The one-drop rule is a legal principle of
racial classification that was prominent in the 20th-century United States. It asserted that any person with even one ancestor of
black ancestry ("one drop" of "black blood")
[Davis, F. James. Frontlin]
"Who's black. One nation's definition"
Retrieved 27 February 2015. is considered black (''
Negro
In the English language, ''negro'' is a term historically used to denote persons considered to be of Black African heritage. The word ''negro'' means the color black in both Spanish and in Portuguese, where English took it from. The term can be ...
'' or ''colored'' in historical terms). It is an example of
hypodescent
In societies that regard some races or ethnic groups of people as dominant or superior and others as subordinate or inferior, hypodescent refers to the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union to the subordinate group. The opposite prac ...
, the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union between different socioeconomic or ethnic groups to the group with the lower status, regardless of proportion of ancestry in different groups.
[Conrad P. Kottak]
"What is hypodescent?"
, ''Human Diversity and "Race"'', Cultural Anthropology, Online Learning, McGraw Hill. Retrieved 21 April 2010.
This concept became codified into the law of some U.S. states in the early 20th century. It was associated with the principle of "invisible blackness" that developed after the long history of racial interaction in the
South
South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...
, which had included the hardening of
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
as a racial
caste system
Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultural ...
and later
segregation.
Antebellum conditions
Before the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by state ...
, free individuals of mixed race (
free people of color
In the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, free people of color (French: ''gens de couleur libres''; Spanish: ''gente de color libre'') were primarily people of mixed African, European, and Native American descent who were not ...
) were considered legally white if they had less than either one-eighth or
one-quarter African ancestry (depending on the state).
[ Joshua D. Rothman, ''Notorious in the Neighborhood: Sex and Families Across the Color Line in Virginia, 1787–1861'' (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, 2003), p. 68.] Many mixed-race people were absorbed into the majority culture based simply on appearance, associations and carrying out community responsibilities. These and community acceptance were the more important factors if a person's racial status were questioned, not their documented ancestry. Because of the
social mobility
Social mobility is the movement of individuals, families, households or other categories of people within or between social strata in a society. It is a change in social status relative to one's current social location within a given societ ...
of antebellum society in frontier areas, many people did not have documentation about their ancestors anyway.
Based on late 20th-century
DNA analysis and a preponderance of historical evidence, US president
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was previously the nati ...
is widely believed to have fathered the six
mixed-race
Mixed race people are people of more than one race or ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including ''multiethnic'', ''polyethnic'', occasionally ''bi-eth ...
children with his slave
Sally Hemings
Sarah "Sally" Hemings ( 1773 – 1835) was an enslaved woman with one-quarter African ancestry owned by president of the United States Thomas Jefferson, one of many he inherited from his father-in-law, John Wayles.
Hemings's mother Elizabet ...
, who was herself three-quarters white and a paternal half-sister of his wife
Martha Wayles Jefferson. Four of them survived to adulthood.
Under Virginia law of the time, while their seven-eighths European ancestry would have made them legally white if they’d been free, being
born to an enslaved mother made them automatically enslaved from birth. Jefferson allowed the two oldest to escape in 1822 (freeing them legally was a public action he elected to avoid because he would have had to gain permission from the state legislature); the two youngest he freed in his 1826 will. Three of the four entered white society as adults. Subsequently, their descendants identified as white.
Although
racial segregation
Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the Statute of the Intern ...
was adopted legally by southern states of the former Confederacy in the late 19th century, legislators resisted defining race by law as part of preventing interracial marriages. In 1895, in
South Carolina
)'' Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no)
, anthem = "Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind"
, Former = Province of South Carolina
, seat = Columbia
, LargestCity = Charleston
, LargestMetro = G ...
during discussion,
George D. Tillman said,
It is a scientific fact that there is not one full-blooded Caucasian on the floor of this convention. Every member has in him a certain mixture of... colored blood...It would be a cruel injustice and the source of endless litigation, of scandal, horror, feud, and bloodshed to undertake to annul or forbid marriage for a remote, perhaps obsolete trace of Negro blood. The doors would be open to scandal, malice, and greed.
The one-drop rule was not formally codified as law until the 20th century, from 1910 in
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to ...
to 1930 as one of
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the East Coast of the United States, Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography an ...
's
"racial integrity laws", with similar laws in several other states in between.
