68 thoughts on “black mother, white children”

1. Just my thought here, but you may be reading more into Mary’s expression than was there at the time. I have many family photos dating from that time, and everyone had either a scowl or no expression at all because the film exposure required the sitters to remain motionless for a longer period than modern photos. Also, it looks to me that her husband has his arm protectively behind her back and is sitting quite close to her and on the same level. Often, the men would be sitting and the women would be subserviently standing behind them. It seems to me he is proud of his family, or else why would he want a photo of them?

   As for the census, it’s my understanding that many census takers made the determination themselves as to what race the person was. Whatever the census taker put down, that’s how the person would be recorded.

   Have you read “Having Our Say” by the Delany sisters? They had a white grandfather and a mulatto grandmother and give some excellent insights into those relationships and others dating from the same time period as this photo. Another interesting book, this one about Reconstruction, is “Forever Free.”

   Fascinating photo and definitely food for thought!

2. Concerning the census. In the 1906 census my great great grandfather and his family were listed as Mulatto. Yet, in a few year after he passed away his wife and her children were listed as black. That US census back then could be an interesting thing.

3. The children are not mulatto but Octoroon 1/8 or Quadroon 1/4 black as their mom appears to be mixed probably mulatto prior to the ending of slavery the census was White Octoroon Quadroon mulatto black it was in the early 1900’s that the one drop rule took full effect.

4. Hi, I’ve seen this photograph before on another website (http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/19th_5.htm) and I was under the impression that both the husband and the wife were of African-American (racially mixed) heritage. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I got that impression because they were listed as free “African-Americans” on the website. I don’t know whether they “passed” at any point in time, however–perhaps they did or didn’t.

   I don’t really know what the mother was thinking but I am not sure that any of those thoughts were streaming through her mind–she could’ve been thinking of anything, or the stern expression could likely have been simply indicative of the era. I have seen hundreds of photographs of all ethnicities of families from the 19th – early 20th centuries, everything from Sicilian immigrants to WASP aristocrats, and it was typical for people sitting for portraits to not smile because they did not think it was a dignified expression.

   I remember reading in books such as “Black Society” by Gerry Hodges-Major and “Our Kind Of People” by Lawrence Otis Graham that many people of the Black middle – upper class descended from the free Blacks, who were often of mixed roots like this family.

   Whatever was the history of these individuals, I view it as a beautiful family portrait! I truly love vintage photography.

5. Also, I am just curious…is there documented evidence that the children of this family definitely passed for White and married White people instead of other free Blacks? I just ask because there were free communities of color all across America and there was one in Virginia (incidentally, my homestate! 🙂 ) as well. I’ve read of the history of free people of color for years now, and it was very typical and traditional for them to marry people of similar ethnic & family backgrounds–the taboo for interracial marriages was tremendous, not to mention the legal ramifications.

6. People who are predominately white (like the family in the above photo) ARE white (not “passing for white”). To say otherwise implies that they are not good enough for their European-American lineage and culture because of the alleged “taint” of “black blood.”

   http://melungeon.ning.com/forum/topics/5th-union-presentation-by-a-d-powell

   http://melungeon.ning.com/forum/topics/sixth-union-presentation-by-a-d-powell

7. In my family photos that I have…my family heritage is white and my great great grandmother and grandfather are not smiling in the pictures and the children look the same..don’t think they were scared or unhappy just the fact that they didn’t smile in pictures in that time period or the fact like my great grandma said when I was younger…”those were not the good ol days these are the good ol day”. Running water, women have more rights and a say, electric, stores, electric irons, indoor toilets, not as much poverty, not always as much about race. My children are mulatto and are just normal children who do not even know they are different. But when we talk about slavery and that time period, my West Virginia family on my mothers side in that time period didn’t own slaves they worked along side of black people just as poor as anyone and on on my fathers side in Connecticut they were apart of the under ground railroad.

