Eugenics: The Inhuman Practice that Took Many

Souls and Destroyed a Race.

By: Julia S. Glade

Instructor: Gabrielle Hodson, PhD

Health 110 Social Health & Diversity

URL: http://juliaglade.weebly.com

Published: December 13, 2011

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Eugenics is a belief in

racial superiority or pure

race. They used methods

that were intended to

improve the human race

by controlling

reproduction. The word

“eugenics” comes from

the Greek meaning “well

bred”(Reynolds). Thomas

Robert Malthus (Figure 1)

the father of modern

demography published an

essay on the Principle of

Population in 1798. The

main idea of his essay

was that as population

increases there will

eventually be a shortage

of food supply (Bloy). He

also talked about how if

parents wouldn’t limit the

size of their families’ war

Figure 1. Thomas Robert Malthus (Bloy)

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or famine would kill off the excess (Blakemore).

His ideas impressed Francis Galton (Figure 2) and made him introduce eugenics

in 1883. Soon after eugenics became accepted worldwide. A critical belief of the

eugenicists was cleansing the human race by sterilizing the “unfit.”(O’Keefe). People

who embraced eugenics believed that poverty, promiscuity and alcoholism were traits

that were inherited (Williams).  To eliminate those society ills and improve society’s

gene pool, proponents of the theory argued that those that exhibited the traits should be

sterilized (Kessel).

In 1904 Galton established a research chair in eugenics at the University of

London. The American Eugenics Society was founded in 1922 and by 1931 sterilization

laws had been enacted in twenty-seven states in the U.S. Sterilization laws were then

enacted in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and Germany in 1935. The efficiency

Figure 3 Adolf Hitler (Hall).

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of the German eugenicists caused trouble (Blakemore). Adolf Hitler (Figure 3) embraced

eugenics and his determination to establish his “Master Race” was embraced by German

eugenicists. Hitler killed millions of people; including one third of the Jews in the world.

He lost the war and his idea of building a master race became unpopular; however, the

practice of eugenics did not

die (O’Keefe).

By the early twentieth

century, most U.S. states had

eugenics programs, and more

than thirty enacted laws

mandating surgical

sterilization for certain

individuals. It is estimated

that as many as 100,000

people were sterilized in the

country before the practice was discredited. One of the states where sterilization took

place was North Carolina. From the 1920’s to the very late 1970’s, the state of North

Carolina forcibly sterilized 7,600 people. Most of them were poor women, and a

disproportionate number of them were black (Bakst). The American government has

perpetrated cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment on to young black girls denying them

the basic human right to be a mother and rationalizing that this action of forced

sterilization was to prevent future welfare costs.

At the time, the government justified the surgeries as the best interest of the state,

24%

71%

5%

Figure 4: Forced Steril-izations by Diagnosis, June 1929-July 1968

Mental DiseaseFeeblemindednessEpilepsy

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of those sterilized were classified as “feeble minded, promiscuous, mentally ill or had

epilepsy” as Figure 4 shows (Bakst). North Carolina wasn’t the only state to sterilize

people for their own good; it was one of thirty-one states that had similar programs

designed to control the birth rate of welfare recipients (Kessel). While it started as a way

to control the birth rate among many poor women who were on welfare, North Carolina’s

eugenics board took it in a decidedly racial direction and began sterilizing black women,

some as young as nine years old (Williams). Figure 5 is a bar graph that shows the age

the Forcible Sterilizations, by Age(Bakst).

Age 10-19 Age20-29 Age 30-39 Age 40-49 Age 50 and over

Unknown0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

30002761 2792

1408

16512 2

Figure 5 Forcible Sterilizations by Age

Series1

By the end of 1960’s more than 60% of the people sterilized under North

Carolina’s Eugenics laws were black and 99% were female (Bakst).

