Over the Line

Slender, shy Sheila Dora Carstens was born to white parents in color-conscious Cape Town, attended white schools. When she was 17, Sheila's father died. For a while she lived with a colored woman (meaning, in South Africa, of mixed blood) who took care of her, and in 1945 she married a colored man. Sheila's family turned their backs on her. Last year, after her husband died she met Ronald Awood, a truck driver, handsome, quiet, and colored. Sheila and Awood lived together. Then, with a child coming, they tried to get married. But Sheila's good friend, a white Anglican rector, was unable to marry them; the civil magistrate also refused. Reason: in 1949, Prime Minister Daniel Malan's government had passed a law prohibiting mixed marriages.

Sheila found an odd way out. With Awood's life savings ($400), she hired a lawyer, asked the Supreme Court to declare her officially nonwhite. One of Sheila's uncles was on hand to swear that the family had some Negro blood in its veins. Perplexed Justice DeVilliers, looking on Sheila's straight brown hair and clear white skin, admitted that his eyes told him a different story, found Sheila "predominantly white." He nevertheless agreed to Sheila's request, ruled her colored,ordered the magistrate to marry her.* At home last week, Sheila nursed newborn daughter Pamela, pink-cheeked and fair-haired. Said Sheila: "I am proud to be colored."

* In 1941, U.S. Jazz Clarinetist Milton ("Mezz") Mezzrovv also crossed the line from white to black. Arrested by New York police for marijuana peddling, Mezzrow, whose parents were Russian Jews, asked to be confined with Negro inmates on Riker's Island. Later he wrote: "Some of the finest, most high-spirited guys of the [Negro] race landed in jail because of their conditions of life . . . I made up my mind to do something drastic. Just as we were having our pictures took for the rogues' gallery, along came Mr. Slattery, the deputy . . . 'Mr. Slattery,' I said, 'I'm colored, even if I don't look it.'" Mezzrow's draft card later listed him as a Negro.

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