The one-drop rule wasn't universal; some states had a less stringent definition of who counted as black. E.g. according to Wikipedia, Florida passed a law in 1

The one-drop rule wasn't universal; some states had a less stringent definition of who counted as black. E.g. according to Wikipedia, Florida passed a law in 1865 stipulating that you were black if you had at least one black great-grandparent. So if you were only one-sixteenth black, you'd have been considered black under the one-drop rule, but you weren't black in Florida. Which is precisely my point. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule