Sage has been politically active since she was 17 years old. Issues she was deeply involved with were the 18 year old vote, women’s rights, birth control and abortion rights, and anti-Vietnam war protests.

Sage is an ardent liberal who works at the local Democratic Headquarters and the polls.  She currently resides in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

An unfortunate part of Virginia history that you may not be familiar with is the rule of Walter Plecker as the head of the State Registrar of Vital Statistics and his systematic purging from voter rolls of Native Americans.

“By (Pleckers) standards, codified by the General Assembly in the 1924 Racial Integrity Act, one drop of Negro blood would cause a person to be categorized as black. That was designed to stop light-skinned people with black ancestry from “passing” as white people and thus avoiding the Jim Crow discrimination laws.

“Dr. Plecker sought to categorize many of the “Indians” in Virginia as black. He was forced to finesse the equivalent of one drop of Indian blood, however. “SOURCE

In January, 1943, Plecker circulated an official bulletin to Virginia county officials which includes a watchlist of surnames. The surnames indicated families who wouldn’t be allowed to register to vote. The letter said:

Some of these mongrels, finding that they have been able to sneak in their birth certificates unchallenged as Indians are now making a rush to registrar as white.
[snip]

Please report all know or suspicious cased to the Bureau of Vital Statistics, giving names, ages, parents, and as much other information as possible. All certificates of these people showing “Indian” or “White” are now being rejected and returned to the physician or midwife, but local registrars hereafter must not permit them to pass their hands uncorrected or unchallenged and without a note of warning to us. One hundred and fifty thousand other mulattoes in Virginia are watching eagerly the attempt of their pseudo-Indian brethren, ready to follow in a rush when the fist have made a break in the dike.
SOURCE

MountainSage is descended from these “mongrels” by virtue of being the great granddaughter of a Monacan Indian. MountainSage’s paternal and maternal great grandparents surnames are included on the list.

I have little real knowledge of my great grandmother because her name was not recorded in the family Bible. I do have her photo: