Interracial Love Scandal: the Rhinelander Case

I've been reading contemporary accounts of the 1920s infamous Rhinelander case in which a white husband sued for a marriage annulment because his black wife had tricked him into believing that she was white.  I had heard of the case concerning Leonard Kip Rhinelander, heir to a family fortune and member of New York's elite, and Alice James, the daughter of a black New Rochelle cab driver, but did not realize that Rhinelander had been forced to seek the annulment by his father.  It was only because the press discovered the record of the secret wedding proceeding that it became an issue at all.  The court proceedings were exceedingly sensational.  The couple's love letters were read aloud--hers to show that she had lured him into the marriage; his to show that he was a willing and ardent pursuer of her.  The most humiliating spectacle was the day that Mrs. Rhinelander was forced to strip off her shirt to "prove" that Mr. Rhinelander could not have believed his lover to be white because of her marked Negro features.  In the end, Mrs. Rhinelander "won" the case, but I'm not certain that the couple survived.  I was most struck by this editorial which appeared in the NAACP's Crisis magazine: ". . . [I]f Rhinelander had used this girl as concubine or prostitute, white America would have raised no word of protest; white periodicals would have printed no headlines; white ministers would have said no single word.  It is when he legally and decently marries the girl that Hell breaks loose and literally tears the pair apart.  Magnificent Nordic mentality!"