“Joseph Gaston Baillie Bulloch, MD, a native Georgian, an accomplished physician, a founding member of NGS, and its fourth president (1909–1912), was an adherent of eugenics. In a 1912 article published in the NGS Quarterly, he advises how genealogy should be used to protect the white race from “admixture” and “tainted blood.” Given that NGS permitted Bulloch to publish this in its journal, and the segregated society in which the organization operated, it is reasonable to assume that other founders may have shared Bulloch’s beliefs in eugenics or racism and that those beliefs informed the exclusionary practices NGS maintained throughout its early years.”

“On March 5, 1960, NGS held an evening meeting. James Worris Moore, an African-American employee of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), attended the meeting as a guest, along with other National Archives employees. At this meeting, he was given a membership application. His presence at the meeting sparked ire and angry discourse amongst the members of our society. The debate as to whether to integrate the membership of the National Genealogical Society was eventually put to a vote by the Society’s members. On November 19, 1960, in an act of racial discrimination, NGS voted to deny Mr. Moore and all Black people membership into the Society. Those against integration are quoted in a Washington Post article as saying, “Negroes…have nothing in common with us, genealogically speaking.”