One of the many victims of this action is Elaine Riddick Jessie. Elaine is 5 feet, 2

inches tall and 115 pounds, and is about the same size as she was when she was

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sterilized. She was raised in Winfall,

North Carolina, a tiny town in Perquimans

County near Edenton. She describes it as a

place where flat fields of cotton and peanuts

fall of the Albermarle. It is known as a

beautiful but a hard place, a place where

many residents still live in crushing poverty (Railey). Elaine remembers her large family

sitting on their run-down porch, eating a “hoecake” and beans out of one pot.” We were

like…God, what were we like? We didn’t know anything about plates and spoons,” she

said (Railey). The Perquimans County Department of Public Welfare took custody of

Elaine (Figure 6) and her seven siblings. They sent her five other siblings to an orphanage

in Oxford. Elaine and another sister were sent to live with their grandmother, just down

the street from their parents home (Railey). Shortly after moving in with her grandmother

she was raped at age thirteen (Williams). “As she was walking home from school she

took the long road and the next thing that she knew a guy that lived across the street from

her had raped her. He snatched her off the street and molested her and threatened her life

and said that if she ever told anyone he would kill her”(Kaye). Elaine’s grandmother,

Maggie Woodward also known as “Miss Peaches”, was on welfare, and her social worker

learned during a routine visit that Jessie was pregnant. The social worker approached her

grandma and said that if she wanted to still receive supplement, food stamps and welfare

she would have to sign her name on the consent form. She also told her that if she didn’t

sign the “X” on the consent form for Jessie to be sterilized, then Jessie would be sent to

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an orphanage. Her grandmother was

illiterate. She had never gone to

school. She didn’t understand what it

said. So she signed the “X” and

Elaine was sterilized (Railey).

Soon after having her baby,

Elaine moved to Long Island, N.Y.,

to live with her aunt, leaving her son to be raised by her grandma. At age eighteen, still in

New York, she married. Her husband wanted children, but she couldn’t conceive. She

had also been hemorrhaging and having abdominal pain (Railey). Elaine (Figure 7)

decided to talk to a doctor and her sister about what was going on. After talking with a

doctor and one of her sisters, she finally realized that she had been sterilized. She

couldn’t understand why it had happened to her.

“ Out of all the people in the world,” she said. “I was, I am, a good girl, you know? I don’t think anybody knows how bad it hurts to want to have a kid and you can’t,” she said. “ I used to have a lot of friends, every time they got pregnant, I would not want to be around them. I would just leave them alone. I couldn’t stand to be around them when they were pregnant because I wanted a baby so bad”(Railey).

Elaine is one of the many victims today who shares their story and their desire and heart

ache to be a mother but had that right taken away from them involuntarily.

This is a major part in American history where the government interfered with

some of the most important and fundamental rights both in nature and in the law. In a

document that established our country it states; “The equality and rights of persons; We

hold it to be self-evident that all persons are created equal; that they are endowed by their

Figure 7 Elaine Riddick (Gilbert)

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Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, the enjoyment of

the fruits of their own labor, and the pursuit of happiness”(U.S Code). This right was

taken from these people because of how they were categorized by the government and

not treated as equals. For Elaine this is what her petition read:

“ 8. Delores Elaine Riddick - (N) - Perquimans CountySocial information: Age 13. Single. Pregnant. Psychological, April 5, 1967. MA 9-6: IQ 75

This thirteen-year-old girl expects her first child in March 1968.... She has never done any work and gets along so poorly with others that her school experience was poor. Because of Elaine's inability to control herself, and her promiscuity - there are community reports of her "running around" and out late at night un-chaperoned, the physician has advised sterilization.... This will at least prevent additional children from being born to this child who cannot care for herself, and can never function in any way as a parent. Diagnosis: Feebleminded”(Railey).