8. wow My Family I never Lookd it Up Im An Evans

9. it’s just a damm shame that black women was forced 2 have mixed kids 4 the red-necks m****f****s, if they kids came out looking white they could pass as white. but this stupidass shit up to-date still i don’t understand how come the mulattoes are class ass black only when they’ll 1/2 white 2. why disowned that white parent, that’s not right. black & white people make some beautiful kids but some how they’ll only BLACK BULSHIT!!! i would HATE the fact that i was a mulatto because of the unanswer question.

10. there’s nothing wrong with race mixing, i love high yellow skin, beautiful black hair, & exotic good looks. that’s what makes the black race looks good, when other blacks comes out looking this damm good.

11. I took Nurses Training in 1960-1963. When I took Labor and Delivery, OB/GYN, we learned that if a mother is white and the father is black the baby is considered white on the records. If the Mother is black and the father is white the baby is considered black on the records. What ever color the Mother was is what the baby was registered as. If Asian, the same, the baby was considered what ever the mother was, no exceptions. That was the law. I do not know when or if it was changed. Does anyone elasse have any information about this?

12. Good story but I think maybe the children did pass, or they didnt pass who knows, and yes people didnt smile in pictures at that time, maybe some of them had bad teeth, I think the mother wasnt forced to take the picture with her family, shes mulattoe I can tell because of her nose,eyes, and they aresuch a beautiful family, I wish the desendants of this family comes forth,. Because I would love did the keep passing or some blended black, I really would love to know, godbless 🙂

13. I have a suggestion to consider. Since I cannot see any resemblance to the mother in any of these children, who’s to say she was the birth mother of these children? Back then, it was very common for women to die during childbirth. There were also a lot of deadly diseases. The birth mother could have died after the youngest child was born. The father may have married the mulatto woman in the photograph after his first wife died. Just a thought.

14. yea but other countries aren’t mixed.. so if you are mixed then say so.. and kick the non mixed out..

15. is regular Europe mixed?? No?? Then they are better than you so you are lying so you can be on the same level as them…

16. they aren’t good enough for their European culture.. that’s the point.. stay out of Europe.. else it is self hatred… only date people with tainted blood.. who look white..

17. loved your article…further insight into the mixing of the races can be read in a book by Ray Charles, titled “Color Struck!” from Amazon. He edits and comments on legal interracial petitions; wills; declarations etc. A very good excerpt of the book can be found on Utube.

18. This entire family could all very well be considered Mulatto, in spite of the European look that they have. There is a blended race of people called Mulungeon, who have African blood but look like dark Europeans…very fascinating, because they all (the Mulungeons, if I’m spelling it correctly) married into one another, thus eradicating the white/black stigma. Mulungeons were considered white, amazingly enough, and the sting of the one drop rule did not apply to them, because they married into one another within their own community…a race unto themselves!

19. I think some of y’all r reading more into the picture than it is. Back then, it was not polite to show teeth, as in smiling made you look “simple.” This is what my mom said. This explains why when you see old photos no one is really smiling.

20. She could be his daughter or bed winch, because she is too young to be the mother of the oldest one. She is only about 19 to 22 in this photo. But she is old enough to be the mother of the younger two, because in my over 30 years of African American ancestry research, most of the slave women (bed wenches) had the owners children around the ages of 13 and 14 before they had been touched by a black male slave. He could have simply left with his bed wench. In other words, since she was a slave, this relationship started out as RAPE. The rest of the story is dealing with life’s circumstances as it pertain to her children being found out and her survival. She would say she’s white to cover for her children. But the problem here, she can’t pass and probably made herself invisible for most of her life. How do i know her story? that was the story of my GG aunt. She never saw her children again. But i found her descendents doing my search. It’s easy for her not to smile. Where was she going to go?

