I lived in Virginia for a good chunk of my childhood. When I was born, Virginia was one of 16 states that did not allow white people to marry non-white people. Curiously, the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 included what they called a Pocahontas Exception “in response to concerns of Virginia elites who had always claimed descent from Pocahontas with pride, but now worried that the new legislation would jeopardize their status”. This exception was as follows:
It shall thereafter be unlawful for any white person in this State to marry any save a white person, or a person with no other admixture of blood than white and American Indian. For the purpose of this act, the term “white person” shall apply only to the person who has no trace whatsoever of any blood other than Caucasian; but persons who have one-sixteenth or less of the blood of the American Indian and have no other non-Caucasic blood shall be deemed to be white persons.
In fact, this text is believed to be the “first direct case of whiteness itself being defined officially”
Since that time, a lot has happened. On June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down Virginia’s law, along with all similar laws across the country. And in Virginia, the government has apologized for its role in the eugenics movement, which had spawned this and many other bad laws.