The records of five Virginia cities and five Virginia counties of substantial Negro population are entirely typical: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ILLEGITIMATE BIRTHS AS A PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL NEGRO BIRTHS CITIES _Richmond_ _Norfolk_ _Roanoke_ _Danville_ _Lynchburg_ 1935-39 27.2 24.6 25.1 26.6 29.5 1955-58 30.3 22.0 26.6 29.0 28.1 COUNTIES _Prince _Charles _Halifax_ Edward_ _Pittsylvania_ City_ _Greensville_ 1935-39 12.4 14.5 12.8 14.3 14.2 1955-58 19.9 21.5 18.6 23.4 22.0 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The U. S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare periodically releases data on the nation as a whole. The figures for 1957 illustrate the story. In that year, 1.9 per cent of all white births were illegitimate; 21.7 per cent of all Negro births were illegitimate. Negro illegitimacy ran as high as 27.9 per cent in St. Louis, 29.3 per cent in Atlanta, and 34.6 per cent in Knoxville. The influx of Negroes into Washington, D. C., has given the nation’s capital, to the nation’s shame, what the Washington _Post_ has termed “undisputed first place in illegitimacy.” In 1957, nearly 19 per cent of all births recorded in the District of Columbia were illegitimate--5.8 per cent of the whites and 26.5 per cent of the Negroes.