One-Drop Rule

Social Significance

The one-drop rule was established during the slavery era in the United States. It had multiple aims or social purposes: to prevent interracial relationships, ensure the purity of the White race, and maintain the slave status of Black children born to White women as well as Black women. This meant children born to White women were considered Black if the father was Black, while all children born to Black women were considered Black even if the father was White. Thus, Black children often inherited their slavery status from their mothers.

The one-drop rule was adopted by different states at different periods of time. Both Louisiana and Tennessee adopted the rule in 1910, Texas and Arkansas in 1911, and Mississippi in 1917. By 1925, almost every state had some form of the one-drop rule. Many states maintained that false reporting of one's racial identity would result in legal penalty.

A group of citizens in Louisiana challenged the one-drop rule as applied in the state's Separate Car Act, which endorsed “separate but equal” seating in railroad cars. Because he was only one-eighth Black and appeared White, Homer Plessy was chosen to test the constitutionality of the act by attempting to sit in the White section of a railroad car. He was arrested and charged with violating the act. In the 1896 precedent-setting case of Plessy v. Ferguson, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Plessy's conviction in the lower Louisiana courts. Without ruling directly on the definition of a Negro or a Black, the Supreme Court ruled that the Separate Car Act was constitutional.

In the case of Loving vs. Virginia, in 1967, the Supreme Court declared the one-drop rule unconstitutional by overturning state laws that forbid interracial marriages. However, the one-drop rule persisted in law. A law in Louisiana defining anyone with a “trace” of Black ancestry as Black withstood legal challenges during the civil rights era. In 1983, this law was repealed as a result of a legal challenge on behalf of a child who was 1/256 Black, whose parents wanted the option of selecting the race of their newborn as officially declared on the birth certificate. Finally, in 1986, the Supreme Court denied further appeals, establishing the end of the one-drop rule as a legal definition.

“Passing”

Legitimizing the one-drop rule was intended to prevent or minimize the social practice of “passing.” “Passing as White” is the practice of a person or member of multiracial ancestry, typically including African American heritage, becoming accepted by others as White, which was undertaken by people desperate to escape the low social status of being Black in a racist society. Passing in a multiracial society can be very complex. Gunnar Myrdal noted that Black Americans who were not light skinned enough to pass as White would instead pass for Filipinos, Spaniards, Italians, or Mexicans to escape discrimination.

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