Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-nwzlb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T06:20:02.567Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Miscegenation

from Entries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2016

Raymond Gavins
Affiliation:
Duke University, North Carolina
Get access

Summary

Derived from genus and miscere, Latin for race and mix, miscegenation historically evoked white fear. Democrats, charging Republicans with “the sexual mixing of races, particularly of whites and blacks,” perpetrated anti-miscegenation laws in at least twenty, mostly southern states, from the end of the Civil War to Loving v. Virginia (1967). Anti-miscegenation ideology also fueled collective terror, such as black lynching, against “interracial domestic relationships.” Loving overruled Virginia and all states’ statutes banning white–black marriage.

Comparatively few interracial unions have occurred since that decision. For every 100,000 married couples in 1960, there were 126 white–black marriages and 396 by 1990. But attitudes were changing. In the mid-1990s, only 18 percent of whites said yes to this National Research Opinion Center query: “Do you think there should be laws against marriages between Blacks and Whites?” In addition, 97 and 99 percent of black men and women, respectively, preferred marriage in their racial group.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2016

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Lemire, Elise. “Miscegenation”: Making Race in America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, Charles F. II. Dangerous Liaisons: Sex and Love in the Segregated South. Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 2003.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Miscegenation
  • Raymond Gavins, Duke University, North Carolina
  • Book: The Cambridge Guide to African American History
  • Online publication: 05 March 2016
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316216453.205
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Miscegenation
  • Raymond Gavins, Duke University, North Carolina
  • Book: The Cambridge Guide to African American History
  • Online publication: 05 March 2016
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316216453.205
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Miscegenation
  • Raymond Gavins, Duke University, North Carolina
  • Book: The Cambridge Guide to African American History
  • Online publication: 05 March 2016
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316216453.205
Available formats
×