Black-white and blue in Utah
I noticed a Utah headline today:
Fortunately, I was reading the Utah Historical Quarterly* and the headline was from the 1898 Ogden Standard. The UHQ's Spring 2008 issue includes a fascinating article on Utah's ban on interracial marriages from 1888 to 1963.
Another couple, Quong Wah and Dora Harris were turned down for a marriage license in 1898, even though Harris swore she was a Creole and her father was "half Irish and half negro." The Salt Lake County clerk looked Harris over and ruled that her "Caucasian blood predominated" and she couldn't marry an Asian, even if he said "he loved the girl."
During the struggle for statehood, laws banning polygamy and interracial marriage became entwined in the peculiar way of most things in Utah.
*The Spring 2008 issue of Historical Quarterly, which also includes a profile of the late state Sen. Pete Suazo, will soon be on line.
HOWARD IS FOUND GUILTY
His Marriage to Ella Howarth
Null and Void
The Jury Decides That the Woman
Is White and the Negro is Black
—Twenty Days is the Sentence.
His Marriage to Ella Howarth
Null and Void
The Jury Decides That the Woman
Is White and the Negro is Black
—Twenty Days is the Sentence.
Fortunately, I was reading the Utah Historical Quarterly* and the headline was from the 1898 Ogden Standard. The UHQ's Spring 2008 issue includes a fascinating article on Utah's ban on interracial marriages from 1888 to 1963.
Another couple, Quong Wah and Dora Harris were turned down for a marriage license in 1898, even though Harris swore she was a Creole and her father was "half Irish and half negro." The Salt Lake County clerk looked Harris over and ruled that her "Caucasian blood predominated" and she couldn't marry an Asian, even if he said "he loved the girl."
During the struggle for statehood, laws banning polygamy and interracial marriage became entwined in the peculiar way of most things in Utah.
*The Spring 2008 issue of Historical Quarterly, which also includes a profile of the late state Sen. Pete Suazo, will soon be on line.
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