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Atha Sorrells presented her family tree as evidence that she was white in her suit to obtain a license to marry Robert Painter.

Every person living in Virginia had to register as either "white" or "colored." This designation determined whom a person could marry and where he or she could attend school, among other things.

A.T. Shields, clerk of the Circuit Court of Rockbridge County, denied Atha Sorrells and Robert Painter a marriage license because of Sorrells' Indian heritage. Sorrells and Painter brought action against Shields, and Judge Holt ruled in their favor,…

In a letter to Turner McDowell, clerk of the Circuit Court in Botetourt County, Walter Plecker probed the legality of the marriage between Grace Mohler and Samuel Christian Branham. The court ruled that Branham was a "Negro" and ordered him "never…

In a letter to A.T. Shields, Walter Plecker asserted that Judge Holt's decision to categorize Atha Sorrells as white despite her Indian heritage had "emboldened" the Rockbridge tribe. Nonetheless, he advised against appealing the Sorrells case to the…

In a letter to A.T. Shields, Walter Plecker inquired into the problem of the "free issue" people of Rockbridge and alluded to the "unfortunate mistake made by Judge Holt in deciding that one of those families is of Indian blood and should be allowed…

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows…

In a 1943 letter to local registrars, clerks, and legislators, Plecker asserted, "[T]here does not exist today a descendant of Virginia ancestors claiming to be an Indian who is unmixed with negro blood."