21. This is a very sad picture, for the mother.

22. THE QUESTION IS TIFFANNY. IS WOULD YOU MARRY A WHITEMAN?

23. Hi I came across your site trying to find info about my family, which like yours has an interesting history. My Dad’s family the Carters seem to have only become black 2 generations ago. A Samuel Carter (listed as Mulatto) married Harriet Holbert (Black possibly mixed) in Missouri 1869. What’s interesting is looking into Samuel’s history his parents are white and from a prominent family in VA and England. This is based on records and family trees. Did he claim himself as Mulatto in order to marry Harriet? On the marriage certificate his parents names are absent. All the history I’ve read on Missouri has it being a volatile place to be Non- white leading up to the Civil War and in some places even afterwards. It’s amazing that interracial marriage was even able to occur. I wish I could find more on my family and love to have any pictures, but alas haven’t found any. Anyway interesting story/theory.

24. Wow, Faith! That is a fascinating story. I’m so curious! Good luck piecing this puzzle together!

25. The mother in the photo is NOT “black.” Why is it that Hispanics and Arabs can show buckets rather than drops of the dreaded “black blood” and blacks politely avoid insulting them with the “black” label?

26. I came across this fascinating picture about a month ago on another site. So glad, I came across your blog regarding it. I have always been fascinated with interracial unions during this era. How difficult it must have been. My great great grandmother married had a union with a slave and had about 8 children. She was white, but noted black on the census records. Her dad was a confederate soldier – whoa! I wrote a little about it in one of my blogs. My family is considered black, but all of that race mixing in the civil war era and after created some interesting chlldren. My blond haired blue eyed black child has confused many people. Once white lady asked – why is her hair crinkly lol. It didn’t occur to me that anyone thought my child was white. Gave me a different perspective. At any rate, thanks for posting this.

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28. Interesting article- but perspective of interpretation of current time.
    It appears to me this is a family dressed in there Sunday best for the only photo taken of their family.
    They are really hard working farming people probably in their 30’s.
    What you don’t see is if they are clamped into position which is often done, if the children were whiney or how long the posed in that position.
    Several years ago, I had the chance to sit for a tintype picture.
    It was group photo with 8 of in the photo. We had 2 boys in there early teens. If we had smiled all of us would have had serious muscle cramping. That picture took 2 hours to take for lighting,posing
    and the exposure. The devolpment took even longer. And our Lady in the picture is pretty tightly laced into a corset with the boning jabbing into her armpits.
    Always look at the eyes in the old photos- they tell far more than other facial features.

29. Dear Tiffany,

    I interpret this picture of “black mother, white children” to be an in-our-face historical document to show us 21st-century people that our pompous Manichaean view of the 19th century is extremely naive, if not ignorant. We see everything in black and white, instead of shades of mulatto.

    People then were not dumbed-down by the Hollywood dingbats — the same people who ostracized a once-in-a-generation screen presence (Bruce Lee), and blamed it on the American public being “not ready to accept an Asian face,” thereby projecting their own bias onto us, and depriving us of many exciting years of would-be smash performances by Lee*. We were being accused of ignorant bias just as we now are accusing 19th-century Americans of ignorant bias.

    People then, in short, were much more racially sophisticated than their portrayal by Hollywood buffoons.

    For instance, the movie Blazing Saddles’ premise for comedy is that a black man would not be accepted in cowboy times. Yet there are many old photographs to prove there were black cowboys mixed right in as respected equals with the white ones. We have first-hand narratives about cowboys not identified by race who in pictures we find out are black.

    Just look at the autobiography of Deadwood Dick**, whose given name was Nat Love. He was born a slave and after the Civil War became a great cowboy, winning a cowboy championship in Deadwood, Dakota Territory — the same town and era when Wild Bill Hickok was shot fatally in the back while holding his famous poker hand of aces and eights. Love wrote about his incredible true adventures, and his great romance with a Mexican girl.

    Love’s true account has everything to become a blockbuster movie, but it erases the entirely sick portrayal of race by Hollywooders, who (contrary to popular belief) choose influencing our politicdal elections over making money†. Hollywood movies are blatantly demogogic to make people feel they are disenfranchised, become “disgruntled,” and vote for scoundrel politicians who play to their fears and vow to “protect them,” while Hollywooders, their propaganda wing, create the straw-man fears.

