“Free Now”: Anti-Miscegenation and the Chesapeake
Abstract:
“Free Now,” is a three-part analysis of the over three hundred year span (1630-1967), in which anti-miscegenation laws barred blacks and whites from interracial romance and marriage in the Chesapeake Bay region. Maryland and Virginia first enacted laws of this sort during the Colonial era as a means to maintain a socio-economic hierarchy with the white race remaining pure and above the subservient black race. Additionally, this project analyzes the Mulatto within legal and literary settings in an effort to emphasize the many consequences of miscegenation. As the country moved into Emancipation and Reconstruction, hysteria and efforts to increase the emotional divide between black and white, as well as institute racial classifications until the fall of such laws in 1967, with the case of Loving v. Virginia. The Chesapeake region’s long history of anti-miscegenation laws and the key Supreme Court decision in 1967, are a key part of the larger racial equality narrative of the United States.