Eugenics victims may get payment
Anna Oakes / (news@averyjournal.com)
A task force charged with determining compensation methods for forced sterilization victims in North Carolina recommends a lump sum of $50,000 be paid to each of the living victims — estimated to number between 1,500 and 2,000 people.
Eugenics is the selective breeding of humans and animals to rid the population of characteristics deemed undesirable. Though the practice is widely condemned today, an estimated 7,600 North Carolinians — including women and men who were poor, undereducated, institutionalized, sick and disabled — were sterilized from 1929 to 1974 under the authority of N.C. Eugenics Board.
In a Jan. 27 report to Gov. Bev Perdue, the Eugenics Compensation Task Force also recommends the provision of mental health services for victims, as well as the continuation and expansion of N.C. Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation and funding for a traveling eugenics exhibit, permanent exhibit memorializing victims and ongoing oral history project.
“No amount of money can adequately pay for the harm done to these citizens, but financial compensation and other services we recommend will nonetheless provide meaningful assistance,” the report stated. “The compensation package we recommend sends a clear message that we in North Carolina are a people who pay for our mistakes and that we do not tolerate bureaucracies that trample on basic human rights.”
The task force presents its recommendations as a “starting point” for state legislation that it hopes will be enacted during this year’s short session, the report stated. A funding source for compensation has not been identified; compensating 1,500 people with $50,000 payments would cost $75 million. However, fewer than 100 people have reportedly been identified as living victims thus far.
Multiple committees have studied the state’s history of eugenics and ways to compensate victims since 2002, when Winston-Salem Journal published a five-part series about North Carolina’s sterilization program. In 2010, Perdue created N.C. Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation to help identify victims and to staff a Gubernatorial Task Force on Eugenics.
The Eugenics Compensation Task Force formed in March 2011 and held public meetings last year.
During the peak years of North Carolina’s eugenics program, from July 1946 to June 1968, 5,368 sterilizations were performed statewide, the report said. Of those, 26 took place in Watauga County, 100 took place in Wilkes County, 59 in Caldwell County, 29 in Avery County and 28 in Ashe County.
Eugenics is the selective breeding of humans and animals to rid the population of characteristics deemed undesirable. Though the practice is widely condemned today, an estimated 7,600 North Carolinians — including women and men who were poor, undereducated, institutionalized, sick and disabled — were sterilized from 1929 to 1974 under the authority of N.C. Eugenics Board.
In a Jan. 27 report to Gov. Bev Perdue, the Eugenics Compensation Task Force also recommends the provision of mental health services for victims, as well as the continuation and expansion of N.C. Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation and funding for a traveling eugenics exhibit, permanent exhibit memorializing victims and ongoing oral history project.
“No amount of money can adequately pay for the harm done to these citizens, but financial compensation and other services we recommend will nonetheless provide meaningful assistance,” the report stated. “The compensation package we recommend sends a clear message that we in North Carolina are a people who pay for our mistakes and that we do not tolerate bureaucracies that trample on basic human rights.”
The task force presents its recommendations as a “starting point” for state legislation that it hopes will be enacted during this year’s short session, the report stated. A funding source for compensation has not been identified; compensating 1,500 people with $50,000 payments would cost $75 million. However, fewer than 100 people have reportedly been identified as living victims thus far.
Multiple committees have studied the state’s history of eugenics and ways to compensate victims since 2002, when Winston-Salem Journal published a five-part series about North Carolina’s sterilization program. In 2010, Perdue created N.C. Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation to help identify victims and to staff a Gubernatorial Task Force on Eugenics.
The Eugenics Compensation Task Force formed in March 2011 and held public meetings last year.
During the peak years of North Carolina’s eugenics program, from July 1946 to June 1968, 5,368 sterilizations were performed statewide, the report said. Of those, 26 took place in Watauga County, 100 took place in Wilkes County, 59 in Caldwell County, 29 in Avery County and 28 in Ashe County.