NC Remembers Sterilization Program; Margaret Sanger's Eugenics Program Continues Today
An Incredible Story via The Star, Cleveland County, North Carolina: North Carolina recalled a regrettable side of its history on Monday by unveiling a roadside marker remembering poor people, mental patients and prisoners who were sterilized against their will by state officials. The cast aluminum sign in downtown Raleigh provides a permanent remembrance of the program intended to keep thousands of people considered mentally disabled or otherwise genetically inferior from having children. "This does represent one of the ugly chapters in North Carolina's history," said the Rev. William Barber, president of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People . "We have to deal with our past in order to have a better present and a stronger future." More than 7,600 people were sterilized by "choice or coercion" under the state's so-called eugenics program between 1933 and 1973, according to the marker's text. Nor...