Millionaire Philip Rhinelander Forced His Son To Divorce His Black Wife

Subscribe to my channel    / @americandynasty   In November 1925, the heir to a Manhattan fortune sat in a witness chair in White Plains and was asked if he really wanted to keep suing his wife. He said "I do." A Black weekly reported that he had already admitted the papers behind his suit held five false statements, one of them sworn, he said, because his father's lawyer told him to. His wife was Alice Jones. New York had no law against their marriage, so the Rhinelander family had to prove something stranger: that their son had spent three years with her, writing hundreds of letters, and never knew she was colored. WHAT'S IN IT The chaperoned trip to Bermuda and the school in Arizona meant to end it The headline of November 13, 1924, and the sobs reporters said they heard down the telephone line The citizenship paper George Jones filed in 1895 The trial record, the jury's answers and the 1930 agreement are well documented. Alice never testified and never told her own side, so her feelings stay out of this video. Where a claim could not be sourced, the video says so instead of filling the gap. If you want more of these, the document first and the story second, subscribe. There are more files than you would think, and I keep opening them. Sources: The Monitor (Omaha), November 20, 1925: Leonard Rhinelander's cross-examination and admissions Associated Press, White Plains, December 4 to 5, 1925, as printed in the Concord Daily Tribune and Oregon papers: the seven jury questions, the sealed verdict and the answers Time magazine, "Milestones," November 24, 1924: the marriage, George Jones's 1895 citizenship application #AmericanHistory #FamilyHistory #Rhinelander