Native Americans
In the early colonial years, children born of one
Indigenous and one non-Native parent usually had a white father and an Indigenous mother. This was largely due to the majority of the early colonists being male. As many
Native American tribes had matrilineal kinship systems, they considered the children to be born to the mother's family and clan. If they were raised in the culture, they were considered members of the community, and therefore, fully Native American.
Prior to colonization, and still in traditional communities, the idea of determining belonging by degree of "blood" was, and is, unheard of. Native American tribes did not use blood quantum law until the U.S. government introduced the
Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, instead determining tribal status on the basis of kinship, lineage and family ties.
However, many land cession treaties, particularly during
Indian removal in the 19th century, contained provisions for "
mixed-blood
The term mixed-blood in the United States and Canada has historically been described as people of multiracial backgrounds, in particular mixed European and Native American ancestry. Today, the term is often seen as pejorative.
Northern Woodlan ...
" descendants of European and native ancestry to receive either parcels of land ceded in the treaty, or a share in a lump sum of money, with specifications as to the degree of tribal ancestry required to qualify. Though these did not typically apply a one-drop rule, determining the ancestry of individual claimants was not straightforward, and the process was often rife with fraud.
Among
patrilineal
Patrilineality, also known as the male line, the spear side or agnatic kinship, is a common kinship system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is recorded through their father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritan ...
tribes, such as the
Omaha, historically a child born to an Omaha mother and a white father could belong officially to the Omaha tribe only if the child were formally adopted into it by a male citizen. In contemporary practice, tribal laws around citizenship and parentage can vary widely between nations.
Between 1904 and 1919, tribal members
with any amount of African ancestry were
disenrolled from the
Chitimacha
The Chitimacha ( ; or ) are a federally recognized tribe of Native Americans who live in the U.S. state of Louisiana, mainly on their reservation in St. Mary Parish near Charenton on Bayou Teche. They are the only Indigenous people in the s ...
tribe of Louisiana, and their descendants have since then been denied tribal membership.
20th century and contemporary times
In 20th-century America, the concept of the one-drop rule has been primarily applied by white Americans to those of
sub-Saharan
Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the African co ...
black African ancestry, when some whites were trying to maintain some degree of overt or covert
white supremacy
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White s ...
. The poet
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, H ...
wrote in his 1940 memoir:
This rule meant many mixed-race people, of diverse ancestry, were simply seen as African-American, and their more diverse ancestors forgotten and erased, making it difficult to accurately trace ancestry in the present day.
Many descendants of those who were enslaved and trafficked by Europeans and Americans have assumed they have
Native American ancestry.
Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s 2006
PBS documentary on the genetic makeup of African Americans, ''
African American Lives'', focused on these stories of Native American heritage in African-American communities.
DNA test results showed, after African, primarily European ancestors for all but two of the celebrities interviewed.
However, many critics point to the limitations of DNA testing for ancestry, especially for minority populations.
During World War II, Colonel
Karl Bendetsen
Colonel Karl Robin Bendetsen (October 11, 1907 – June 28, 1989) was an American politician and military officer who served in the Washington Army National Guard during World War II and later as the United States Under Secretary of the Army ...
stated that anyone with "one drop of Japanese blood" was liable for
forced internment in camps.
Today there are no enforceable laws in the U.S. in which the one-drop rule is applicable. Sociologically, however, while the concept has in recent years become less acceptable within the Black community, with more people identifying as biracial, research has found that in white society, it is still common to associate biracial children primarily with the individual's non-white ancestry.
[
]
Legislation and practice
Both before and after the American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by state ...
, many people of mixed ancestry who "looked white" and were of mostly white ancestry were legally absorbed into the white majority. State laws established differing standards. For instance, an 1822 Virginia law stated that to be defined as mulatto
(, ) is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese ...
(that is, multi-racial), a person had to have at least one-quarter (equivalent to one grandparent) African ancestry.[ Social acceptance and identity were historically the keys to racial identity. Virginia's one-fourth standard remained in place until 1910, when the standard was changed to one sixteenth. In ]1930
Events
January
* January 15 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. This is the closest moon distance at in recent history, and the next one will be ...
, even the one sixteenth standard was abandoned in favor of a more stringent standard. The act defined a person as legally "colored" (black) for classification and legal purposes if the individual had ''any'' African ancestry.
