State officials over the past year have been taking a look back at an unpleasant bit of our state’s past: a eugenics program that sterilized thousands of women in the mid-20th century. Gov. Beverly Perdue earlier this year created a task force to figure out how to compensate survivors. And just this week, House Speaker and state Rep. Thom Tillis (R-Cornelius) said lawmakers should approve legislation to pay victims.
Reporter Julie Rose, of our news partner WFAE-FM, recently investigated the role of Mecklenburg County officials in sterilizations. She found that there were three times the number of sterilizations here than in the next closest county. Read or listen to her report, which aired on WFAE and NPR news, and find related maps and documents about the sterilization program.
LINK: Aug. 24, 2011, “Uncovering the Past: Mecklenburg’s Role in Sterilization.”
At the time eugenics was rearing its ugly head in the United States and around the world, Hitler was studying the laws on the books of several of our states. It was politically correct for a lot of the wrong reasons.
The U.S. Holocaust and War Victims Museum in Washington, D.C., now has a traveling exhibit: Deadly Medicine: Creating a Master Race. It might be of interest to readers who are now seeing sterilization stories of local residents.
As author of “Lebensborn,” a story based upon Himmler’s idea to create a Master Race, I have been following the unraveling of this eugenics outcome and applaud your state and its governor for being morally correct.
Jo Ann Bender
Colville, Wash.