Mulatto 231and 1960s did not extend to interracial marriage. African
Americans could still be second-class citizens despite hav-
ing acquired full citizenship rights—a strange paradox that
speaks volumes of race relations.
See also: Amalgamation; Mulatto; QuadroonJustin Marcus JohnstonBibliography
Robinson, Charles. Dangerous Liaisons: Sex and Love in the Segre-
gated South. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2003.
Romano, Renee Christine. Race Mixing: Black-White Marriage
in Postwar America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2003.
Wallenstein, Peter. Tell the Court I Love My Wife: Race, Mar-
riage, and Law—An American History. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2004.Mulatto
“Mulatto” (oft en assumed to be derived from the Span-
ish mulato, or “little mule”) typically refers to someone of
mixed racial heritage; however, the term commonly re-
fers to a person of mixed Caucasian and Negro ancestry
or, in late 20th-century parlance, a “biracial” individual.
In the American context, “race mixing,” or miscegenation,
occurred regularly. Th e one-drop rule (defi ning who was
black) can be traced back to the colonial period, when
miscegenation occurred largely between white indentured
servants and both slave and free blacks. In most colonies,
the mulatto children from these unions were considered
black (with exceptions—e.g., Virginia, where they were
sometimes considered white). In areas of the South, when
interracial intercourse occurred, it was generally between
white men and both enslaved and free black women. Some
areas, such as Charleston and New Orleans, saw free mu-
lattos forming alliances with whites and serving as a buf-
fer group (economically and socially) between whites and
blacks, possessing a unique in-between status within the
existing racial hierarchy.
However, these are the exceptions to the rule. Th e in-
stitution of slavery, built on white supremacist ideology and
absolute prohibition of miscegenation, brought whites and
blacks into close physical proximity on a daily basis. As a
result of the mentality that white male slave owners could
“rightfully” use their black female slaves at will, the vastenemies conspired to fi nd him guilty of violating the Mann
Act (1912), which prohibited transporting a white woman
across state lines Johnson had bought a train ticket from
Pittsburgh to Chicago for his 19-year-old white wife. Th e
case was dubbed “the evils of miscegenation.” Fleeing his
conviction, Johnson went into exile. In 1915, he fought Jess
Willard in Cuba and lost his heavyweight championship. In
1920, he returned to the United States, surrendered himself
to authorities, and served one year in jail.
During the height of the anti-miscegenation regime,
1880 to 1950, courts and politicians at all levels upheld the
constitutionality of these laws. Th ere were several impor-
tant court cases, specifi cally, Pace v. Alabama (1883) and
Loving v. Virginia (1967). In the former, the Supreme Court
reaffi rmed its position on miscegenation and denied the in-
terracial couple the right to a legal marriage based on the
“equal protection” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to
the U.S. Constitution. Anti-miscegenation laws and their
associated criminal penalties in theory applied equally to
all persons, black, white, yellow, and so on, and hence did
not discriminate; therefore, they were considered constitu-
tional. Th e watershed case was Loving v. Virginia (1967), in
which an interracial couple, Mildred Jeter, a black woman,
and her white husband, Robert Loving, were arrested in
their home state of Virginia for violating that state’s anti-
miscegenation laws. Th e couple temporarily relocated to
the District of Columbia, which had long since repealed its
own anti-miscegenation laws. Upon their return to Virginia,
the Lovings found their marriage and cohabitation in viola-
tion of state law. Th ey were ordered to leave the state and
never return, on pain of imprisonment. Th e couple moved
back to the District of Columbia and fi led action against
Virginia. Aft er a long and hard-fought battle, the couple
was successful in the Supreme Court, which struck down
anti-miscegenation laws as unconstitutional in breach of
the same clause that was used to up hold the Pace case. It
was not until 2000, however, that Alabama became the last
state to repeal its anti-miscegenation law (which formed
part of the state constitution).
It is ironic that African Americans gained civil rights
(1965) before they gained the right to marry outside their
own racial group (1967). In some respects, interracial mar-
riage was more signifi cant than civil rights. Th e ability to
marry outside one’s race, but within the dominant culture,
was less a legal right than a fundamental human right sym-
bolizing true racial equality. Civil rights gained in the 1950s