Although the Virginia legislature increased restrictions on free blacks following the Nat Turner Rebellion
Nat Turner's Rebellion, historically known as the Southampton Insurrection, was a rebellion of enslaved Virginians that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831.Schwarz, Frederic D.1831 Nat Turner's Rebellion" ''American Her ...
of 1831, it refrained from establishing a one-drop rule. When a proposal was made by Travis H. Eppes
Travis may refer to:
People and fictional characters
*Travis (given name), a list of people and fictional characters
*Travis (surname), a list of people
Places in the United States
*Travis, Staten Island, a neighborhood
*Travis Air Force Base, a ...
and debated in 1853, representatives realized that such a rule could adversely affect whites, as they were aware of generations of interracial relationships. During the debate, a person wrote to the Charlottesville
Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen ...
newspaper:
The state legislators agreed. No such law was passed until 1924, apparently assisted by the fading recollection of such mixed familial histories. In the 21st century, such interracial family histories are being revealed as individuals undergo DNA genetic analysis.
The Melungeon
Melungeons ( ) are an ethnicity from the Southeastern United States who descend from Europeans, Native American, and sub-Saharan Africans brought to America as indentured servants and later as slaves. Historically, the Melungeons were associate ...
s are a group of multiracial families of mostly European and African ancestry whose ancestors were free in colonial Virginia. They migrated to the frontier in Kentucky and Tennessee. Their descendants have been documented over the decades as having tended to marry persons classified as "white". Their descendants became assimilated into the majority culture from the 19th to the 20th centuries.
Pursuant to Reconstruction later in the 19th century, southern states acted to impose racial segregation by law and restrict the liberties of blacks, specifically passing laws to exclude them from politics and voting. From 1890 to 1908, all of the former Confederate states passed such laws, and most preserved disfranchisement until after passage of federal civil rights laws in the 1960s. At the South Carolina constitutional convention in 1895, an anti-miscegenation
Miscegenation ( ) is the interbreeding of people who are considered to be members of different Race (human categorization), races. The word, now usually considered pejorative, is derived from a combination of the Latin terms ''miscere'' ("to m ...
law and changes that would disfranchise
Disfranchisement, also called disenfranchisement, or voter disqualification is the restriction of suffrage (the right to vote) of a person or group of people, or a practice that has the effect of preventing a person exercising the right to vote. D ...
blacks were proposed. Delegates debated a proposal for a one-drop rule to include in these laws. George D. Tillman said the following in opposition:
In 1865, Florida passed an act that both outlawed miscegenation and defined the amount of Black ancestry needed to be legally defined as a "person of color". The act stated that "every person who shall have one-eighth or more of negro blood shall be deemed and held to be a person of color." (This was the equivalent of one great-grandparent.) Additionally, the act outlawed fornication, as well as the intermarrying of white females with men of color. However, the act permitted the continuation of marriages between white persons and persons of color that were established before the law was enacted.
Strangely enough, the one-drop rule was not made law until the early 20th century. This was decades after the Civil War, emancipation
Emancipation generally means to free a person from a previous restraint or legal disability. More broadly, it is also used for efforts to procure economic and social rights, political rights or equality, often for a specifically disenfranchi ...
, and the Reconstruction era. It followed restoration of white supremacy
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White s ...
in the South and the passage of Jim Crow
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
racial segregation
Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the Statute of the Intern ...
laws. In the 20th century, it was also associated with the rise of eugenics
Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...
and ideas of racial purity. From the late 1870s on, white Democrats regained political power in the former Confederate states and passed racial segregation laws controlling public facilities, and laws and constitutions from 1890 to 1910 to achieve disfranchisement of most blacks. Many poor whites were also disfranchised in these years, by changes to voter registration rules that worked against them, such as literacy test
A literacy test assesses a person's literacy skills: their ability to read and write have been administered by various governments, particularly to immigrants. In the United States, between the 1850s and 1960s, literacy tests were administered ...
s, longer residency requirements and poll taxes
A poll tax, also known as head tax or capitation, is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources.
Head taxes were important sources of revenue for many governments f ...
.
The first challenges to such state laws were overruled by Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
decisions which upheld state constitutions that effectively disfranchised many. White Democratic-dominated legislatures proceeded with passing Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sou ...
that instituted racial segregation in public places and accommodations, and passed other restrictive voting legislation. In '' Plessy v. Ferguson'', the Supreme Court allowed racial segregation of public facilities, under the "separate but equal" doctrine.
