The Saddest State-Wide Vote of the Aughts
December 11th, 2009
The decade’s almost kaput. Anyone with dial-up and a keyboard is making lists about the best and worst whatevers of the last 10 years. I say: Why bother! But I did want to add this ditty to the heap of superlatives:
While the landmark Supreme Court ruling Loving v. Virgina banned all race-based restrictions on marriage in 1967, many southern states kept their anti-miscegenation laws on the books, just ’cause. Removing the laws would’ve only invited the secular feds to tread upon the states even more. And southern states hate nothing more than being treaded upon. However, during the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, as Americans got all soft about shit, every state did away with such laws. Except Alabama. Alabama: Often last in public education, always last in removing anti-miscegenation laws.
Article IV, Section 102 of the state’s Constitution of 1901 decrees: “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.” [via]
Not until November 2000 did Alabamans vote to remove the impotent section of their constitution. But the margin wasn’t as wide as you’d hope. According to the New York Times, 40% of voters — almost 526,000 people — voted to keep it.
