Another HUGE blunder. In 1961 “African” was not a “race”. His father would have been listed as “black”, possibly “Negro” and maybe even “colored”. The person who reproduces them at request DOES NOT change any data for political correctness as that would be falsifying official government documents.
Your statement about race is true. In 1961 white or black or negro or colored would have been on there for race.
The other thing is that a certified copy is certified by someone who made the copy in the office of vital records. The original was signed by someone and that signature remains a part of the permanent record. Then the copy is certified by the clerk making the certified copy.
As late as 1977 the county clerk in Suffolk was using "Korean" as suitible for indicating "race". She had available to her "black", "white" and "Korean". God help you if you didn't fit her pattern 'cause then you couldn't get married!
As late as 1977 the county clerk in Suffolk was using "Korean" as suitible for indicating "race". She had available to her "black", "white" and "Korean". God help you if you didn't fit her pattern 'cause then you couldn't get married!
You are probably right about other states where the White-Negro color line was well established, but it could be that the registrar in Honolulu hadn't seen that many African-American children.
And remember, this was all before the federal government's racial classifications came in. In Hawaii, Chinese, Japanese, Native Hawaiians, Filipinos, and possibly even Portuguese all considered themselves separate groups. So you'd want to go back and look at different birth certificates issued at the time to see how they handled this.
Think back to 1961. If you heard that your new neighbor was an "African" you might have reacted differently than you would have if you were told that he was a Negro or black or colored, so I think it was probably natural that the family would want Barack Sr. categorized in such a way.
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Agreed.