Nation Topics - Law | The Nation  Topic Page   News and Features
On November 7, voters in Alabama erased from that state's
Constitution a provision dating from 1901 that declared that
"the legislature shall never pass any law to authorize or
legalize any marriage between any white person and a Negro, or
descendant of a Negro." This declaration represented in part a
desire by white supremacists to express as fully as possible
their intention to expunge the racially egalitarian symbols,
hopes and reforms of Reconstruction. Although Alabama had never
enacted a law expressly authorizing interracial marriage, in
1872 the state's Supreme Court did invalidate the law that
prohibited such unions. But it promptly reversed itself in 1877
when white supremacists regained power. The Alabama
Constitution's disapproval of interracial marriage, however, had
still deeper roots. It stemmed from the presumption that white
men had the authority to dictate whom, in racial terms, a person
could and could not marry. It was also r