Hi Sally. Walter Plecker was a medical doctor who was also a relatively low
level government official--Registrar of Vital Statistics--in Virginia in
1928 when he began a campaign against counties registering light-skinned
people as "Indian" on their birth certificates because he knew that nearly
all people in Virginia with Indian ancestry have African ancestry as well.
He had nothing to do with the passage of the "racial integrity" law he
enforced, but he is the one associated with it.
What about the Governor, legislature, etc., that signed the law?
Since the Civil War (and still today) there have been three castes in
Virginia and surrounding states: white, Indian and African American. The
racial integrity law reclassified very light-skinned mixed-race people as
"Negroes."
Apparently to some, Jim Crow laws were fine as long as they were excepted.
For example, there are a group of people in Tennessee and surrounding areas
called "Melungeons," who could pass as white in most cities but are known in
the areas where they live to have mixed ancestry. In the mid-1900s they were
described by some anthropologists as the most racist people in the United
States. Imagine how they felt when Plecker contacted their local county
officials asking that they be classified as "Negroes."
You can read the family history of many of those who were the subject of
Virginia's racist "Eugenics" laws on my website:
http://www.freeafricanamericans.com
The families included Adkins, Allmond, Bass, Beverly, Bradby, Brandom/
Branham, Bunch, Byrd, Clark, Coleman, Collins, Custalow, Dungee, Epps,
Fortune, Gibson, Goins, Hartless, Holmes, Johns, Locklear, Mason, Miles,
Redcross, Roberts, Sawyer, Shepherd, Sorrell, Tyree, Terry, Spurlock,
Stewart, Weaver, Wynn, and others. Incidentally, the Weavers were East
Indians who mixed with African Americans and are today considered Nansemond
Indians.
Paul
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