Jim Crow laws reached their greatest influence during the decades from 1910 to 1930. Among them were hypodescent laws, defining as black anyone with any black ancestry, or with a very small portion of black ancestry. Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to ...
adopted such a "one-drop" statute in 1910, and Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a U.S. state, state in the Deep South and South Central United States, South Central regions of the United States. It is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 20th-smal ...
soon followed. Then Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
and Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the ...
in 1911, Mississippi
Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Mis ...
in 1917, North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia a ...
in 1923, Alabama
(We dare defend our rights)
, anthem = " Alabama"
, image_map = Alabama in United States.svg
, seat = Montgomery
, LargestCity = Huntsville
, LargestCounty = Baldwin County
, LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham
, area_total_km2 = 135,7 ...
and Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to t ...
in 1927, and Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the East Coast of the United States, Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography an ...
in 1930. During this same period, Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, a ...
, Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th ...
, Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virgini ...
, Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; ...
, Missouri
Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...
, Nebraska
Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the so ...
, North Dakota
North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minnesota to the east, S ...
, and Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its ...
retained their old "blood fraction" statutes ''de jure
In law and government, ''de jure'' ( ; , "by law") describes practices that are legally recognized, regardless of whether the practice exists in reality. In contrast, ("in fact") describes situations that exist in reality, even if not legall ...
'', but amended these fractions (one-sixteenth, one-thirty-second) to be equivalent to one-drop ''de facto
''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with '' de jure'' ("by l ...
.''
Before 1930, individuals of visible mixed European and African ancestry were usually classed as mulatto
(, ) is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese ...
, or sometimes as black and sometimes as white, depending on appearance. Previously, most states had limited trying to define ancestry before "the fourth degree" (great-great-grandparents). But, in 1930, due to lobbying by southern legislators, the Census Bureau stopped using the classification of mulatto. Documentation of the long social recognition of mixed-race
Mixed race people are people of more than one race or ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including ''multiethnic'', ''polyethnic'', occasionally ''bi-eth ...
people was lost, and they were classified only as black or white.
The binary world of the one-drop rule disregarded the self-identification both of people of mostly European ancestry who grew up in white communities, and of people who were of mixed race and identified as American Indian. In addition, Walter Plecker, Registrar of Statistics, ordered application of the 1924 Virginia law in such a way that vital records were changed or destroyed, family members were split on opposite sides of the color line, and there were losses of the documented continuity of people who identified as American Indian, as all people in Virginia had to be classified as white or black. Over the centuries, many Indian tribes in Virginia had absorbed people of other ethnicities through marriage or adoption, but maintained their cultures. Suspecting blacks of trying to " pass" as Indians, Plecker ordered records changed to classify people only as black or white, and ordered offices to reclassify certain family surnames from Indian to black.
Since the late 20th century, Virginia has officially recognized eight American Indian tribes and their members; the tribes are trying to gain federal recognition. They have had difficulty because decades of birth, marriage, and death records were misclassified under Plecker's application of the law. No one was classified as Indian, although many individuals and families identified that way and were preserving their cultures.
In the case of mixed-race American Indian and European descendants, the one-drop rule in Virginia was extended only so far as those with more than one-sixteenth Indian blood. This was due to what was known as the " Pocahontas exception". Since many influential First Families of Virginia
First Families of Virginia (FFV) were those families in Colonial Virginia who were socially prominent and wealthy, but not necessarily the earliest settlers. They descended from English colonists who primarily settled at Jamestown, Williamsburg ...
(FFV) claimed descent from the American Indian Pocahontas
Pocahontas (, ; born Amonute, known as Matoaka, 1596 – March 1617) was a Native American woman, belonging to the Powhatan people, notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. She was the daughter o ...
and her husband John Rolfe
John Rolfe (1585 – March 1622) was one of the early English settlers of North America. He is credited with the first successful cultivation of tobacco as an export crop in the Colony of Virginia in 1611.
Biography
John Rolfe is believed ...
of the colonial era, the Virginia General Assembly
The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, the first elected legislative assembly in the New World, and was established on July 30, 1 ...
declared that an individual could be considered white if having no more than one-sixteenth Indian "blood" (the equivalent of one great-great-grandparent).
The eugenist
Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...
Madison Grant of New York wrote in his book, '' The Passing of the Great Race'' (1916): "The cross between a white man and an Indian is an Indian; the cross between a white man and a Negro is a Negro; the cross between a white man and a Hindu is a Hindu; and the cross between any of the three European races and a Jew is a Jew." As noted above, Native American tribes which had patrilineal descent and inheritance, such as the Omaha, classified children of white men and Native American women as white.
