230 Culture, Identity, and Community: From Slavery to the Presentpolice, and even clergy licensed to perform marriages had
wide discretion when determining racial classifi cation and
served as watchdogs and enforcers of white supremacy.
During the Reconstruction era immediately following the
Civil War, many Southern states temporarily abandoned
their anti-miscegenation laws in light of political and eco-
nomic ruin caused by the war and the Union’s victory over
the Confederacy under the banner “equality for all.” But by
about 1880—the onset of the Jim Crow era that brought
about legalized segregation throughout the United States—
many states reenacted laws banning interracial marriages,
and this caused a chain reaction of sorts, leading to many
states, not limited to the South, either reenacting previous
passed legislation or tightening existing laws on anti-misce-
genation, making them far more universal and exclusive, in
terms of racial defi nitions, than ever before.
Th ose accused of miscegenation faced the strong possi-
bility of a felony-misdemeanor conviction, resulting in a fi ne
or imprisonment for one to fi ve years or sometimes both.
Th e state of Virginia punished violators with banishment
from the state. Criminal penalties such as heft y fi nes also
extended to civil authorities, such as offi ciants at wedding
ceremonies and town clerks who issued marriage licenses.
Sometimes immunity for interracial couples was as simple as
crossing the state line to a jurisdiction that permitted mixed-
race marriages. Yet some states, such as Virginia, did not
recognize interracial marriages contracted in other states, so
there was no guarantee. Even those who did not get caught
felt the sting of these laws. Th e interracial nature of a mar-
riage was suffi cient grounds to have a marriage declared null
and void and was sometimes used by relatives to deny the
surviving black spouse of his or her rightful inheritance.
Th e best-known victim and resister of the anti-mis-
cegenation regime was Jack Johnson (1878–1946), the
fi rst African American heavyweight boxing champion.
Th roughout his professional career, 1897–1915, Johnson
earned considerable wealth fi ghting black and then white
boxers. His fl air, narcissism, athletic prowess, outspoken
contempt for racism, and public pursuit of white women
(he married three) breached social convention and made
him a target. As a result of Johnson’s success in the ring as
well as the bedroom, he was hated and feared by Ameri-
can white males, and this almost led to Congress’s passing
a law banning interracial marriages, which would have
been an invasion of states’ rights. Unable to charge John-
son with any existing anti-miscegenation law, in 1913 hisDavid Goodman Croly, managing editor of the New York
World, a staunchly Democratic Party paper, and George
Wakeman, a reporter for the same newspaper. Th e pam-
phlet was soon exposed to be a hoax, essentially a political
ploy aimed at discrediting the Republican Party, Abraham
Lincoln’s presidency, and the abolitionist movement, only
months away from a presidential reelection in 1864. None-
theless, this pamphlet and others like it resurfaced regularly
throughout the American Civil War by opponents of the
Republicans. At that time, the notion of interracial marriage
between blacks and whites was indeed highly controversial,
and it certainly would have angered some voters.
Th e fi rst anti-miscegenation law was enacted in 1664 in
Maryland, likely in response to sexual liaisons and mar-
riages between white indentured servants and black slaves.
At that time, virtually all blacks were slaves and whites free.
As a result, race and legal status were intertwined. Unions
between whites males and black slave women were not a
concern for the law because the resulting progeny were
forever black and slaves under the matrilineal principle of
identity. However unions between black male slaves and
free white women complicated social boundaries for that
day and produced mixed-race progeny who were legally
white for all purposes of the law. Th is undermined the very
institution of slavery, both legally and economically. Th us,
early anti-miscegenation laws were aimed at discourag-
ing racial intermarriage that created the mirage of “racial
equality” and at maintaining a system were blacks were for-
ever property and at the bottom. Henceforth, most states,
one aft er the other, passed laws banning interracial inter-
marriage. Th ese laws chiefl y targeted blacks but sometimes
applied to Native Americans and Asians, but never Latinos.
As a result, some non-white groups were able to intermarry
with each other, whereas others were not. Th ere were even
cases of persons with a triracial identity (black, white, and
Native American) who were unable to marry anyone. Some
states enforced their own anti-miscegenation laws compre-
hensively, whereas others did not enforce them at all or only
selectively. Th ese variations existed because marriage was a
state responsibility and tended to refl ect local custom and
attitudes. Moreover, defi nitions of “blackness” and “white-
ness” also varied from state to state and over time. Someone
considered legally white in one state might be considered
black in another and vice versa and thus unable to contract
marriage with anyone outside his or her perceived racial
group. Civil authorities such as town marriage clerks, the