Impact of The 1924 Racial Integrity Act on Virginia's Native Americans

state officials claimed after passage of the Racial Integrity Act in 1924 that even a trace of negro blood disqualified people from being classified as Indian
Source: Library of Virginia, Walter Plecker Asserted that Virginia Indians No Longer Exist, December 1943

Dr. Walter Plecker, the state official in charge of the Virginia Bureau of Vital Statistics, allied with others who believed in white supremacy and led a successful campaign to get the General Assembly to pass Virginia's Racial Integrity Act in 1924. That effort built on legislation passed in 1887 and 1910 that quantified how much non-white ancestry defined a person as "colored" or "Indian" vs. "white."¹

Links

• Encyclopedia Virginia
• The Legal Status and Classification of Virginia Indians
• Preservation of Racial Integrity (1924)
• Library of Virginia
• Virginia Health Bulletin: The New Virginia Law To Preserve Racial Integrity, March 1924
• Walter Ashby Plecker
• National Park Service
• The Racial Integrity Act, 1924: An Attack on Indigenous Identity
• Native Americans of the State of Delaware
• Loss of Identity in Virginia: Walter Plecker's racist crusade against Virginia's Native Americans
• Time magazine
• How Virginia Used Segregation Law to Erase Native Americans (March 20, 2024)

References