Plecker case
Through the 1940s, Walter Plecker of Virginia and Naomi Drake
Naomi Ruth (née Mason Drake; 12 February 1907 – 22 February 1987) was an American who became notable in mid-20th century Louisiana as the Registrar of the Bureau of Vital Statistics for the City of New Orleans (1949–1965), where she imposed s ...
of Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a U.S. state, state in the Deep South and South Central United States, South Central regions of the United States. It is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 20th-smal ...
had an outsized influence. As the Registrar of Statistics, Plecker insisted on labeling mixed-race families of European-African ancestry as black. In 1924, Plecker wrote, "Two races as materially divergent as the White and Negro, in morals, mental powers, and cultural fitness, cannot live in close contact without injury to the higher." In the 1930s and 1940s, Plecker directed offices under his authority to change vital records and reclassify certain families as black (or colored) (without notifying them) after Virginia established a binary system under its Racial Integrity Act of 1924. He also classified people as black who had formerly self-identified as Indian. When the United States Supreme Court struck down Virginia's law prohibiting inter-racial marriage in '' Loving v. Virginia'' (1967), it also declared Plecker's Virginia Racial Integrity Act and the one-drop rule unconstitutional.
Many people in the U.S., among various ethnic groups, continue to have their own concepts related to the one-drop idea. They may still consider those multiracial individuals with any African ancestry to be black, or at least non-white (if the person has other minority ancestry), unless the person explicitly identifies as white. On the other hand, the Black Power movement and some leaders within the black community also claimed as black those persons with any visible African ancestry, in order to extend their political base and regardless of how those people self-identified.
Other countries of the Americas
Among the colonial slave societies, the United States was nearly unique in developing the one-drop rule; it derived both from the Southern slave culture (shared by other societies) and the aftermath of the American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by state ...
, emancipation
Emancipation generally means to free a person from a previous restraint or legal disability. More broadly, it is also used for efforts to procure economic and social rights, political rights or equality, often for a specifically disenfranchi ...
of slaves, and Reconstruction. In the late 19th century, Southern whites regained political power and restored white supremacy
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White s ...
, passing Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sou ...
and establishing racial segregation
Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the Statute of the Intern ...
by law. In the 20th century, during the Black Power movement, black race-based groups claimed all people of any African ancestry as black in a reverse way, to establish political power.
In colonial Spanish America
Spanish America refers to the Spanish territories in the Americas during the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The term "Spanish America" was specifically used during the territories' imperial era between 15th and 19th centuries. To the en ...
, many soldiers and explorers took indigenous women as wives. Native-born Spanish women were always a minority. The colonists developed an elaborate classification and caste system
Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultural ...
that identified the mixed-race descendants of blacks, Amerindian
The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples.
Many Indigenous peoples of the A ...
s, and whites by different names, related to appearance and known ancestry. Racial caste not only depended on ancestry or skin color, but also could be raised or lowered by the person's financial status or class.
The same racial culture shock has come to hundreds of thousands of dark-skinned immigrants to the United States from Brazil, Colombia, Panama
Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...
, and other Latin American nations. Although many are not considered black in their homelands, they have often been considered black in US society. According to ''The Washington Post'', their refusal to accept the United States' definition of black has left many feeling attacked from all directions. At times, white and black Americans might discriminate against them for their lighter or darker skin tones; African Americans might believe that Afro-Latino immigrants are denying their blackness. At the same time, the immigrants think lighter-skinned Latinos dominate Spanish-language television
Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a global language with more than 500 million native speakers, mainly in the Am ...
and media. A majority of Latin Americans
Latin Americans ( es, Latinoamericanos; pt, Latino-americanos; ) are the citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their diasporas are multi-et ...
possess some African or American Indian ancestry. Many of these immigrants feel it is difficult enough to accept a new language and culture without the additional burden of having to transform from white to black. Yvette Modestin, a dark-skinned native of Panama who worked in Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the capital city, state capital and List of municipalities in Massachusetts, most populous city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financ ...