The government along with the doctors seemed to think that they owned these

individuals and that they had the right to take away their right to be a mother and to have

a family. Elaine says:

“I don’t ever think I can like myself. It is the most degrading thing, the most humiliating thing a person can do to a person is to take away a God-given right.” The state categorized Elaine as “feebleminded” as part of its justification, but she wasn’t an inmate at a state institution. She was just a poor young black girl, like the majority of people who were sterilized in the 1960s. Officials also justified their action by categorizing Elaine as promiscuous. The decision in Elaine’s case, just like in thousands of others like hers, was made by five strangers in Raleigh who reviewed a few paragraphs that reduced her complex life and the profound medical, legal and ethical issues at stake into a synopsis that seemed to always result in the same answer. About ninety percent of sterilization petitions presented to the eugenics board were approved and most cases were decided in less than fifteen minutes”(Railey).

The government also went against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

that was established in 1948. Article 6 in the Declaration of Human Rights states:

“Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law”(UN).

Elaine was denied that right for a long time. She eventually filed a lawsuit against the

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members of the eugenics board, asking for one million dollars in damages on the grounds

that her constitutional rights had been violated (Railey).

Elaine went to the ACLU, the union had in 1973 filed a class-action suit on behalf

of another North Carolina woman who had been sterilized, and that case had attracted

widespread publicity in a time when issues of women's rights were gaining attention. The

legislature disbanded the eugenics board in 1974, but neither the board nor the state

issued any apologies, or even explanations, about its thousands of sterilization cases. The

state would continue to release few details about the eugenics program. Elaine finally got

her day in the U.S District Court in New Bern nine years later, the jurors didn’t’ hear

details about the long history of problems at the eugenics board. A wider focus on large-

scale abuses at the board might have bolstered her claim, but that evidence wasn’t

available, even if Judge W. Earl Britt had allowed it. So Elaine’s attorneys focused on the

events leading up to her sterilization “ It was not reasonable for the board to rule on that

petition without having Elaine come to talk to them, without having any kind of hearing

except looking at those papers and saying, “ Yes, we’re going to approve the petition to

sterilize,” said her attorney, Ken Flaxman in his opening statement. Under questioning

from Flaxman and George Daly of Charlotte, former members of the eugenics board and

its executive secretary testified they couldn’t remember Elaine’s case. But after reviewing

the records of it, they all said they were satisfied that they had made the right decision.

Koomen a person, who was associated with the eugenics board, testified that the

sterilizations were a favor of sorts. “The usual response was that we were doing a favor;

indeed, we were often asked-not often- were sometimes asked to sterilize those who had

not yet menstruated.” But in 1990 when he talked about his time on the eugenics board,

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he expressed doubt about the whole program, saying that members of the board “were

uncomfortable” in the role. "And we did it because the law obligated us to. It isn't

something we would have volunteered to do - or even suggested," He said. The jury took

just a short time to find that Elaine “was not unlawfully or wrongfully deprived of her

right to bear children as the proximate result of anyone of the defendants,” and her

attorneys lost on appeal. They petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the decision

but the high court declined. Elaine was devastated by the failure of the court case, and

remained so for years (Railey).

They also are still going against this right still today. The state of North Carolina

has records of every individual that was sterilized, yet the government will not go out and

find these people -- they are making the victims come to the government (Williams).

North Carolina is still trying to decide how they are going to help those victims and how

they are going to compensate for what happened to each victim realizing that whatever

they give will never be enough for what was done, or compensate for what was taken

from these victims.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 25 states: “Everyone has the

right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of himself and of his

family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services

and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood,

old age or lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control”(UN). This right was

denied from these families as well. In the story of Nial Cox Ramirez another victim that

was forcibly sterilized she talks about how “The State forced her to make an impossible

choice in 1965. If she did not “consent” to be sterilized, welfare payments would be

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denied to her family. She chose to be sterilized” (Begos). In the story of Elaine, the social

worker threatens her grandmother who was on welfare and was taking care of Elaine. The

social worker approached her grandma and said that if she wanted to still receive

supplement, food stamps and welfare she would have to sign her name on consent form.

