I just found out that Rosa Park’s ethnicity was listed as ‘mulatto’ on the census. If she was in fact of mixed African-European descent, why is she called ‘black’ in history books?

6 comments

1. Many parts of the American South still used the one drop rule, where even a single black ancestor meant that you were still legally considered black.

2. Race and color, while they usually correspond, are separate things

3. It doesn’t really matter what the census said, she looked black so white people treated her like other black people. Plus as others pointed out there’s the one drop rule and other shit like that.

4. Racists tend not to care about the details. They’ll hate whoever they want to

5. I believe this was part of the reason the NAACP chose her. A successful light skinned woman was less “threatening.”

6. The one drop rule. If you look black at all, then you’re black. You live the experiences of a black person in the US even if you’re mixed race. Yes Rosa Parks was clearly light-skinned, but she was definitely not white, so therefore black. The one drop rule effectively created/enforced a racial binary to keep one group of people subjugated under the other