Anti-miscegenation laws sought to criminalize marriage and sexual relations between whites and African Americans. While white men had forced enslaved women to have sex with them for generations, when those women were emancipated and could voluntarily enter into marital relations with whites the states often took action to jail one or both of the parties to the marriage.
Scott v. Georgia was a case challenging Georgia’s anti-miscegenation law. Charlotte Scott was a black woman charged with adultry and fornication for living as the wife of a white French immigrant. Here is the decision of the Georgia Supreme Court upholding the law barring the marriage of blacks to whites.
Source: The Political History of the United States of America During the Period of Reconstruction By Edward McPherson p. 474
Although it was not necessary to say so to decide the case, the court says in its decision that the separation of the races is “dictated by wise statesmanship.” Marriages between members of the “superior race” and the “inferior race” bring down the superior race to the level of the inferior race. The mixed race children are “sickly and effiminate,” according to the court. The products of mixed race marriages are “evil.” Presumably this includes the children of such marriages.
In the section below, the court confronts the prohibition in the Georgia Constitution barring legislation creating discrimination based on race. The court says that the prohibition is on legilation concerning a person’s civil rights, but that marriage is not a civil right, but a social status. The court then says that just as the legislature cannot compel a church to allow blacks to attend its services, it cannot repeal old laws regulating the social status of blacks, including allowing mixed race couples to marry.
Inequality of the races was created by God, according to the court.
In the section below, the court says that black civil rights are only protected because “the conquering people” of the North “have claimed the right to dictate” such protections. White Northerners, the court says, have “not claimed for the colored race social equality.” The court is clear about the source of civil rights for blacks; “The fortunes of war have compelled us to yield to the freedmen the legal rights above mentioned.”
Charlotte Scott found out that not only was her marriage in fact fornication, but that it was “unnatural” and that any children it produced were “evil.” These laws were part of a family separation policy designed to break up unions between the races. While they were not used againt the white rapist, or the white man visiting a brothel, they were used against families founded on love matches between people of different races.
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So they couldn’t even live together. 🙁
The Georgia Anti-Miscegenation laws remained on the books after the U S Supreme Court struck the law down in the 1967 Loving Case. The marriage between my husband, white and I black through the US Justice Department removed this law from the Georgia books.
There are article across the country referencing this Georgia historical event, yet web coverage does not reflect this history. It does not identify our interracial union as the case that struck these laws form the Georgia law books.
How can the web be updated to reflect this undocumented event in Georgia history?
Thank you for your service.
Wiki is one of the best ways to reach a wide audience. As an example, the subject is treated here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage You could reach out to the person or persons who added entries to that wiki, to ask them to add it to that wiki. Or, you can set up an account and learn how to edit wikis and write the section yourself with citations of record sources to support your story. And another option would be to reach out to a law school perhaps, and find a law student, or legal historian (perhaps someone who’s written about your case in a law journal) to write it for you.
I am the product of these crazy and hateful laws that have affected my whole life in a tremendous way. I was not legal for me to be born and my parents avoided prison time because I was adapted into an abusive family and told me that I was of only one race and that was the race of that family, which developed into an identity crisis of my own. Half of me was not suppose to be because I was taught that I was of one race. The family who adapted me abused me physically as well as emotionally and psychologically. The cousins did not truly and genuinely accept me as even being part of the family. I was one of the first cases of being a mixed race child in the elementary school in which I attended and I was physically assaulted everyday. Verbally assaulted as well and the teachers over looked it and ostracized me from the group and made me the villan. I had no brother or sister who I was raised with that would defend me. I was all alone in this world and society did not know what to do with me. I was a misfit at every turn and “hooking up” with another biracial person was few and far- one reason is because they were encouraged not to claim their biraciam, but claim only one race. they were taught to be ashamed of being of two races. So there was no refuge for me being the only child in this harsh and cruel world- with ignorant and racist school teachers and racist parents, I did not stand a chance. I am looking for the people who have experienced what I have, to speak up and expose it- expose the left and the right side of this atrocity and DO NOT be ashamed of being biracial like you were taught to be. Sincerely to all of my biracial people who have went through denying your other half all throughout your life.
Are Black women being punished for having children by White men in Georgia? My cousin, a Black woman lost custody of her child to a White man. There was no history of neglect or abuse. She can only see her child through supervised visits which she must pay for. This happened in Cobb County Georgia. Unbelievable. They were not married.
We should be raising the question of why the Supreme Court clearance Thomas who is married to a white woman is attacking abortion rates of all women attacking gay rights and many other issues that we have felt were our freedoms for many years now while he is violating the laws Georgia laws under interracial marriage and his children should have been removed from their homes and put into other homes because of the interracial marriage under Georgia law. I am not against interracial marriage but I am for removing the Supreme Court decision on interracial marriage to let Clarence Thomas know we are tired of his BS he is going to make it difficult for any black man to be in power because of his and his wife’s power play on the United States people. They should be charged with crimes for their interracial marriage and whoever married them should be charged with crimes and their children should be considered illegitimate children under the law of Georgia as I said I am not a hateful person but I believe Clarence Thomas has made his entire race look bad because of the white b**** he married and the power he is now enjoying but should be removed from his power because of the laws he has broken.