, said the situation was overwhelming: "There's not a day that I don't have to explain myself."[
Professor J. B. Bird has said that Latin America is not alone in rejecting the historical US notion that any visible African ancestry is enough to make one black:
]In most countries of the Caribbean, Colin Powell
Colin Luther Powell ( ; April 5, 1937 – October 18, 2021) was an American politician, statesman, diplomat, and United States Army officer who served as the 65th United States Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African ...
would be described as a Creole, reflecting his mixed heritage. In Belize
Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a wa ...
, he might further be described as a "High Creole", because of his extremely light complexion.
Brazil
People in many other countries have tended to treat race less rigidly, both in their self-identification and how they regard others. Just as a person with physically recognizable African ancestry can claim to be black in the United States, someone with recognizable Caucasian
Caucasian may refer to:
Anthropology
*Anything from the Caucasus region
**
**
** ''Caucasian Exarchate'' (1917–1920), an ecclesiastical exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Caucasus region
*
*
*
Languages
* Northwest Caucasian l ...
ancestry may be considered white in Brazil, even if mixed race.
In December 2002, ''The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...
'' ran a story on the one-drop rule and differences in Latin American practices. In the reporter's opinion:
Someone with Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier ( ; February 20, 1927 – January 6, 2022) was an American actor, film director, and diplomat. In 1964, he was the first black actor and first Bahamian to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. He received two competitive Go ...
's deep chocolate complexion would be considered white if his hair were straight and he made a living in a profession. That might not seem so odd, Brazilians say, when you consider that the fair-complexioned actresses Rashida Jones
Rashida Leah Jones (; born February 25, 1976) is an American actress.
Jones appeared as Louisa Fenn on the Fox drama series ''Boston Public'' (2000–2002), as Karen Filippelli on the NBC comedy series '' The Office'' (2006–2009; 2011), and a ...
of the television show "Boston Public" and Lena Horne
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010) was an American dancer, actress, singer, and civil rights activist. Horne's career spanned more than seventy years, appearing in film, television, and theatre. Horne joined the chorus of th ...
are identified as black in the United States.
According to Jose Neinstein, a native white Brazilian and executive director of the Brazilian-American
Brazilian Americans ( pt, brasileiros americanos or ) are Americans who are of full or partial Brazilian ancestry. The Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs estimates the Brazilian American population to be 1,775,000, the largest of any Brazilia ...
Cultural Institute in Washington, in the United States, "If you are not quite white, then you are black." However, in Brazil, "If you are not quite black, then you are white." Neinstein recalls talking with a man of Poitier's complexion when in Brazil: "We were discussing ethnicity, and I asked him, 'What do you think about this from your perspective as a black man?' He turned his head to me and said, 'I'm not black,' ... It simply paralyzed me. I couldn't ask another question."[
]
Puerto Rico
During the Spanish colonial period, Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
had laws such as the ''Regla del Sacar'' or ''Gracias al Sacar,'' by which a person of black ancestry could be considered legally white so long as the individual could prove that at least one person per generation in the last four generations had also been legally white. Thus persons of some black ancestry with known white lineage were classified as white, the opposite of the "one-drop rule" in the United States.
Racial mixtures of blacks and whites in modern America
Given the intense interest in ethnicity, genetic genealogists
Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kins ...
and other scientists have studied population groups. Henry Louis Gates Jr. publicized such genetic studies on his two series '' African American Lives,'' shown on PBS, in which the ancestry of prominent figures was explored. His experts discussed the results of autosomal DNA tests, in contrast to direct-line testing, which survey all the DNA that has been inherited from the parents of an individual. Autosomal tests focus on SNPs.
The specialists on Gates' program summarized the make-up of the United States population by the following:
* 58 percent of African Americans have at least 12.5% European ancestry (equivalent of one great-grandparent);
* 19.6 percent of African Americans have at least 25% European ancestry (equivalent of one grandparent);
* 1 percent of African Americans have at least 50% European ancestry (equivalent of one parent) (Gates is one of these, he discovered, having a total of 51% European ancestry among various distant ancestors); and
* 5 percent of African Americans have at least 12.5% Native American ancestry (equivalent to one great-grandparent).
In 2002, Mark D. Shriver, a molecular anthropologist at Penn State University, published results of a study regarding the racial admixture of Americans who identified as white or black: Shriver surveyed a 3,000-person sample from 25 locations in the United States and tested subjects for autosomal genetic make-up:
* Of those persons who identified as white:
** Individuals had an average 0.7% black ancestry, which is the equivalent of having 1 black and 127 white ancestors among one's 128 5×great-grandparents.
