfect example of this is that “Law regulating interracial marriage and the conduct of free people of color defined blackness as a genealogical quantum” In some places even those who had “one-sixteenth “black blood” [were] legally black,” [11] and therefore denied the right to marry a white person. Anti-miscegenation legislation, which has implied use of the one-drop rule, has a long history in the United States with the final anti-miscegenation law was struck down in Loving vs. Virginia as recently as 1967. These laws were created to maintain racial purity, and have been instrumental in solidifying both the idea of race and different racial categories in the United States.

Enacted by lawmakers bitter about the loss against the North, Jim Crow Laws blatantly favored whites and repressed those of color as many refused to welcome blacks into civic-life, still believing them to be inferior. These laws were essentially a legalized legislative barrier to the freedom promised by our constitution, and the newly won war against the southern states to end slavery. This institutionalized form of inequality spread like a wildfire in the subsequent decades, separating the races in every way imaginable; in all walks of life. Although these laws varied from state to state, we see a common trend of laws keeping blacks and whites separated, particularly in social settings and social institutions. Some of these laws include but are not limited to marriage, hospitalization, restrooms, public transportation, and prisons; all of which isolating blacks from whites. We even find laws regarding liquor licensing such as a law in Georgia which required all persons licensed to sell alcohol, to serve exclusively whites or exclusively colored people; prohibiting sales to the two races simultaneously (NPS, 2015). Laws such as this were not few and far between. Segregation of blacks became a defining custom in nearly every aspect of life in the mid-nineteenth century well into the mid-twentieth century.

In the late 1800s to the early 1900s segregation was one of the biggest issues in the court of law. After slavery was finally abolished African Americans were able to have more freedom, but they were still treated different than any other race. The Jim Crow laws are an example of the law that affected everyday life in the African American community in the beginning of the 1890s. This law segregated schools, parks, libraries, drinking fountains, restrooms, buses, trains, and restaurants. The struggle to achieve equality was made even more difficult by the legislation of racism in the Plessy v Ferguson case.

Loving v. Virginia was a Supreme Court case that was made known because a couple was denied marriage because they were two different races. Although the Civil Rights Act (that guaranteed rights of people of all races) passed

In the year of 1863, two New York Democrats with the intention of obstructing Abraham Lincoln’s bid for re-election coined the term ‘miscegenation’. They believed that miscegenation was crucial to a progressive humanity. The Democrats posed as Republicans and anonymously wrote and published a seventy-two-page propaganda pamphlet, advocating for inter-racial marriages between “the white men’ and “Negro”. The article was entitled Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro. During this time, the American Civil War was in action and two years later slavery in the United Sates was abolished. Da Cruz Brito said that, “ It was during and after the Civil War that sexual-affective relations

Justice Warren in the unanimous opinion of the Court, states that the anti-miscegenation statutes cannot stand constituently with the Fourteenth Amendment and violated equal protection. Virginia argued that its miscegenation statutes punished both white and black participants in an interracial marriage equally and served the legitimate state purpose of preserving the “racial integrity” of its citizens by referencing the decision in Naim v. Naim, 197 Va. 80, 87 S.E.2d 749 (1955). The Court rejected the Virginia’s contention and stated: “The clear and central purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to eliminate all official state sources of invidious racial discrimination in the States.” The “equal application” argument put forward by Virginia

In What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America, Peggy Pascoe examines the history of miscegenation and how it laid the foundation of white supremacy in the United States. While visible forms of white supremacy such as segregation helped mask the importance of miscegenation laws, Pascoe argues that miscegenation laws was a national movement tied inseparably to gender and sexuality that went beyond the Black/White dynamic, which courts and bureaucracies of local marriage officials used to produce race in America. Pascoe goes on to argue that the core of miscegenation laws reached beyond the realm of romance as courts began to condemn the respectability of interracial relationships by equating them with illicit sex rather than marriage. Thus, this idea of unrespectable, unnatural, and immoral relationships became women into the fabric of the American society.

Virginia case successfully outlawed legislation that prohibited members of different races to wed in holy matrimony, despite the fact that society’s view on interracial marriages remained intractable. In 1924, legislation was passed in Virginia that was designed to limit mixed-race relationships, called the Racial Integrity Act. Not only did it try to prevent intermixing, but it also produced two strict racial categories of “colored” and “white” that divided society even more. Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple, fought to repeal that act in 1967 when they were both arrested for getting married, despite Virginia’s ban on marriages between blacks and whites. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the couple knew that they could not legally marry in their state of Virginia, so they went to Washington, D.C, and after “returning to their home state…the couple was charged with unlawful cohabitation and jailed” (ACLU). During the state court trial, the presiding judge, Leon Bazile found the couple to be guilty, justifying his ruling saying “[the] Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents...the fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.” After this ruling, Mildred felt compelled to write a letter to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, asking for assistance fighting this state ruling. Soon, they were referred to the ACLU

The Jim Crow laws perpetuated segregation. This set of rules to show the dominance of the white race were absolutely appalling. They were mainly operated in the southern portion of the United States, but not exclusively. The Jim Crow laws “were in place from the late 1870’s until the civil rights movement began in the 1950’s” (“Jim Crow Laws”). Blacks and whites could not use the same drinking fountains, restrooms, or attend the same restaurants, churches, and schools. It was considered rape or an unwanted advance for a black man to offer his hand to a white woman. Another law was that african-american couples could not show affection towards each other in a public area because it “offended whites” (Pilgrim) along with countless more. There

Virginia case consisted of a black and white couple that were married outside of the state. They came to virginia to live there life when they were accused of committing a crime against the law stating black and white people cannot get married. The plead guilty because yes they were in fact married. They were originally sentenced to one year in prison. Later they were given the opportunity to leave the state. Bernard S. Cohen (who was representing the lovings)"... filed a motion in the Caroline County Circuit Court to vacate their 1959 conviction for violating the state law that forbids interracial marriage. He also asks that the two one-year suspended sentences be set aside." as Encyclopedia Virginia put it. That though was in 1963, In 1967 the supreme court unanimously rules out the law as a violation of the fourteenth amendment. That was the ending of the Loving v. Virginia case. I was surprised about this case I believe some aspects of it are in our lives