Still On Alabama Law Books
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The NAACP said it would try to repeal the state's little-known constitutional ban on marriages between blacks and whites.
The prohibition, contained in Alabama's 1901 Constitution, has not been enforced in years. Hundreds of mixed-race couples wed annually in the state.
Still, the head of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said the constitution should be changed.
"We're going to get rid of it,'' said NAACP President R.L. Shanklin, a Huntsville minister.
Voters on Tuesday decided to repeal a similar, unenforced ban from South Carolina's Constitution, but lawmakers must ratify the action before the section is stricken.
The Alabama Constitution reads: "The legislature shall never pass any law to authorize or legalize any marriage between any white person and a negro, or descendant of a negro.''
The U.S. Supreme Court, ruling in a Virginia case in 1967, said states may not ban interracial marriages, according to Charles D. Cole, a constitutional law professor at Samford University.
So even though the ban is still in Alabama's Constitution, Cole said, it cannot not be enforced.
Source: Newswire
Date: Nov. 8, 1998
Beloved
by Toni Morrison