Victims of North Carolina's Forced Sterilization Program Seek Compensation

IndyWeek.com: N.C. Eugenics Survivors Seek Justice, by Lara Torgeson:

...In 1968, at just 14 years old, Elaine became one of the thousands of victims of North Carolina's forced sterilization program. Quietly and efficiently operating from 1929 until 1974, the program's purpose was to weed out the "unfit" of society by stopping them from reproducing....

Like Elaine, tens of thousands of people across the country were victims of eugenic sterilizations. But North Carolina was something of an anomaly. Most of the states with eugenic sterilization programs dismantled them after World War II when the horrors of the Holocaust were uncovered. North Carolina, however, ramped up its program in the postwar years, increasingly targeting poor black women during the '50s and '60s....

Sadly, more than half of the forced sterilization victims have already died, without ever receiving any kind of acknowledgement that what happened to them was wrong. But for the estimated 2,800 individuals still expected to be alive today, there is still a chance to do what's right. Sharing their stories, acknowledging the past and trying to learn something from it is a start. The $20,000 compensation being considered for survivors is not a hefty sum when you think about what the trade-off has been. Still, it is something, and it should be paid while the survivors are still surviving.