One-Drop Rule

The one-drop rule is a historical colloquial term in the United States for the social classification as Negro of individuals with any African ancestry; meaning any person with "one drop of Negro blood" was considered black.

Halle Berry has a White Mother and a Black Father.  Berry identifies herself as Black.

In the United States, the concept of the one-drop rule has been chiefly applied by White Americans to those of sub-Saharan black African ancestry in the aftermath of slavery, as they were trying to impose white supremacy. The poet Langston Hughes wrote in his 1940 memoir:
You see, unfortunately, I am not black. There are lots of different kinds of blood in our family. But here in the United States, the word 'Negro' is used to mean anyone who has any Negro blood at all in his veins. In Africa, the word is more pure. It means all Negro, therefore black. I am brown.

Both before and after the American Civil War, many people of mixed ancestry who "looked white" and were of mostly white ancestry were legally absorbed into the white majority. State laws established differing standards. For instance, in 1822 Virginia law stated that to be defined as "mulatto" (that is, multi-racial), a person had to have at least one-quarter (equivalent to one grandparent) African ancestry. This was a looser definition than the state's 20th-century "one-drop rule" under the 1924 Racial Integrity Act. This defined a person as legally "colored" (black) for classification and legal purposes if the individual had any African ancestry. Social acceptance and identification were generally the key.

The Melungeons are a group of multiracial families of mostly European and African ancestry whose ancestors were free in colonial Virginia. They migrated to the frontier in Kentucky and Tennessee. Their descendants have been documented over the decades as having tended to marry persons classified as "white". Their descendants became assimilated into the majority culture from the 19th into the 20th centuries.


Jim Crow laws reached their greatest influence during the decades from 1910 to 1930. Among them were hypodescent laws, defining as black anyone with any black ancestry, or with a very small portion of black ancestry. Tennessee adopted such a "one-drop" statute in 1910, and Louisiana soon followed. Then Texas and Arkansas in 1911, Mississippi in 1917, North Carolina in 1923, Virginia in 1924, Alabama and Georgia in 1927, and Oklahoma in 1931. During this same period, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Utah retained their old "blood fraction" statutes de jure, but amended these fractions (one-sixteenth, one-thirty-second) to be equivalent to one-drop de facto.

Before 1930, individuals of visible mixed European and African ancestry were usually classed as mulattoes, or sometimes as black and sometimes as white, depending on appearance. Previously, most states had limited trying to define ancestry before "the fourth degree" (great-great-grandparents). In 1930, the Census Bureau stopped using the classification of mulatto, so evidence of the long existence of mixed-race people was lost.

Not only did the one-drop rule disregard the self-identification of people of mostly European ancestry who grew up in white communities, but Walter Plecker ordered application of the 1924 Virginia law in such a way that vital records were changed or destroyed, family members were split on opposite sides of the color line, and there were losses of the documented continuity of mixed-race people who identified as Native American. Over the centuries, many Native American tribes in Virginia had absorbed people of other ethnicities through marriage or adoption, but maintained their cultures. Suspecting blacks of trying to "pass" as Indians, Plecker ordered records changed to classify people only as black or white, and ordered offices to reclassify certain family surnames as black. Since the late 20th century, Virginia has officially recognized eight American Indian tribes; they are trying to gain federal recognition. They have had difficulty because decades of birth, marriage and death records were misclassified under Plecker's application of the law. No one was classified as Indian, although many individuals and families identified that way and were preserving their cultures.

In the case of mixed-race Native American and European descendants, the one-drop rule in Virginia was extended only so far as those with more than one-sixteenth Indian blood. This was due to what was known as the "Pocahontas exception". Since many influential First Families of Virginia (FFV) claimed descent from the American Indian Pocahontas and her husband John Rolfe of the colonial era, the Virginia General Assembly declared that an individual could be considered white if having no more than one-sixteenth Indian "blood" (the equivalent of one great-great-grandparent).

