Unsung History27 Jan 2025

The History of Interracial Marriage in Mississippi

In 1865, when Black people in Mississippi first gained the legal right to marriage, so-called Black Codes outlawed interracial marriage, punishable by life in prison. Five years later, Republicans in the Mississippi state legislature repealed the Black Codes and legalized interracial marriage, but the law was reversed again ten years later when Democrats took control. In 1890, a new state Constitution, erasing all the racial progress of the 1868 one, enshrined a prohibition on interracial marriage that lasted until the Supreme Court ruling in Loving v. Virginia. Through it all, though, interracial couples in Mississippi formed lasting unions, started families, and in some cases even legally wed, despite the legal constraints against them. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Kathryn Schumaker, Senior Lecturer in American Studies at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, and author of Tangled Fortunes

The Hidden History of Interracial Marriage in the Segregated South.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Mississippi Moon,” written and performed by Gus Van and Joe Schenck; this recording was created in New York on January 3, 1923 and is in the public domain; it is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode artwork is a photo by Monet Garner on Unsplash and is free to use under the Unsplash License.

Additional Sources:

“‘Unlawful Intimacy’: Mixed-Race Families, Miscegenation Law, and the Legal Culture of Progressive Era Mississippi.” by Kathryn Schumaker, 2023. Law and History Review 41(4): 773–94. doi: 10.1017/S0738248023000317.
“Mississippi Miscegenation Laws,” Facing History and Ourselves.
“Civil Rights Act of 1866, ‘An Act to protect all Persons in the United States in their Civil Rights, and furnish the Means of their Vindication,’” National Constitution Center.
Miss. Code Ann. § 97-29-1 Adultery and fornication; unlawful cohabitation.
“Mississippi Rises Again,” by Don Winbush, Time Magazine, November 16, 1987.

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