Browse Items (18 total)
- Collection: Loving v Virginia
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Petition of Robert Wright seeking divorce from Mary Godsey
Robert Wright, a free black, married Mary Godsey, a white woman, in 1806. In January 1815 she eloped with a white man, taking with her a slave and other property. Wright overtook the couple and persuaded his wife to return. That November, she fled…
Registration of Birth and Color--Virginia
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.
Sorrells Family Tree
Atha Sorrells presented her family tree as evidence that she was white in her suit to obtain a license to marry Robert Painter.
Surnames, by Counties and Cities, of Mixed Negroid Virginia Families Striving to Pass as "Indian" or White.
Walter Plecker circulated a list of surnames of "mixed negroid Virginia families striving to pass as 'Indian' or white" in each county.
