A 1920s Virginia Scheme: How Far to Sustain the Color Line?
Introduction
The majority opinion of Loving v. Virginia (1967) declared state laws on interracial marriage unconstitutional by the Fourteenth Amendment upon reviewing a series of 1920s statutes in Virginia. Forty years prior, the case of Buck v. Bell (1927) had upheld the sterilization of institutionalized white woman Carrie Buck because she was deemed “incompetent” by 1920s standards. This case was about another 1920s Virginia statute originally deemed constitutional. By evaluating Buck v. Bell through the lens of the statutes established by Loving v. Virginia, however, it becomes clear that the ruling of Buck was ultimately meant to legally manage race relations in the state. Beyond the decision reached, the specific statutes addressed in Loving help to shed light on the implications of Buck; the Court in Loving v. Virginia explicitly recognized interracial relations in Virginia anti-miscegenation statutes, whereas race was legally not a factor in Buck v. Bell. The cases examined in this paper also demonstrate Virginia’s focus on eugenics during this time, specifically through the 1924 Act of Virginia, a racially discriminatory act that laid the groundwork for more racist state-wide legislation in the 1920s. At the time, the notion of eugenics was used as a method to manage race legally by reducing interracial relationships to the concept of “promiscuity”; this allowed legislators to label mixed-race reproduction as immoral and a threat to the nation, and justify the sterilization of such “promiscuous” people. Ultimately, an understanding of Buck v. Bell through the lens of Loving v. Virginia demonstrates how Buck architected a gene pool built on racial stratification to promote white supremacy.
Establishing Loving as Insight into 1920s Virginia Statutes
The statutes deemed unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia, including “the Racial Integrity Act of 1924,” illustrate how interracial relationships, reduced to promiscuity, were condemned in Virginia at this time [1]. Virginia had a “ban on interracial marriages” produced through “a comprehensive statutory scheme aimed at prohibiting and punishing interracial marriages” [2]. Thus, the decision issued in Loving acknowledges that a combination of Virginia statutes worked together to bar citizens from what they called “miscegenation,” more commonly known as interracial marriage today. Due to this complex situation, Virginians who engaged in interracial relationships would be forced to do so outside of wedlock. And, if they followed through with this, they could be considered promiscuous by early 20th-century standards. As such, Loving v. Virginia offers context into how explicit bans on interracial marriage minimize these relationships to “promiscuity.”
Since interracial relationships were thus prohibited by Virginia laws, mixed-race children could be born only outside of wedlock, thus leading to any interracial reproduction being defined as promiscuity. During this time, Virginia’s statutes covered as many bases as possible: no “white person and colored person” could leave the state “for the purpose of being married” and then “return to and reside in it.” Further, “all marriages of ‘a white person and a colored person’” were “automatically [void]... without judicial proceeding” [3]. Every statute added new restrictions to mixed-race relationships in the state’s effort to establish these relationships as immoral. Thus, by restricting the ability to have interracial reproduction, these statutes cooperated to reduce mixed-race children to the product of individuals engaging in immoral promiscuity.
Incorporating Buck to Reveal Virginia’s Ultimate Goal
Virginia’s legislation ultimately justified the sterilization of any individual who engaged in interracial relationships; at the time, one could get institutionalized and eventually sterilized simply for “promiscuity.” In the case of Carrie Buck, for instance, her “promiscuity” is exactly what landed her sterilized in an institution for the “Feeble Minded” [4]. The decision in her case relied on the legal backing from a Virginian law in the 1920s that allowed authorities to force sterilization upon institutionalized individuals after a minimal court procedure. In his support for the law, Justice Holmes argued that “it [was] better for all the world” to “prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind,” thus claiming that America was made stronger by restricting the “feeble-minded” from producing offspring [5]. It soon became evident how any interracial couple who chose to have children could result in the sterilization of the couple. After all, since interracial couples could not get married under the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, their only means of having children was through “promiscuity”, an action which was also barred through the Virginia statute on sterilization; as such, the sterilization statute managed to have racialized targets even without the explicit mention of race in its language.
By reducing interracial reproduction to promiscuity and further restricting it through sterilization, the combination of the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 and other racial statutes of the Virginia Code worked to promote a racially stratified gene pool. In Loving v. Virginia, the acknowledgment of marriage as being “fundamental to our very existence and survival” tied marriage directly to reproduction by calling marriage essential to the existence of people [6]. Through the lens of Loving v. Virginia, it became clear that Buck v. Bell was a threat to that fundamental right. The combination of restrictive interracial marriage laws addressed in Loving demonstrated that the state had gone to great lengths to stop interracial couples from reproducing and maintain a racially stratified gene pool.
Ultimately, the state’s ulterior motive for maintaining such racial stratification was to maintain a clearly defined social hierarchy between White and Black people. According to the established law, without interracial relations, white people and black people would only procreate with others of their same race, thus producing generations of children who stay consistent with the hierarchy and keep the white race “pure,” as advocated for by many white supremacist eugenicists at the time. This is well-demonstrated by one of the statutes addressed and ultimately struck down in Loving v. Virginia, which specifically prohibited a “white person” from marrying any individual other than another “white person” [7]. The statute, which was exclusively concerned with the range of individuals qualified to marry white people, supported the notion that the ultimate issue with interracial relations was its threat to the purity of the White race. Any interracial relationship including a white person would thus result in what was labeled as “impure blood” in future generations, which Virginia condemned through these statutes. In this way, examining the statutes of Buck v. Bell through the lens of Loving v. Virginia clearly shed light on the state’s prior goals of racial stratification to maintain white supremacy.
Conclusion — Threats to the Nation and Modern Eugenics
The statutes considered in Loving v. Virginia, including various sections of the Virginia Code and the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, provided helpful context to glean the purpose of the ruling in Buck v. Bell, ultimately demonstrating how a combination of 1920s Virginia laws separated White and Black citizens and attempted to perpetuate racial segregation for future generations as well. By outlawing interracial marriage and exclusively defining interracial procreation as “promiscuity,” Buck v. Bell, in tandem with Virginian legislation, justified the sterilization of interracial and “promiscuous” couples and thus maintained a racially segregated gene pool.
This justification was later challenged in the ruling of Loving v. Virginia, in which Chief Justice Warren would describe marriage as “one of the ‘basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival” [8]. In doing so, Justice Warren built a critical connection between the individual’s right to marry and the implication on the country’s existence as a whole. Because marriage was so closely tied with the reproduction of future generations, Justice Warren leveraged that the nation had a stake in ensuring the right to marry for all individuals regardless of their racial background. Instead of condemning interracial relationships as a threat to the nation, the Loving decision suggested that they were essential to the composition of the nation; in fact, the prohibition of interracial marriages would limit diverse reproduction, which the decision in Loving v. Virginia maintained would pose as both a social and genetic threat to the nation. When ruled, Loving v. Virginia did not immediately overturn Buck v. Bell, but it certainly reduced the effect of Virginia’s sterilization statute on interracial couples. The future analysis of Buck v. Bell through the lens of Loving v. Virginia would thereby more clearly illuminate the established ulterior motives of Buck v. Bell.
Bibliography
[1] Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967)
[2] 388 U.S. 1 (1967)
[3] Ibid.
[4] Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927)
[5] 274 U.S. 200 (1927)
[6] 388 U.S. 1 (1967)
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.