A Melungeon HomePage: 1924 Racial Integrity Act

A Melungeon HomePage: 1924 Racial Integrity Act: "State of Virginia
Enacted 1924
An Act To Preserve Racial Integrity
1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia That the State Registrar of Vital Statistics may as soon as practicable after the taking effect of this act, prepare a form whereon the racial composition of any individual as Caucasian, Negro, Mongolian, American Indian, Asiatic Indian, Malay or any mixture thereof or any other non-Caucasic strains, and if there be any mixture, then the racial composition, of the parents and other ancestors, in so far as ascertainable, so as to show in what generation such mixture occurred, may be certified by such individual, which form shall be known as a registration certificate. The State Registrar may supply to each local registrar a sufficient number of such forms for the purposes of this act; each local registrar may personally or by deputy, as soon as possible after receiving said forms, have made thereon in duplicate a certificate of the racial composition as aforesaid, of each person resident in his district, who so desires, born before June fourteem nineteen hundred and twelve, which certificate shall be made over the signature of said person, or in the case of children under fourteen years of age, over the signature of a parent, guardian, or other person standing in loco parentis. One of said certificates for each person thus registering in every district shall be forwarded to the State registrar for his files; the other shall be kept on file by the local registrar. "