    I agree with you entirely that “the black-white thing is nonsenical.” Furthermore, history shows that America was not the race-hate place Hollywood doofuses tell us it was. Lady Randolph Churchill, Winston Churchill’s mother, was a 19th-century American beauty. Her mother told her that she had Iriquois blood — not with shock and horror, but merely conceding, “It may not be chic, but it is rather interesting.” If you look at pictures of her, it may not be axiomatic, but it is not a stretch to think her dark beauty comes from Indian blood.

    Therefore the man Americans identify as the epitome of an Englishman and the English bulldog spirit, Winston Churchill, seems to have Iriquois ancestry. He could tick off “Amerind” on modern race-bating government forms and college applications.

    The races have intermarried and produced offspring for 100,000 years. Hollywood has been around for 100, and they got it wrong. Why should we let our concept of intermarriage be stunk up by Hollywooders? Young people today think that the whole country was like the Jim Crow South, which happened to be run and sustained by the same political affiliation of the Hollywooders.

    Hollywooders reiterated the racial prejudice of our country by making the movie Men of Honor, about the Navy’s “first black diver,” which happened relatively recently, so reading between the lines the navy and the country were racist up until Hollywooders’ wonderful enlightenment changed us.

    Just look up John HenryTurpin, a black diver in the navy present at the explosion on the USS Maine in Havana, which began the Spanish-American war — in the 19th century. My father (born 1914) and grandmother (born 1888) knew him when he was a VIP in Bremerton, Washington. My father told me how the children his age would follow Turpin as he walked, because he was a great man and a legend. But that doesn’t fit the Hollywooders’ premise that the country was dastardly before they came along and fixed everything up with their kumbayas.

    Look how Hollywooders insult our WWII servicemen, like my Army Air Corps pilot father, as being 100% racist in Hart’s War.

    Returning to the photo of the black mother with white children, if you look at the white father you can uncharitably say that he is quite “u-word,” yet the children are not bad looking. The mother is nice-looking, so to get to the point, where did the children get their passable good looks? Certainly not from the father.

    Who has not noticed that children who have parents of different races seem to have a better chance of being good-looking than those who do not? Exhibit A is yourself.

    The promo for the first Robocop movie stated: “Half man, half machine — ALL cop!” For you it would be “Half black, half white — ALL American!

    Besides beautiful children, I think there is another irresitable argument favorable to interracial marriage: it is very romantic. This could sound trite and non-colorblind, but a person is in good company to think so, or else Shakespeare would not have written Othello. The reason it strikes me this way, I think, is because women and men are so different, if it weren’t for the romantic interest, we would just want to hang out with our own kind, our own gender. It is romantic to overcome your differences and be with the opposite sex. Furthermore, since race is a little-bit more of a difference, when you overcome that, too — it’s romantic!

    For doubters of the white children in the picture being the offspring of the black mother, check out Detroit-born black opera diva Patricia Ewing, and her equally-beautiful pale-white genetic daughter, English actress Rebecca Hall. This is proof how it happens, as it has been happening for 100 millenia.

    * Hollywooders still will not give us a romantic-lead Asian male, unless it is kung-foo related, which was only stereotyped into the Hollywooder psyche by their mistake on passing Lee over. Portraying Asians only as martial artists is like their earlier escapades of portraying blacks only as maids and shoeshines. Asian male actors never play an average-American, non-kung-fu leading man. The closest the Hollywooders come is Lou Diamond Phillips, because he is half Filipino and can pass for “Hispanic.”

    ** I published The Life and Adventures of Dead Wood Dick. If you want me to send it to you in .pdf format, let me know.

    † If Hollywooders wanted to make money, they would make nonbiased movies about Jesus, rather than Jesus-bashing. If you want to know the villain in a movie, don’t look for a black hat, look for a crusifix around his neck (or an American flag patch; blond hair and blue eyes on males is also frequently used). They thought they were very clever to sabatoge “The Passion” by making it R-rated, so that it legally would lose a huge market. I have no stake in either the Christian side or the anti-Christian side. I just can’t believe Hollywooders think we are so stupid not to notice their moronic propagandizing.