** Shriver estimates that 70% of white Americans have no African ancestors (in part because a high proportion of current whites are descended from more recent immigrants from Europe of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, rather than those early migrants to the colonies, who in some areas lived and worked closely with Africans, free, indentured or slave, and formed relations with them).
** Among the 30% of identified whites who have African ancestry, Shriver estimates their black racial admixture is 2.3%; the equivalent of having had three black ancestors among their 128 5×great-grandparents.[
* Among those who identified as black:
** The average proportion of white ancestry was 18%, the equivalent of having 22 white ancestors among their 128 5×great-grandparents.
** About 10% have more than 50% white ancestry.
Black people in the United States are more racially mixed than white people, reflecting historical experience here, including the close living and working conditions among the small populations of the early colonies, when indentured servants, both black and white, and slaves, married or formed unions. Mixed-race children of white mothers were born free, and many families of free people of color were started in those years. 80 percent of the free African-American families in the Upper South in the censuses of 1790 to 1810 can be traced as descendants of unions between white women and African men in colonial Virginia, not of slave women and white men. In the early colony, conditions were loose among the working class, who lived and worked closely together. After the ]American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of ...
, their free mixed-race descendants migrated to the frontiers of nearby states along with other primarily European Virginia pioneers. The admixture also reflects later conditions under slavery, when white planters or their sons, or overseers, frequently raped African women. There were also freely chosen relationships among individuals of different or mixed races.
Shriver's 2002 survey found different current admixture rates by region, reflecting historic patterns of settlement and change, both in terms of populations who migrated and their descendants' unions. For example, he found that the black populations with the highest percentage of white ancestry lived in California and Seattle, Washington. These were both majority-white destinations during the Great Migration of 1940–1970 of African Americans from the Deep South of Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi. Blacks sampled in those two locations had more than 25% white European ancestry on average.[
As noted by Troy Duster, direct-line testing of the Y-chromosome and mtDNA ( mitochondrial DNA) fails to pick up the heritage of many other ancestors.] DNA testing has limitations and should not be depended on by individuals to answer all questions about heritage. Duster said that neither Shriver's research nor Gates' PBS program adequately acknowledged the limitations of genetic testing.
Similarly, the Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism (IPCB) notes that: "Native American markers" are not found solely among Native Americans. While they occur more frequently among Native Americans, they are also found in people in other parts of the world. Genetic testing has shown three major waves of ancient migration from Asia among Native Americans but cannot distinguish further among most of the various tribes in the Americas. Some critics of testing believe that more markers will be identified as more Native Americans of various tribes are tested, as they believe that the early epidemics due to smallpox and other diseases may have altered genetic representation.
Much effort has been made to discover the ways in which the one-drop rule continues to be socially perpetuated today. For example, in her interview of black/white adults in the South, Nikki Khanna uncovers that one way the one-drop rule is perpetuated is through the mechanism of reflected appraisal. Most respondents identified as black, explaining that this is because both black and white people see them as black as well.
Allusions
Charles W. Chesnutt, who was of mixed race and grew up in the North, wrote stories and novels about the issues of mixed-race people in southern society in the aftermath of the Civil War.
The one-drop rule and its consequences have been the subject of numerous works of popular culture. The American musical
Musical is the adjective of music
Music is generally defined as the The arts, art of arranging sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Exact def ...
''Show Boat
''Show Boat'' is a musical theatre, musical with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It is based on Edna Ferber's best-selling 1926 Show Boat (novel), novel of the same name. The musical follows the lives of the pe ...
'' (1927) opens in 1887 on a Mississippi River boat, after the Reconstruction era and imposition of racial segregation
Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the Statute of the Intern ...
and Jim Crow
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
in the South. Steve, a white man married to a mixed-race woman who passes as white, is pursued by a Southern sheriff. He intends to arrest Steve and charge him with miscegenation
Miscegenation ( ) is the interbreeding of people who are considered to be members of different Race (human categorization), races. The word, now usually considered pejorative, is derived from a combination of the Latin terms ''miscere'' ("to m ...
for being married to a woman of partly black ancestry. Steve pricks his wife's finger and swallows some of her blood. When the sheriff arrives, Steve asks him whether he would consider a man to be white if he had "negro blood" in him. The sheriff replies that "one drop of Negro blood makes you a Negro in these parts". Steve tells the sheriff that he has "more than a drop of negro blood in me". After being assured by others that Steve is telling the truth, the sheriff leaves without arresting Steve.[''Show Boat'' (1951) Overview]
Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 2008-03-21.
