The Roots of Racial Profiling  Ms. Wills is a writer,
researcher, and genealogist, and author of the forthcoming book,
Notes and Documents of Free Persons of Color: Colonial Virginia,
1650-1850 (March 2003).   How old is racial profiling?  The Free
Negro Registry was a means of identifying and tracking so-called
Free Persons of Color. In colonial Virginia, all Free Persons of
Color were required to show identification to any white person
on demand. After the Civil War, the laws were reversed, but only
to be revived in 1880 as the Jim Crow laws (named after a black
minstrel character). Many of the Jim Crow laws were repealed
during the 1960's Civil Rights movement; however, they are
resurfacing again in the guise of racial profiling.  Although
racial profiling is not backed by written statutes, its roots
are in the laws enacted during colonial times. Racial profiling,
for want of a better term, is a Gateway Act -- an excuse used to
approach citizens assumed to be criminals.  Take the stories of
Mary and Patty