Meet A Louisiana U.S. Senator and Black Confederate General

Civil War Memory has A Black Confederate General That We Can All Embrace?

Of course one can debate if he was a black Confederate General. Under the "one drop" rule I suppose he was but as to society perhaps not.

This was perhaps more common than people think. In Louisiana there were rather different views on race than the rest of the deep South. Further even after the Jim Crow laws when racial policy went backward not forward in Louisiana there was still resistance to the one drop rule theory.

Also if your family got here early enough and either came or migrated through what is now known as North Carolina in the Colonial period there is a chance that "white" families might have a black ancestor. This was because during that period interracial marriage was not that uncommon. The authorities were more concerned about class not race.