30. I wish my black ancestors hadn’t felt compelled to pass as “part Native American” whites. I can’t really blame them, though. Thanks for writing this interesting blog. A DNA test taken by my brother is how I discovered the truth. It also explains why my recently born son is darker than me or my half-Chinese wife. This has confused some ignorant people, but now we know. I’m part black.

31. Mulatto on a census doesn’t mean they were mix (black-white) and black doesn’t mean they were black; they did anything to keep from putting Indian on the census for two reason… they had a lot of hate for them (a lot of people had their families members killed) so it was away to disrespect them, and they could also charge them more in taxes if they were mulatto, black or white, because Indians got a tax break. So don’t believe the census they weren’t written by your loved ones own hands. DNA is the only way you will know the truth.

32. or me it all boils down to a few Biblical quotations:”The life is in the blood, and meaningful references to Joseph’s ‘Coat of many colors’…Whites and Blacks are here together for a reason; but it is unfortunate that Hollywood had to make the trip with us-Joseph aka Coat of many colors

33. I agree with a previous comment that the mother definitely appears mixed race, only because of the slightly darker skin hue. The photo proves that we don’t really know how far removed we are from the original African ancestry. The husband looks white, but beyond appearance we don’t know who’s in the husband’s family tree, since he and his mixed race kids look the same degree of “white.”

34. Hello, my last name is Bazemore and my family still lives in Bertie County North Carolina. This photo is very interesting.

35. I am a Hoggard from Bertie County.I love the photo, I think the lady was a descendant of Winifred Cobb. Oh I have a black daughter by the way!

36. Wow! My dad is very light almost white looking Indian blood i found out after my dna, i found a huuuge family connection in Bertie and Nash County.

37. We are Evans by surname a huge family tied to Brinkylville,Hollister,Warren,and the surrounding areas of NASH,COUNTY.

38. Curious. could he have had these children and she married him and thus is their step-mom? Just curious.

39. J. W. Evans was my great-great grandfather, and my branch of the family comes from W. J. Evans A cousin of mine has recorded all of the descendants of W.J. Evans. There are not as many as the writer of this story believes. Our family records indicate that J.W. Evans and Mary Hoggard were married before they came to Clinton County Missouri. They made two trips to Missouri. They were farmers the first time and brought two slaves with them. They went back to South Carolina and then returned to Missouri with no known slaves and J.W. set up a harness shop in Haynesville, and reportedly were robbed once by Jessie James.

    While in Haynesville their oldest son died in 1877. There is no record that he was married, as this story indicates. J.W. sold his business and invested in land near Lathrop, Missouri, and later at Converse, Missouri. The converse farm became the property of W.J. and my grandfather, father and my brother and I were all born in the large two-story farm house on the property.

    Photos of Mary Hoggard in her later years make her to appear to be a Caucasian. None of my father’s generation had no idea of Mary Hoggard’s ancestry. I don’t know about my grandfather and his brothers and sisters. Today our families are pleased to know that our ancestry goes back to Africa.

    I would like to know where the photo above originated, and how to get a good copy.

    Keith Evans

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41. Are you sure that the lady in the picture is black? Is it possible that she is of Native American descent? Being from North Carolina alot of Native American families where classified as free persons of color or even white on census records So maybe thats why she was listed on census records as being white.

42. Thanks for your site Tiffany. I live in Australia. My father’s family lived in India and both of his parents came from families that passed as European, but were mixed race. I found an interesting article online the other day about how this happened in lndia — via employment on the railways, where many mixed race Anglo-Indians worked. The railways employee rankings were like a weird amalgam of the Indian castes and the English class system! If you managed to work your way up the ranks and your skin was fair enough, you could pass as European in the Census. This is how my dad and his family managed to immigrate to Australia which had the White Australia Policy at the time, where only white immigrants made it in. (Quite similar to todays awful refugee policies here). Love to all my mixed, freckled sisters and brothers on here 🙂

43. The mother in the photo is obviously mulatto, not black. Her children are predominately white, not “mulatto.” Also, the speculation on why the mother is not smiling is ridiculous. The photos of the 19th century rarely show anyone smiling. Dentistry was in its infancy and few people had flashy white teeth.

