4 Reasons Why Virginia's Recent Statement of "Profound Regret" Isn't Enough

Virginias Racial Oppression Did Not End with The Abolition of Slavery

The 1920s

In 1924 three Acts were passed, forever changing the American experience for mixed Americans and non-whites. The Immigration Act of 1924 was a major immigration quota bill, which changed the color of those officially allowed to enter the country. Interestingly, another 1924 Act - Virginia's 1924 Racial Purity Act was passed at the same time as the Virginia Eugenical Sterilization Act. The Racial Purity Act was used as a model for similar laws in Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Note: While versions of Virginia's legislation appeared in more than half of the states of the U.S., Virginia's served as the lead model. Also note that violation of the Racial Purity Act was deemed a felony.

These three Acts implemented new Jim Crow laws with renewed vigor. People were kicked out of hospital beds and clinics. Bodies were dug up and moved out of cemeteries. Marriages that could not prove both parties were of the same race were annulled or prevented. Indians were reclassified as "colored" in an act of "paper genocide," which resulted in the extinction of some tribes, and the revocation of their fishing and hunting rights.

In accordance with the Sterilization Act, “biologically defective or deficient” groups were given the choice of segregation or sterilization.

The 1940s

Then, in the early 1940s a U.S. Liberia Act aims to quarantine mixed people, African Americans and Native American people in Liberia.

The 1950s

Virginia’s history of race relations also includes "massive resistance" policies in the 1950s designed to support rebellion against the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that integrated schools. Under these policies, the governor closed schools in Warren County, Norfolk, and Charlottesville, rather than be forced to integrate them.