Racial Integrity Act

On 20 March 1924, the Virginia General Assembly passed two laws that arose out of concerns about eugenics and race, the second being: SB 219 entitled 'The Racial Integrity Act.' To put it in context, there were no other laws in the State of Virginia or in other states that had formally tackled this issue, and thus its importance as the first such law in United States history. With respect to its relation with eugenics, the passing of this Act was influenced by the Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924 due, according to the PBS American Experience documentary 'The Eugenics Crusade,' to the number of cases reported by doctors where they found genetic traits in whites that are also found in what they perceived as other races - African Americans or Native Americans in particular.The Racial Integrity Act required a racial description of every resident in the State of Virginia be recorded at-birth into two primary classifications: white and colored (essentially all other, which included numerous Native Americans). It defined race by the famous 'one-drop rule' in which any non white ancestry rendered the subject a 'colored' person. In 1967, this Act as well as the Virginia Sterilization Act was officially overturned by the United States Supreme Court in their ruling 'Loving v. Virginia.'