AHR Forum: Amalgamation and the Historical Distinctiveness of the United States
Amalgamation and Hypodescent: The Question of Ethnoracial Mixture in the History of the United States
DAVID A. HOLLINGER
In the middle of a July night in 1958, a couple living in a small town in Virginia were awakened when a party of local police officers walked into their bedroom and arrested them for a felony violation of Virginia’s miscegenation statute. The couple had been married in the District of Columbia, which did allow blacks and whites to marry each other, but the two Virginians were subsequently found guilty of violating the statute’s prohibition on marrying out of state with the intent of circumventing Virginia law.