Former Head of Bureau of Vital Statistics in New Orleans, Naomi Drake, changed the race on thousands of birth certs from "white" to black" from 1949-1965 in her quest to "catch" anyone with Black heritage

Submitted by DeLaGrandTerre t3_ykjcio in history

I only heard about this for the first time today. I knew a little about the Jim Crow South, but not a lot. I had no idea there was such a "gotcha" attitude to people who were even noted as white on their birth certificates.

http://www.creolegen.org/2022/06/25/in-pursuit-of-race-the-reign-of-naomi-drake-1949-1965/?fbclid=IwAR055QFWWDcN11E8NCN_47CHDcmepWusaJJl-vALG8vPmXG2sklof9eRHn0

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The story really affected me on a personal level today. My great gram Lola left Louisiana in the 1930s as a woman of color and raised us in NY as "French". I was researching for a documentary series Ive been releasing on youtube called "Finding Lola" ( I won't link so this post isn't removed for spam)--where Im working through the history of white-passing in my family and the circumstances around that in both Louisiana and NY. To be honest, I started the project angry at my Gram Lola for lying to the whole family about our heritage, but now I feel....shocked. Sad for her and how much she tried to protect the whole family the best she could. The article notes that the "one drop rule" (1/32 African) was still in effect until 1983. Only THREE years before I was born. In NY, we were white. In Louisiana, we were Black---and in danger. This was not that long ago.

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Juicepig21 t1_iuvzwii wrote

That's absolutely nuts. Thank you for sharing.

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Basic-Ad-5649 t1_ive69ai wrote

I can only imagine its a similar case, here in Australia, which led to indigeneity to be supressed out of fear of economic and violent oppression.

Thanks for sharing

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Specialist_Chart506 t1_ivrqjje wrote

This is crazy! I’ve seen my dad’s birth certificate from Louisiana, it says “colored”, same thing for my cousin born in 1989, she’s blonde, blue eyed and could pass if she wanted to. I was shocked to see it. I was born in London, UK, no race on my birth certificate.

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