Author: Richmond News Leader

PRIMARY DOCUMENT

“Not the Virginia Way.” (February 9, 1926)

In this article, published February 9, 1926, in the Richmond News Leader, its editor Douglas Southall Freeman argues that legally enforcing racial segregation in social life and marriage isn’t necessary when elites can continue to effectively uphold the racial hierarchy, in what he calls the “Virginia way.” He is particularly concerned about the challenge the proposed racial integrity laws pose to Virginia’s seminaries’ ability to recruit students from China and Japan, who would be classified as “non-white.” He also argues legalizing segregation would draw attention to the incongruity between the Christian values that missionaries from Virginia are evangelizing abroad and the racism shaping their home state.

PRIMARY DOCUMENT

“Price of Pollution” (June 6, 1923)

In this article, published June 6, 1923, in the Richmond News Leader, its editor Douglas Southall Freeman endorses the Anglo-Saxon Clubs of America‘s goal of racial segregation, but he questions their legal approach to achieving it. Their strategy eventually results in the Racial Integrity Laws. Freeman aligns himself with the work of Madison Grant, who espoused eugenics, a pseudo-science of white superiority, when he laments the failure of white elites to prevent people of different races from mixing. In Virginia, white people, Black people, and Virginia Indians have been intermixing since European settlement.

PRIMARY DOCUMENT

“Who Have the Big Families?” (January 5, 1925)

In this editorial, published January 5, 1925, in the Richmond News Leader, its editor Douglas Southall Freeman builds an argument for eugenics based on the 1923 census birth rates by profession. Eugenics is a pseudo-science of white superiority. He makes groundless claims about the intelligence of “outdoor workers” and implies that their birth rates should be reduced.

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