single day in March 1924, the Virginia legislature passed two laws that jointly promoted the state’s eugenicist and racist agendas. The first, “An Act to provide for the sexual sterilization of inmates of state institutions in certain cases,” authorized the forced sterilization of people confined to government asylums because they were deemed to be “feebleminded.” The second half of Virginia’s eugenicist scheme was the Racial Integrity Act, which banned interracial marriage.
