Almighty God Created the Races

"A unique vision of marriage across the color line that breaks new ground and broadens our understanding of the legal prohibition of interracial marriage. . . . A fresh and welcome approach."

-Journal of American History "A compelling . . . addition to an underdeveloped field of history. . . . Worthy of reading for those interested in the American history of interracial relationships."

-Arkansas Review "Botham compellingly makes her case for the importance of religious underpinnings for segregation in the South."

-Journal of Church History "The process by which people interpret biblical stories and apply them to contemporary issues--and the limits of those interpretations--is illustrated beautifully. . . . An important contribution to the scholarship on race and religion in America and on our cultural understandings of the production of knowledge. . . . [Will be] extraordinarily useful in the classroom."

-Journal of Religion "A must read for scholars interested in law and marriage. . . . This book's creativity makes it a necessity for graduates and laypeople interested in interracial sex and miscegenation laws in the US. . . . Highly recommended."

-Choice "Offers an important new perspective. . . . A well-researched intellectual history of Catholic and Protestant views of race and interracial marriage and an intriguing analysis of how these views influenced interracial marriage in the United States. Scholars of civil rights, religion, and law in the United States will find Fay Botham's newest work both worthwhile and enjoyable."

-Virginia Magazine of History and Biography

"A unique vision of marriage across the color line that breaks new ground and broadens our understanding of the legal prohibition of interracial marriage. . . . A fresh and welcome approach."

-Journal of American History

"[An] interesting text--one worthy of reading for those interested in the American history of interracial relationships"

-Arkansas Review

"Botham compellingly makes her case for the importance of religious underpinnings for segregation in the South."

-Journal of Church History

"The process by which people interpret biblical stories and apply them to contemporary issues--and the limits of those interpretations--is illustrated beautifully. . . . An important contribution to the scholarship on race and religion in America and on our cultural understandings of the production of knowledge. . . . [Will be] extraordinarily useful in the classroom."

-Journal of Religion

"A must read for scholars interested in law and marriage. . . . This book's creativity makes it a necessity for graduates and laypeople interested in interracial sex and miscegenation laws in the US. . . . Highly recommended."

-Choice

"Offers an important new perspective. . . . A well-researched intellectual history of Catholic and Protestant views of race and interracial marriage and an intriguing analysis of how these views influenced interracial marriage in the United States. Scholars of civil rights, religion, and law in the United States will find Fay Botham's newest work both worthwhile and enjoyable."

-Virginia Magazine of History and Biography

In this cultural history of interracial marriage and its legal regulation in the United States, Fay Botham argues that religion--specifically, Protestant and Catholic beliefs about marriage and race--had a significant effect on legal decisions concerning miscegenation and marriage in the century following the Civil War. She contends that the white southern Protestant notion that God "dispersed" the races and the American Catholic emphasis on human unity and common origins point to ways that religion influenced the course of litigation and illuminate the religious bases for Christian racist and antiracist movements.

In this fascinating cultural history of interracial marriage and its legal regulation in the United States, Fay Botham argues that religion--specifically, Protestant and Catholic beliefs about marriage and race--had a significant effect on legal decisions concerning miscegenation and marriage in the century following the Civil War.

Botham argues that divergent Catholic and Protestant theologies of marriage and race, reinforced by regional differences between the West and the South, shaped the two pivotal cases that frame this volume, the 1948 California Supreme Court case of Perez v. Lippold (which successfully challenged California's antimiscegenation statutes on the grounds of religious freedom) and the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia (which declared legal bans on interracial marriage unconstitutional). Botham contends that the white southern Protestant notion that God "dispersed" the races, as opposed to the American Catholic emphasis on human unity and common origins, points to ways that religion influenced the course of litigation and illuminates the religious bases for Christian racist and antiracist movements.

Fay Botham is visiting assistant professor in the American Indian and Native Studies Program and in American Studies at the University of Iowa. She is coeditor of Race, Religion, Region: Landscapes of Encounter in the American West.