    White Racial Identity, Racial Mixture, and the “One Drop Rule”
    http://multiracial.com/site/index.php/2004/09/01/white-racial-identity-racial-mixture-and-the-one-drop-rule/

44. I am a Bazemore and I am not white. There are just as many of us who are Black, as well as, white. The Bazemore family were Quakers in Bertie County who freed their slaves during the American Revolution. The family remained close knit in Bertie County, NC and Surry County, Virginia. The family is very intermingled between Black and White. Still the highest concentration of us are in North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland. And they are not smiling because they had to be very still for about 5 minutes while the plate developed.

45. I can’t comment on her expression but I’m thinking may she listed herself as “White” because of the legal repercussions. I know it was illegal for whites and blacks to marry in Virginia as late is the 1960’s-as in the well known Loving case-so it’s not a big assumption to presume that it was illegal at the time this photo was taken. To preserve the family/relationship, maybe she had to lie on paper.

46. i like all of u all comments ‘ but here is da real question about that nice family photo they takea picture let u no dat it have more dan a million words ‘ everyting is perfect wen we take a pasport picture u smile no rite wen a high class model walk on da runway she puts on her best looks which is no smiles and a serious face but she is also excited in da inside da answers r on da outside of da picture look real good da children are happy to b in a picture may be fa da first time so dats y dey look so stiff ‘ i like wat he did wit his family he made it easy fa uall to find out who u all are by leaving a photo . now is da time to do da same if u have children and ya children have kids take alot of pictures all da way to ya srteet corner so u can b found because 700 hundred years from now lets make it easy for are family to find us all.

47. It’s impossible to tell what she was thinking when the picture was taken. You might be right, but we can never really know. Besides, none of the other people are smiling either.

48. No, it isn’t easy to decipher what someone is thinking during a photo, especially in a vintage photo. Photos were a much bigger deal back in that time period, unlike the casual selfies that litter social media. People dressed in their finest clothes, and frequently had a very serious countenance, as they considered the pose and picture to be analogous to having a portrait done by an oil painter. And as someone mentioned earlier, dentistry was in its infancy. You just never see adults smiling in those old photo plates. Even more amusing, look at the men, especially ones in the military: they took themselves so seriously, they’d frequently hide a hand between shirt buttons, in an effort to mimic Napoleon!

    I’m part of the irony of racial constructs. At least one of my family decedents did own slaves, and I’m married to a black woman whose ancestors were slaves. We have a beautiful baby girl, and hopefully more on the way later.

49. As far as all of the speculation of the writer about what’s going on in the family’s minds…meh, WHATEVER! The young lady OBVIOUSLY has both African and European ancestry. It’s very clear to see. I have been running into lots of cousin matches on AncestryDNA who have Bazemore, Hoggard, Cherry, Outlaw and Askews in their family trees, from Bertie County, NC and surrounding counties. I have also found a group of free “people of color” in the Southern counties of Virginia as well.

    Any of ya’ll Bazemores, Hoggards, Cherrys, Outlaws, Askews and like folk who may be kin to me, send me a message on my FB page EBONY LOVE AND FAMILY! Let’s connect! And yes, as others have said their were certainly both White, Black and otherwise “Mixed” Bazemores in Bertie and surrounding counties from what I am finding on census records by searching these surnames. And I have found Bazemores who were slaveholders and willing their enslaved victims to relatives as property as late as 1862, so they weren’t all setting them free as someone said. But I have indeed seen some “mulatto” or “black” free people on records with some of the above mentioned names if I recall correctly in the records as attending Quaker meetings! Someone above mentioned them being Quakers This is helpful. Thanks.https://facebook.com/ebonyloveandfamily

50. Hey cousin. I’m a Bazemore from Bertie County and most of my family still lives there. I’m also related to the other last names you listed. I’ll look you up on Facebook and see if we can find the family connection. I also did my Ancestry DNA test and started building my family tree.