Lena Horne


Rashida Jones
In December 2002, the Washington Post ran a story on the one-drop theory. In the reporter's opinion: "Someone with Sidney Poitier's deep chocolate complexion would be considered white if his hair were straight and he made a living in a profession. That might not seem so odd, Brazilians say, when you consider that the fair-complexioned actresses Rashida Jones ('Parks and Recreation' and 'The Office') and Lena Horne are identified as black in the United States."[14]
According to Jose Neinstein, a native white Brazilian and executive director of the Brazilian-American Cultural Institute in Washington, in the United States, "If you are not quite white, then you are black." However, in Brazil, "If you are not quite black, then you are white." Neinstein recalls talking with a man of Poitier's complexion when in Brazil: "We were discussing ethnicity, and I asked him, 'What do you think about this from your perspective as a black man?' He turned his head to me and said, 'I'm not black,' . . . It simply paralyzed me. I couldn't ask another question."[14]
The Washington Post story also described a Brazilian-born woman who for 30 years before immigrating to the United States considered herself a morena. Her skin had a caramel color that is roughly equated with whiteness in Brazil and some other Latin American countries. "I didn't realize I was black until I came here," she explained.[14] "'Where are you from?' they ask me. I say I'm from Brazil. They say, 'No, you are from Africa.' They make me feel like I am denying who I am."
The same racial culture shock has come to hundreds of thousands of dark-skinned immigrants to the United States from Brazil, Colombia, Panama, and other Latin American nations. Although many are not considered black in their homelands, they have often been considered black in US society. According to the Washington Post, their refusal to accept the United States' definition of black has left many feeling attacked from all directions. At times, white and black Americans might discriminate against them for their lighter or darker skin tones; African Americans might believe that Afro-Latino immigrants are denying their blackness; and they think lighter-skinned Latinos dominate Spanish-language television and media. A majority of Latin Americans possess some African or Native American ancestry. Many of these immigrants feel it is hard enough to accept a new language and culture without the additional burden of having to transform from white to black. Yvette Modestin, a dark-skinned native of Panama who worked in Boston, said the situation was overwhelming: "There's not a day that I don't have to explain myself."[14]


Rice and Powell (on the left) are considered black in the US, Bush and Rumsfeld (on the right) are considered white.
Professor J.B. Bird has said that Latin America is not alone in rejecting the historical United States' notion that any visible African ancestry is enough to make one black: "In most countries of the Caribbean, Colin Powell would be described as a Creole, reflecting his mixed heritage. In Belize, he might further be described as a 'High Creole', because of his extremely light complexion."[15] This shows that the perception of race, particularly concerning people of African heritage, is relative to different societies and individuals.
An interesting anecdote to consider was that during this whole period, Puerto Rico had laws like the Regla del Sacar or Gracias al Sacar where a person of black ancestry could be considered legally white so long as they could prove that at least one person per generation in the last four generations had also been legally white. Therefore people of black ancestry with known white lineage were classified as white, the opposite of the "one-drop rule" in the United States.[16]
Racial mixtures of blacks and whites in modern America[edit]

