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Anti-miscegenation laws reinforced race-based segregation by prohibiting marriage between people of different races. In the US, most states in the United States of America had anti-miscegenation laws in place by the late 1800s, and they remained in force in some states until 1967, when the Supreme Court ruled that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional in their Loving v. Virginia ruling. In 1866 Kentucky, the first anti-miscegenation law, which prohibited marriage between a white person and a person who had any Black ancestry within three generations, was passed. In 1932, this was updated to prohibit any interracial marriages at all. It is likely this is the version Sheriff Davies Kimbo uses as grounds to arrest Jackson Lovett for marrying Cussy Mary Carter.
Anti-miscegenation Laws Quotes in The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek
The The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek quotes below are all either spoken by Anti-miscegenation Laws or refer to Anti-miscegenation Laws. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 46
Quotes
I gasped. It had never happened here, but I’d read about the laws in the city newsprints and know’d they were being enforced in other places. Folks were charged and thrown in jail for courting someone not like themselves, for taking another color to their marriage beds. It was an ugly law that let mere folk lord over different-type folks, decide who a person could or couldn’t love.
[…]
Sheriff shifted and squared his shoulders. “The law clearly states that marrying a colored person destroys the very moral supremacy of our Godly people and is damning and destructive to our social peace.”
“I’m taking my wife and daughter home,” Jackson told the sheriff.
“You listen to me, Lovett. You think you can jus’ waltz back in to Kaintuck with your highfalutin ways and soil the good people. No, sir, this ain’t the west!” Sheriff’s face heated with a fury.
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Anti-miscegenation Laws Term Timeline in The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek
The timeline below shows where the term Anti-miscegenation Laws appears in The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 46
...Center door opens, and a smug-faced Harriett appears. Jackson is under arrest for breaking the anti-miscegenation laws that prohibit marriage between a white person and “Negroes or persons of color.” Cussy protests...
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