The one-thirty-second law and Susie Guillory Phipps (Louisiana, 1970–1983)

SUMMARYThe one-thirty-second law and Susie Guillory Phipps (Louisiana, 1970–1983) [Connections: Louisiana (deep), Nov 5, 2026]

RECORDThe New York Times (Frances Frank Marcus, July 6, 1983) reported that Gov. David C. Treen signed a repeal on July 5, 1983 of the 1970 statute under which anyone with "one thirty-second or less of 'Negro blood'" was not to be designated Black. Rep. Lee Frazier wrote the repeal after a "highly publicized" case. He said race designations on late-1700s records were meant to "keep control over land ownership." Time (July 18, 1983) reported that Susie Phipps learned in 1977, when she applied for a passport, that her birth certificate said "colored." It reported that in May a state judge upheld the state, citing her childhood school and church seating, and that the new law requires "a preponderance of evidence" to change a certificate. The genealogy site Louisiana Lineage traces her to Marguerite, listed as a "Negro" slave in a 1764 inventory and as a "free Negress" in 1782, and to Joseph Gregorie Guillory, whose children by her were labeled "mulatto."

PATTERNA woman's race in 1983 was set by a single label written on an ancestor in 1764. The state defended that label in court

LENS (WW9)One word from 1764 decided a woman's race in 1983. The paper race was still running

OPENNeither source mentions Native ancestry. Whether "Marguerite's" own origin was ever recorded beyond "Negro" needs deep research in the Opelousas/Attakapas records

SOURCES"Louisiana Repeals Black Blood Law" (NYT, July 6, 1983, via Mixed Race Studies); "Color Bind" (Time, July 18, 1983); The "Margarita" Case (Louisiana Lineage).