Given the intense interest in ethnicity, genetic genealogists and other scientists have studied population groups. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. publicized such genetic studies on his two series African American Lives, shown on PBS. The specialists summarized United States population figures this way:
58 percent of African Americans have at least 12.5% European ancestry (equivalent of one great-grandparent);
19.6 percent of African Americans have at least 25% European ancestry (equivalent of one grandparent);
1 percent of African Americans have at least 50% European ancestry (equivalent of one parent) (Gates is one of those, he discovered); and
5 percent of African Americans have at least 12.5% Native American ancestry (equivalent to one great-grandparent).[17]
Mark D. Shriver, a molecular anthropologist at Penn State University, has studied population with a team of researchers. In 2002, they published results of a study regarding the racial admixture of Americans who identified as white or black. They recorded the individual's self-identification and analyzed the genetic make-up of their chromosomes. Their results are estimates and might not be completely accurate.[18] Other researchers have also done population studies.
Shriver surveyed a 3,000-person sample from 25 locations in the United States and tested subjects for genetic make-up. Among those who self-identified as white, the black racial admixture was about 0.7%; which is the equivalent of having 1 black and 127 white ancestors among one's 128 5×great-grandparents. Nationwide, Shriver estimates that 70% of white Americans have no African ancestors (in part because of the greatly increased immigration from Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries). Among the 30% who do have African ancestry, Shriver estimates their black racial admixture is 2.3%; the equivalent of having had 3 black ancestors among their 128 5×great-grandparents.[18]
Blacks are more racially mixed than whites, reflecting historical experience in the United States, including the close living and working conditions among colonial indentured servants, both black and white, and slaves, when many married or formed unions. Most of the free African-American families in Virginia in colonial years were the descendants of white women and African men. After the American Revolutionary War, their descendants migrated to nearby states along with other Virginia pioneers.[19] The admixture also reflects conditions under slavery, when white planters or their sons, or overseers, often raped African women.[citation needed] There were also freely chosen relationships among individuals of different or mixed races.
Shriver's study is not complete. In his study, of those persons who identified as black, their total ancestry reveals 18% white ancestry, the equivalent of having 22 white ancestors among their 128 5×great-grandparents. About 10% of blacks have more than 50% white ancestors. Population studies by researchers other than Shriver have found that in general, blacks had an average white ancestry of 25–30%.
Shriver points out that his survey found different admixture rates by region, which would also reflect historic patterns of settlement and change, both in terms of populations who migrated and their descendants' marriages. For example, the black populations with the highest average white ancestry lived in California and Seattle, both destinations during the Great Migration of 1940-1970. Blacks sampled in those two locations had more than 25% white European ancestry on average.[18]
Allusions[edit]

Charles W. Chesnutt, who was of mixed race and grew up in the North, wrote stories and novels about the issues of mixed-race people in southern society in the aftermath of the Civil War.
The one-drop rule and its consequences have been the subject of numerous works of popular culture. In the musical Show Boat, Steve, a white man who is married to a mixed-race woman (considered black), is pursued by a Southern sheriff, who is going to arrest Steve and charge him with miscegenation. Steve pricks his wife's finger and swallows some of her blood. When the sheriff arrives, Steve asks him whether he would consider a man to be white if he had "negro blood" in him. The sheriff replies that "one drop of Negro blood makes you a Negro in these parts". Steve tells the sheriff that he has "more than a drop of negro blood in me". After being assured by others that Steve is telling the truth, the sheriff leaves without arresting Steve.[20][21]
See also[edit]

Cherokee Freedmen
Hispanic and Latino Americans
List of topics related to Black and African people
Mestee
Mestizo
Mischling
Mixed Race Day
Pencil test
Racial hygiene
References[edit]

