Mixed Race Studies

Letter, W. A. Plecker to A. T. Shields. 9 May 1925. Typescript.

Commonwealth of Virginia, Bureau of Vital Statistics
Richmond, Virginia
1925-05-09

Source: Rockbridge County (Va.) Clerk’s Correspondence [Walter A. Plecker to A.T. Shields], 1912-1943. Local Government Records Collection, Rockbridge County Court Records. The Library of Virginia. 10-0477-003.

In a letter to A.T. Shields, Walter Plecker asserted that Judge Holt’s decision to categorize Atha Sorrells as white despite her Indian heritage had “emboldened” the Rockbridge tribe. Nonetheless, he advised against appealing the Sorrells case to the Supreme Court because the court might rule in her favor.

Walter A. Plecker, Registrar

Hon. A. T. Shields,
Rockbridge County Clerk’s Office
Lexington, Virginia

Dear Sir:

In reply to your letter of May 4th, which came during my absence from the, office, I beg to advise that the matter in reference to an appeal in the Atha Sorrells case was left to the Attorney General and the lawyer, Mr. Shewmake, employed by the Anglo Saxon Clubs. After going over carefully the evidence, in view of the fact that nothing new could be introduced,  they decided that it was unwise to appeal the case as the only evidence upon which we absolutely relied,  that of our records was set aside by Judge Holt, and we would not care to take the risk of having the Supreme Court render a similar decision.   Our hope is to drift along until the next legislature, and have them pass a bill prevent ing the marriage of the Indians with the whites.   In my judgement there are no native Indians in Virginia unmixed with negro blood…

Read the entire letter here.

The Choice

The New Yorker
2012-10-22

The Editors

The morning was cold and the sky was bright. Aretha Franklin wore a large and interesting hat. Yo-Yo Ma urged his frozen fingers to play the cello, and the Reverend Joseph E. Lowery, a civil-rights comrade of Martin Luther King, Jr.,’s, read a benediction that began with “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the segregation-era lamentation of American realities and celebration of American ideals. On that day in Washington—Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009—the blustery chill penetrated every coat, yet the discomfort was no impediment to joy. The police estimated that more than a million and a half people had crowded onto the Mall, making this the largest public gathering in the history of the capital. Very few could see the speakers. It didn’t matter. People had come to be with other people, to mark an unusual thing: a historical event that was elective, not befallen.

Just after noon, Barack Hussein Obama, the forty-seven-year-old son of a white Kansan and a black Kenyan, an uncommonly talented if modestly credentialled legislator from Illinois, took the oath of office as the forty-fourth President of the United States. That night, after the inaugural balls, President Obama and his wife and their daughters slept at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, a white house built by black men, slaves of West African heritage…

….Obama’s most significant legislative achievement was a vast reform of the national health-care system. Five Presidents since the end of the Second World War have tried to pass legislation that would insure universal access to medical care, but all were defeated by deeply entrenched opposition. Obama—bolstered by the political cunning of the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi—succeeded. Some critics urged the President to press for a single-payer system—Medicare for all. Despite its ample merits, such a system had no chance of winning congressional backing. Obama achieved the achievable. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is the single greatest expansion of the social safety net since the advent of Medicaid and Medicare, in 1965. Not one Republican voted in favor of it…

Read the entire opinion piece here.