In the United Nations Document Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article

5 states that: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading

treatment or punishment”(UN). The government and country also went against this

human right. Elaine Reddick Jessie and many others were forced against their will to be

sterilized. On Jan.23, 1968 Elaine was unknowingly approved for forced sterilization. On

March 5,1968 she entered a hospital in Edenton to deliver her son. At the time she did not

realize what was going to happen to her. She had just turned fourteen and did not

understand what sterilization was or meant. Hours after Elaine’s delivery she then had an

operation to be sterilized by Doctor Bindman. Elaine says; that some one should have

explained to her what was happening. She realizes that at that age she wouldn’t have

understood but feels that they could have made an effort to do something, to inform her.

She also says that along with telling her what was going to happen they should of

provided her therapy afterwards (Railey). All Elaine remembers about that day was that

she arrived at the hospital and they put her in a room and that's all she remembers. She

does remember what she saw when she woke up out of the surgery. "When I woke up, I

woke up with bandages on my stomach”(Williams).

The United States Constitution Amendment 14 was passed by Congress on June

13, 1866 and ratified July 8, 1868. It allowed blacks to be citizens in the United States. It

states; “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the

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jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

No State shall make or enforce any law, which shall abridge the privileges or immunities

of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or

property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the

equal protection of the laws”(U.S Code). North Carolina went against this Amendment

along with thirty-three different states.

The North

Carolina government

focused their attention

on those who were in

their minds incapable of

contributing to society.

They were trying to

eliminate federal

budgetary costs for

individuals who seemed to be a burden to society. They forced many young female

blacks to be sterilized. “The fewer black babies we have the better, that’s what some

people said, Professor Paul Lombardo told the BBC about the program. “They are just

going to end up on welfare”(Daniel). All states except for North Carolina ended practice

of eugenics after World War 2. Figure 8 shows the total of forced sterilizations in North

Carolina, before and after World War 2 (Bakst).

North Carolina kept practicing eugenics until 1977. Three thousand victims that

were affected are still alive today. “While North Carolina’s eugenics board was

24%

71%

5%

Figure 8: Forced Steril-izations by Diagnosis, June 1929-July 1968

Mental DiseaseFeeblemindednessEpilepsy

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disbanded in 1977, the law allowing

involuntary sterilization wasn’t officially

repealed until 2003” (Kessel). “In 2002,

the state issued an apology to those who

had been sterilized, but the victims have

yet to receive any financial compensation, medical care or counseling from the

state”(Reynolds). Since 2003, three task forces have been created to determine a way to

compensate the victims. North Carolina’s Governor Beverly Perdue (Figure 9) says;

“You can’t rewind a watch or

rewrite history.  You just have

to go forward and that’s what

we’re trying to do in North

Carolina”(Kessel). She talks

about how she can’t even think

about the folks who went in to

the hospital not knowing that

they were going to be

sterilized. She also talks about how the victims were at an age where they didn’t’ have

the capacity to make the critical decisions or understand what sterilization was. She then

also says that “Those types of stories aren’t good for America and I can’t allow for this

period in history to be forgotten, that’s why this work is important”(Kessel). North

Carolina is still trying to come up with some way to contribute to these victims. One way

the governor is leaning towards is to give the victims money (Michaels). A check does

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heal the pain the victims carry with them daily.

This action of forced sterilization was an act in history that will haunt the victim’s

lives forever. What should be done is a park should be built in honor for the victims. The

park would represent them and their opportunity that was involuntarily taken away from

them to be a mother and go to the park with their children. There should be a statue of a

mother and child and statues of children around the park. Each statue having one or two

stories with a story of a victim so that their story can be read. The American government

encouraged inhuman and degrading treatment on to young black girls denying them the

basic human right to be a mother and rationalizing this action of forced sterilization to

prevent future welfare costs. History must be remembered some how, some way so that

it does repeat itself. As George Bernard Shaw said, “Those who cannot remember the

past are condemned to repeat it.”

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