an awful man writing awful things

Plecker quickly began using his office, letterhead and the public’s uncertainty about the implications of the new law to his advantage. His letters and bulletins informed and sometimes hounded new parents, newlyweds, midwives, physicians, funeral directors, ministers, and anyone else the Bureau of Vital Statistics suspected of being or abetting the unwhite.

April 30, 1924

Mrs. Robert H. Cheatham

Lynchburg, Virginia 

We have a report of the birth of your child, July 30th, 1923, signed by Mary Gildon, midwife. She says that you are white and that the father of the child is white. We have a correction to this certificate sent to us from the City Health Department at Lynchburg, in which they say that the father of this child is a negro. This is to give you warning that this is a mulatto child and you cannot pass it off as white. A new law passed by the last legislature says that if a child has one drop of negro blood in it, it cannot be counted as white. You will have to do something about this matter and see that this child is not allowed to mix with white children. It cannot go to white schools and can never marry a white person in Virginia. 

It is an awful thing. 

Yours very truly,

WA. Plecker

STATE REGISTRAR

Black, Edwin. War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race-Expanded Edition (pp. 263-264). Dialog Press. Kindle Edition.