    Venika

51. I find it funny ppl trying to justify a slave woman who endured rape and all manner of atrocities on her kind not smilling.that woman clearly wasn’t happy.you guys saying otherwise are pathetic.

52. The lady in the picture maybe Quadroon ( person of color) or Mestizo ( Indian and White) ; definitely not Black!! Look at Oprah , Michele Obama or any West African and that’s the benchmark for Black! The one drop slave master rule has been dead for over 40years ssndc is White Supremacy!

53. None of what you guys say is true. I thought Americans were more educated. Depending on the kids color they can claim white or black. If the kid is half hispanic or half black they are hispanic or black (legally.) However with all of the race confusions going on in America its really not significant unless you are trying to claim benefits for being someone from a minority group etc. Grants, Scholarships, Racal quotas for companies. In that case it helps to not be white.

54. Carole Gregory, you do know that Michelle Obama is part white right; she has white ancestors? Even those born in Africa may not be 100% black. Most Black Americans are not 100% black and there are black Hispanics also. You cannot look at a black, brown or white person and determine their ethnic mix because skin color has very little to do with what your ethnic background is. There is no such thing as race anyway, its a made up concept to discriminate and keep the status quo in America; SMH.

55. I come from the Goins Melungeons out of Tennessee and Kentucky. My skin is the color of Angela Bassett. We are mixed as tri racial. Native American, European and Black. That’s what a Melungeon is. They today do not accept their black blood. Well I do!

56. I am multiracial just like over 70% of all Americans. I never accepted being called African American because that is a person who comes here from Africa and gets their citizenship. I’ve been here . I’m sick of the Al Sharpton# and Jessie Jackson’s tryon* to ID me. I am multi racial on any form I fill out. I am an American and that’s that.

57. I am all the way back to the 1500s in my ancestry on the Fugates of Kentucky. The Blue Fugates , because their skin tone has a tendency to look bluish due to a gene an enzyme issue. I am brown skin and I’ve also located one of my Scottish ancestors with the name of Mcintosh . Absalom Macintosh a Scottish man married a black Woman named Gemina. They had a mulatto daughter named Eliza. Eliza married a man black man with the last name of Goeins/Goins who was a my GGG grandfather from around Hancock Maryland or Kentucky. That’s where the black comes in on my mothers side he was Melungeon. I have located one of my white ancestors from the MacIntosh side and we are currently talking and I’m so happy. Now I’m trying to locate a relative from the Fugate side but may not be accepted. I llook black mostly black and they are from the Appalachians where are there many whites who don’t like blacks.

58. https://youtu.be/RWC0tbHeQBM my 2nd interview with Father Mulatto

59. This is my great great grandmother. The little girl is my great grandmother. I have no problem with this at all.

60. Because the Y CHROMOSOME never changes and is carried through the male the children are whatever the father is. So in this case the children are white despite having a black mother.

61. I skimmed thru the posts and don’t know if this was brought up, but, couldn’t the father have been biracial and the marriage was within the legal parameters of the times ?