, Theatre-Musical.com. Retrieved 2008-03-21.
See also
*Black Indians in the United States
Black Indians are Native American people – defined as Native American due to being affiliated with Native American communities and being culturally Native American – who also have significant African American heritage.
Historically, certai ...
*Blood quantum laws
Blood quantum laws or Indian blood laws are laws in the United States that define Native American status by fractions of Native American ancestry. These laws were enacted by the federal government and state governments as a way to estab ...
* Brown Paper Bag Test
* Cherokee freedmen controversy
*Chicano
Chicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for many Mexican Americans in the United States. The label ''Chicano'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Mexican American'', although the terms have different meanings. While Mexican-American ident ...
(whiteness of Mexican Americans
Mexican Americans ( es, mexicano-estadounidenses, , or ) are Americans of full or partial Mexican heritage. In 2019, Mexican Americans comprised 11.3% of the US population and 61.5% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexic ...
)
* Hispanic and Latino Americans
* Historical race concepts
* Limpieza de sangre
*Métis
The Métis ( ; Canadian ) are Indigenous peoples who inhabit Canada's three Prairie Provinces, as well as parts of British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and the Northern United States. They have a shared history and culture which deri ...
*Mestizo
(; ; fem. ) is a term used for racial classification to refer to a person of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturally European even though thei ...
*Miscegenation
Miscegenation ( ) is the interbreeding of people who are considered to be members of different Race (human categorization), races. The word, now usually considered pejorative, is derived from a combination of the Latin terms ''miscere'' ("to m ...
*Mischling
(; "Miscegenation, mix-ling"; plural: ) was a pejorative legal term used in Nazi Germany to denote persons of mixed "Aryanism, Aryan" and non-Aryan, such as Jews, Jewish, ancestry as codified in the Nuremberg racial laws of 1935. In German, t ...
* Mixed Race Day
*Passing Passing may refer to:
Social identity
* Passing (sociology), presenting oneself as a member of another sociological group
** Passing (gender), presenting oneself as being cisgender
** Passing (racial identity), presenting oneself as a member ...
* Pencil test
* Quadroon
* Racial hygiene
* Pocahontas exception
*Elizabeth Warren
Elizabeth Ann Warren (née Herring; born June 22, 1949) is an American politician and former law professor who is the senior United States senator from Massachusetts, serving since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party and regarded as a p ...
*"Who is a Jew?
"Who is a Jew?" ( he, מיהו יהודי ) is a basic question about Jewish identity and considerations of Jewish self-identification. The question pertains to ideas about Jewish personhood, which have cultural, ethnic, religious, politica ...
"
Notes
Explanatory notes
Quotes
Citations
Further reading
* Daniel, G. Reginald. ''More Than Black? Multiracial Identity and the New Racial Order''. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 2002. .
* Daniel, G. Reginald. ''Race and Multiraciality in Brazil and the United States: Converging Paths?''. University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press. 2006. .
* Davis, James F., ''Who Is Black?: One Nation's Definition''. University Park PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001. .
* Guterl, Matthew Press, ''The Color of Race in America, 1900–1940''. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. .
* Moran, Rachel F., ''Interracial Intimacy: The Regulation of Race & Romance'', Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press, 2003. .
* Romano, Renee Christine, ''Race Mixing: Black-White Marriage in Post-War America''. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. .
* Savy, Pierre, "Transmission, identité, corruption. Réflexions sur trois cas d'hypodescendance", ''L'homme. Revue française d'anthropologie'', 182, 2007 ("Racisme, antiracisme et sociétés"), pp. 53–80.
* Yancey, George, ''Just Don't Marry One: Interracial Dating, Marriage & Parenting''. Judson Press, 2003. .
External links
New Life for the "One Drop" Rule
PBS – Brazil in Black and White
University of Virginia
* Lawrence Wright
''The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issue ...
'', 24 July 1994
* John Terrence A. Rosenthal
"Batson Revisited in America's 'New Era' of Multiracial Persons"
''Law Review'' 33:1, Seton Hall University
{{DEFAULTSORT:One-Drop Rule
African–Native American relations
Anti-black racism in the United States
Dichotomies
History of African-American civil rights
Kinship and descent
Multiracial affairs in the United States
Native American history
Race and law in the United States
White culture