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South Carolina removes ban on interracial marriage
(AllPolitics, November 3) -- It took 103 years, but South Carolina has finally voted to remove a ban on interracial marriage from its state constitution.
Although it was not actively enforced, a clause added to the state's constitution in 1895 prohibited "marriage of a white person with a Negro or mulatto or a person who shall have one-eighth or more of Negro blood."
Until last spring, state legislators refused to allow voters to decide whether to remove the ban. South Carolina's Amendment 4 finally deletes the line from the constitution.
In 1967, the Supreme Court ruled that a similar law in Virginia could not be enforced. Clemson University political scientist Bruce Ransom told The Associated Press before Election Day that the vote would be more symbolic than legal.
"South Carolina is in no position, regardless of what happens November 3, to ban interracial marriages," Ransom said. "It's a symbolic act. It would say something about the state in a very powerful way."
A Mason-Dixon poll conducted in August showed two-thirds of voters favored removing the ban, 22 percent opposed it and 11 percent remained undecided. The sample of 806 registered voters contained about twice as many whites as blacks.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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