Interracial Marriage

To say that when Roscoe Bartlett was born, interracial marriage was rare, understates the situation. Marriage between people of different races was actually illegal in most states. Until 1948, 30 states still had laws on the books banning interracial marriage, including states we now think of as bastions of liberalism, like California and Maryland. In fact, it wasn't until 1967 that the Supreme Court finally declared such laws unconstitutional. According to the 1970 census, only 0.7% of all marriages were bi-racial, but that number has changed dramatically over the years. In 2000, the census recorded 2,669,558 interracial marriages in the United States. Barack Obama's parents were way ahead of their time.

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