62. I suppose since everyone’s got an opinion I might as well give mine. Looking at that photo it sure appears to me that James Evans is caucasian, and so are the children, who all bear a strong resemblance to him. Mary Hoggard, who looks to be of mixed raced/mulatto, looks nothing like the children, and besides, would be much too young to be the mother of John (she appears to be about his age!), and probably the middle child, William, as well. I strongly suspect that, as mentioned earlier by Gina, and later, Donna, something did befall the children’s mother, either through sickness or maybe childbirth. Faced with raising three children (well, two, since John appears quite capable of being on his own) and doing so alone, James did the smart and reasonable thing: He found a young, attractive woman who was willing to take up the mantle and become his wife, despite obvious differences in age, and racial backgrounds. Who knows how they might have met, or how the power dynamics that might have existed between the two, gotten resolved; if they even were. There might have been few women of any age or background available where they lived and farmed. Regardless, they obviously crossed paths, and he had something to offer to her in the form of family, stability, a home(stead), etc., while she might have come from a lower socioeconomic background, with fewer opportunities to advance in society, but could offer the skills and nurturing that the Evans family needed that could be provided by a woman of the time, regardless of race; And so it was a good fit. I’m sure these were trying times, and people did what was necessary to make or repair a life which might have seen it’s share of tragedy, on both sides. Because of the prevailing attitudes at that time, it would have been less troublesome for their social future if they were to agree that upon being married, she should identify as white. Perhaps some people might look twice and wonder, but hey, whose life is it anyway? Everyone gets what they need, and it’s a win-win for the family. Notice that they sit closely beside one another, you might say on “equal footing”, as was also pointed out earlier, so as to give the impression that this is, at least on the surface, a loving relationship. The children are also positioned so that they are equally close to both James and Mary, with William openly displaying affection by way of placing his hand on his father. The fact that nobody’s smiling, to me is also irrelevant, as nobody smiled in photos back then; Everybody wore a stern look. I suspect that what we have in this photograph is a blended family, so to speak, with Mary being the second wife to James, and stepmother to the children. Perhaps they did go on to have additional children between them; It would be interesting to know the subsequent history of the Evans-Hoggard marriage. But suggestion that this was rape, or continued slavery, or some other abomination of a relationship as was rather grotesquely made by an earlier contributor–nah, I just don’t buy it. As they say, and it sure seems apropos here: “A picture is worth a thousand words”; In this case maybe even a few.

63. The woman definitely looks Mulatta, not Black.and Mulatto and White often have White children, sometimes they come with a tan complexion but White phenotype as White is dominant in ancestry.

64. Who can say if the father was biracial and proudly identified as being Black?

65. You can’t blame racism on just Hollywood that’s for sure. As far as mixed races producing beautiful children, not necessarily so. It depends on whose eyes are looking. Just where did your perception of beauty derive? What you perceive as beauty could be so different to what someone else perceives it to be.

66. To Vonsdy1…Michelle Obama is a dark-skinned Black woman, and she does not identify with some distant white ancestors she didn’t even know.
    There is a difference between someone like her, and someone who is actually light-skinned and/or can show you that they have a white parent or white grandparent.
    She can’t pass for white or mixed or anything else. Barack Obama had a white mother and he doesn’t look white either, but he has actual proof of white people in his family. It bothers me when some Black people claim “we’re all mixed” based on some great-great-great grandparent they never even knew, as a way to invalidate what biracial and multiracial people deal with. Some white people try this too, with their claims of “Cherokee” ancestry.

    I do agree, however, that sometimes a person’s appearance doesn’t always reflect their background in its entirety.
    Henry Louis Gates is a good example of that with his DNA test results. I also know plenty of Caribbean black people (mainly from Trinidad and Jamaica) with Indian, Chinese, and white ancestry.
    But unlike Michelle Obama, this non-black ancestry is much more recent than hers and even if their skin is dark, you can tell by their hair and facial features that they are mixed. Lisa Hanna (Jamaican beauty queen and politician) is an example of that.

    To PJ Monet…I agree with you on that. There are definitely attractive mixed-race people, but not all of us are.
    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think some folks have this idea because of certain people in the media like Halle Berry, Chelsi Smith (a biracial beauty queen who passed away), Vanessa Williams (who had a white grandmother), etc.
    “Mixed” became synonymous with beauty to some people because of certain features. You are correct though, everyone perceives beauty in different ways.

67. I am her descendant.
    Perhaps you should consider talking to her family. Before smearing her memory.

68. A projection of you judge a book by it cover. She has a Book in her hand.
    Little daughter not smiling: looks.