Notes
^ In 1855, John Bigelk, nephew of Big Elk, described a Sioux attack in which the mixed-race man Logan Fontenelle, son of an Omaha woman and a French trader, was killed: "They killed the white man, the interpreter, who was with us." As the historian Melvin Randolph Gilmore noted, Bigelk called Fontenelle "a white man because he had a white father. This was a common designation of half-breeds by full-bloods, just as a mulatto might commonly be called a [black] by white people, although as much white as black by race."[4]
Quotes
^ "Ten years later [referring to its 2000 report], TJF [Thomas Jefferson Foundation] and most historians now believe that, years after his wife's death, Thomas Jefferson was the father of the six children of Sally Hemings mentioned in Jefferson's records, including Beverly, Harriet, Madison and Eston Hemings."[3]
^ "To be defined as 'mulatto' under Virginia law in 1822, a person had to have at least one-quarter African ancestry." (This is the equivalent to one grandparent.)[2]:68
Citations
^ a b Conrad P. Kottak, "What is hypodescent?", Human Diversity and "Race", Cultural Anthropology, Online Learning, McGraw Hill, accessed 21 April 2010.
^ a b c Joshua D. Rothman, Notorious in the Neighborhood: Sex and Families Across the Color Line in Virginia, 1787–1861 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, 2003).
^ a b c "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: A Brief Account", Monticello Website, accessed 22 June 2011.
^ Melvin Randolph Gilmore, "The True Logan Fontenelle", Publications of the Nebraska State Historical Society, Vol. 19, edited by Albert Watkins, Nebraska State Historical Society, 1919, pp. 64-65, at GenNet, accessed 25 August 2011.
^ Langston Hughes, The Big Sea, an Autobiography (New York: Knopf, 1940).
^ Paul Heinegg, Free African Americans in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware, 1999–2005.
^ "All Niggers, More or Less!", The News and Courier, 17 October 1895.
^ Joel Williamson, New People: Miscegenation and Mulattoes in the United States (New York, 1980), p. 93.
^ Pauli Murray, ed. States' Laws on Race and Color (Athens, 1997), 428, 173, 443, 37, 237, 330, 463, 22, 39, 358, 77, 150, 164, 207, 254, 263, 459.
^ Madison Grant, The Passing of the Great Race, 1916.
^ For the Plecker story, see J. Douglas Smith, "The Campaign for Racial Purity and the Erosion of Paternalism in Virginia, 1922–1930: 'Nominally White, Biologically Mixed, and Legally Negro'", Journal of Southern History 68, no. 1 (2002): 65–106.
^ For Drake, see Virginia R. Dominguez, White by Definition: Social Classification in Creole Louisiana (New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University, 1986).
^ A.D. Powell, Passing for Who You Really Are, Palm Coast, 2005, ISBN 0-939479-22-2.
^ a b c d washingtonpost.com: "People of Color Who Never Felt They Were Black".
^ FAQ on the Black Seminoles, John Horse, and Rebellion.
^ Jay Kinsbruner, Not of Pure Blood, Duke University Press, 1996.
^ Henry Louis Gates, Jr., In Search of Our Roots: How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed Their Past (New York: Crown Publishing, 2009), pp. 20–21.
^ a b c Steve Sailer, "Race Now": Part 2: "How White Are Blacks? How Black Are Whites?", UPI, Steve Sailer Website.
^ Paul Heinegg, Free African Americans in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware, 1999–2005.
^ Show Boat (1951) Overview, Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 2008-03-21.
^ Make Believe – Show Boat – Synopsis, from the 1993 Canadian cast recording, Theatre-Musical.com. Retrieved 2008-03-21.
Further reading[edit]

Daniel, G. Reginald. More Than Black? Multiracial Identity and the New Racial Order. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 2002. ISBN 1-56639-909-2.
Daniel, G. Reginald. Race and Multiraciality in Brazil and the United States: Converging Paths?. University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press. 2006. ISBN 0-271-02883-1.
Davis, James F., Who Is Black?: One Nation's Definition. University Park PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-271-02172-1.
Guterl, Matthew Press, The Color of Race in America, 1900–1940. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-674-01012-4.
Moran, Rachel F., Interracial Intimacy: The Regulation of Race & Romance, Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press, 2003. ISBN 0-226-53663-7.
Romano, Renee Christine, Race Mixing: Black-White Marriage in Post-War America. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-674-01033-7.
Savy, Pierre, « Transmission, identité, corruption. Réflexions sur trois cas d’hypodescendance », L’homme. Revue française d’anthropologie, 182, 2007 (« Racisme, antiracisme et sociétés »), pp. 53–80.
Yancey, George, Just Don't Marry One: Interracial Dating, Marriage & Parenting. Judson Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8170-1439-X.
External links[edit]

New Life for the "One Drop" Rule
PBS – Multiracial America – Who is black? One nation's definition
PBS – Brazil in Black and White
"Battles in Red, Black, and White: Virginia's Racial Integrity Law of 1924", University of Virginia
Lawrence Wright, "One Drop of Blood", The New Yorker, 24 July 1994
John Terrence A. Rosenthal, "Batson Revisited in America's 'New Era' of Multiracial Persons", Law Review 33:1, Seton Hall University
Categories: African–Native American relationsAfrican-American historyHistory of African-American civil rightsKinship and descentMultiracial affairsNative American historyRace in the United States
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