From White to Black: The Story of a Black Family that Started off White

Book Quote: "I was getting ready to go out the door to work when the phone rang. I didn't want to answer it, but something told me to pick up the phone. When I did, the voice on the other end said, 'Hello, Louise, this is Alex Haley.' I was shocked!" -Louise "Bunch" King

In 1924, Dr. Walter Plecker championed The Racial Integrity Act, which aimed to maintain racial purity. This law, enacted in Virginia, prohibited interracial marriage and rigidly defined racial categories. Plecker, driven by white supremacist beliefs, reclassified thousands of mixed-race individuals as black without their consent. His infamous assertion that "one drop of Black blood makes one Black and only Black" perpetuated harmful one-drop rule thinking.in 1930 the United States Census Bureau, under pressure from white southern legislators, discontinued using "the racial classification of mulatto" altogether. As a result, the long social recognition of mixed-race people was lost.* The Act was eventually overturned in 1967, but its impact endures. One-drop rule thinking is still so ingrained into American culture that people of all ethnicities don't even notice the continual perpetuation of this belief...But if they pause, and look closely... they will see it.

Author: Geoff Fuller

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Publication Date: Jul 18, 2014

Number of Pages: 268 pages

Binding: Paperback or Softback

ISBN-10: 1499709900

ISBN-13: 9781499709902