The Eugenics Board
The 1919 law was the first foray for North Carolina into eugenics; this law, entitled "An Act to Benefit the Moral, Mental, or Physical Conditions of Inmates of Penal and Charitable Institutions" was quite brief, encompassing only 4 sections. Provision was made for creation of a Board of Consultation, made up of a member of the medical staff of any of the penal or charitable State institutions, and a representative of the State Board of Health, to oversee sterilization that was to be undertaken when "in the judgement of the board hereby created, said operation would be for the improvement of the mental, moral or physical conditions of any inmate of any of the said institutions".
The Board of Consultation would have reported to both the Governor and the Secretary of the State Board of Health. No sterilizations were performed under the provisions of this law, though its structure was to guide following legislation.[
The Eugenics Board of North Carolina (EBNC) was a State Board of the state of North Carolina formed in July 1933 by the North Carolina State Legislature by the passage of House Bill 1013, entitled 'An Act to Amend Chapter 34 of the Public Laws of 1929 of North Carolina Relating to the Sterilization of Persons Mentally Defective'. This Bill formally repealed a 1929 law, which had been ruled as unconstitutional by the North Carolina Supreme Court earlier in the year.
Over time, the Board shifted their focus to include sterilizations. Their original purpose was to oversee the practice of sterilization as it pertained to inmates or patients of public-funded institutions that were judged to be 'mentally defective or feeble-minded' by authorities. The majority of these sterilizations were coerced. Academic sources have observed that this was not only an ableist and classist project but also a racist one. Of the 7,686 people who were sterilized in North Carolina after 1933, 5,000 were Black. American Civil Liberties Union attorney Brenda Feign Fasteau said of the situation, "As far as I can determine, the statistics reveal that since 1964, approximately 65 percent of the women sterilized in North Carolina were Black and approximately 35 percent were white."
In contrast to other eugenics programs across the United States, the North Carolina Board enabled county departments of public welfare to petition for the sterilization of their clients. The Board remained in operation until 1977. During its existence thousands of individuals were sterilized. In 1977 the N.C. General Assembly repealed the laws authorizing its existence, though it would not be until 2003 that the involuntary sterilization laws that underpinned the Board's operations were repealed.
Today the Board's work is repudiated by people across the political, scientific and private spectrum.
In 2013, North Carolina passed legislation to compensate those sterilized under the Board's jurisdiction
*NOTE Please click Source Link to finish reading this information abou the NC Eugenics Project.
Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/.../Eugenics_Board_of_North...
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Source:https://rewire.news/.../state-eugenics-sheds-light-north.../
Wicked Silence Documentary
Source: http://bioethics.wfu.edu/links-resources/wicked-silence/
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Source:http://bioethics.wfu.edu/.../WickedSilenceStudentDiscussi...