By Michelle Kessel and Jessica Hopper
Rock Center
Elaine Riddick was 13 years old when she got pregnant after being raped by a neighbor in Winfall, N.C., in 1967. The state ordered that immediately after giving birth, she should be sterilized. Doctors cut and tied off her fallopian tubes.
“I have to carry these scars with me. I have to live with this for the rest of my life,” she said.
Riddick was never told what was happening. “Got to the hospital and they put me in a room and that’s all I remember, that’s all I remember,” she said. “When I woke up, I woke up with bandages on my stomach.”
Riddick’s records reveal that a five-person state eugenics board in Raleigh had approved a recommendation that she be sterilized. The records label Riddick as “feebleminded” and “promiscuous.” They said her schoolwork was poor and that she “does not get along well with others.”
“I was raped by a perpetrator [who was never charged] and then I was raped by the state of North Carolina. They took something from me both times,” she said. “The state of North Carolina, they took something so dearly from me, something that was God given.”
It wouldn’t be until Riddick was 19, married and wanting more children, that she’d learn she was incapable of having any more babies. A doctor in New York where she was living at the time told her that she’d been sterilized.
“Butchered. The doctor used that word… I didn’t understand what she meant when she said I had been butchered,” Riddick said.
North Carolina was one of 31 states to have a government run eugenics program. By the 1960s, tens of thousands of Americans were sterilized as a result of these programs.
Eugenics was a scientific theory that grew in popularity during the 1920s. Eugenicists believed that poverty, promiscuity and alcoholism were traits that were inherited. 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. Some of America’s wealthiest citizens of the time were eugenicists including Dr. Clarence Gamble of the Procter and Gamble fortune and James Hanes of the hosiery company. Hanes helped found the Human Betterment League which promoted the cause of eugenicists.
It began as a way to control welfare spending on poor white women and men, but over time, North Carolina shifted focus, targeting more women and more blacks than whites. A third of the sterilizations performed in North Carolina were done on girls under the age of 18. Some were as young as nine years old.
For the past eight years, North Carolina lawmakers have been working to find a way to compensate those involuntarily sterilized in the state between 1929 and 1974. During that time period, 7,600 people were sterilized in North Carolina. Of those who were sterilized, 85 percent of the victims were female and 40 percent were non-white.
“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,” said Governor Beverly Perdue in an exclusive interview with NBC News.
While North Carolina’s eugenics board was disbanded in 1977, the law allowing involuntary sterilization wasn’t officially repealed until 2003. 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. Since 2003, three task forces have been created to determine a way to compensate the victims. Officials estimate that as many as 2,000 victims are still alive.
Riddick was one of several victims to speak at a public hearing this summer. It was the first time that many survivors had told their stories publicly and that others heard of North Carolina’s tarnished past.
“To think about folks who went in…and their doctor told them this was birth control and they were sterilized…the folks who didn’t have the capacity to make the decisions, the uninformed consent,” said Perdue. “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.”
Only 48 victims have been matched with their records, something necessary for them to eventually be compensated. State Representative Larry Womble has been advocating for the survivors of the state’s sterilization program for nearly 10 years. He helped fight for the repeal of the state’s law.
Womble said that if the government is “powerful enough to perpetrate this on this society, they ought to be responsible, step up to the plate and compensate.”
In August, a task force created by Gov. Perdue recommended that the victims be compensated, but they were unsure how much to award the victims. Previous numbers pondered range between $20,000 and $50,000. The task force also recommended mental health services for living victims and a traveling museum exhibit about North Carolina’s eugenics program.
Perdue said it’s a challenge to determine how much money each victim should be given.
“From my perspective, and as a woman, and as the governor of this state, this is not about the money. There isn’t enough money in the world to pay these people for what has been done to them, but money is part of the equation,” she said.
Riddick once sued North Carolina for a million dollars. Her case made it all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, but the court declined to hear the case. “I would like for the state of North Carolina to right what they wronged with me,” she said.
Some victims and their advocates have questioned whether North Carolina is procrastinating in compensating them, hoping they’ll die before a solution is reached. “It’s an ugly chapter in North Carolina’s book, we have a wonderful book, but there’s an ugly chapter,” Womble said. “We must step up to the plate and we must realize and take responsibility.”
Perdue, for her part, said that she is committed to helping the victims.
“I want this solved on my watch. I want there to be completion. I want the whole discussion to end and there be action for these folks. There is nobody in North Carolina who is waiting for anybody to die,” Gov. Perdue said.
Despite the state social workers who declared Riddick was “mentally retarded” and “promiscuous”, she went to college and raised the son born moments before she was sterilized. Her son is devoted to his mother and a successful entrepreneur.
Elaine is proud of her achievements.
“I don’t know where I would be if I listened to the state of North Carolina,” she said.
Editor's note: If you think you or someone you know was a victim of North Carolina's eugenics program or for more information about the ongoing efforts to compensate the victims, visit the website for the N.C. Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation: http://www.sterilizationvictims.nc.gov/
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I am from Michigan, temporarily in Idaho. Cherries and asparagus in Michigan and potatoes in Idaho. Both highly dependent on field workers. I am incensed with your coverage tonight about illegal immigrants. As a former business man, licensed in Michigan, these farmers that you interviewed only want 'illegals' to avoid unemployment taxes and workmens' compensation payments and payments of Social Security and income taxes. They can, and should, apply for green cards for Mexican workers and then have to report their wages and pay their fair taxes. We would not be nearly up in arms abut the undocumenteds getting "benefits" if they were "documented' just like legal immigrants from Hungary or Sweden or Thailand and taxes had been paid for them. You sounded just like cry baby liberals. You had your say.. it dosen't change the truth of what I am telling you. They can get their workers, those admittedly hard workers, Mexicans, LEGALLY! Just because we have a common border does not excuse them being treated like any other nationality' immigrants! Get legal workers.
I have been watching Rock Center for the past two weeks. I enjoy the show and like the balance between topical news stories and lighter, human-interest stories. However, I felt that last night's phone interview with Sandusky was inappropriate, too graphic and came across as a cheap ploy to sensationalize this terrible story. I expected more from Rock Center, Brian Williams and Bob Costas. I have had great respect for these two journalists and was appalled last night when I saw them take an incredibly serious and horrifying story and turn it into a circus. I did not watch the entire interview, so I will say that my comments are only based on what I saw.
I have friends who have read the entire grand jury indictment and therefore know the gruesome details of what allegedly transpired. For those of who have not read it, we can gather that the allegations are horrific and graphic in nature especially since young children were involved. I, personally, did not need to hear a reenactment from Bob Costas. I had to change the channel and had a really hard time getting those words out of my head. For those who may think that I am overreacting, I suppose I just have a weak stomach when it comes to the abuse of children. I just think that this ordeal has to be difficult for the victims and their families. The last thing they need is to have those events broadcast on television.
Rock Center team, please conduct yourselves with the professionalism and humanity that we have learned to expect from you. It is why we watch.
it sickens me to think that these sterilizations were only stopped a few decades ago, and that one of the leaders behind such an awful cause was one of the men from proctor and gamble. i call for a boycott of that company. but furthermore im going to school for social work and i am deeply disturbed by the social workers who thought it in their area of expertise to classify this poor woman as mentally retarded; that is not in their right as a social worker, that is for a medical professional to decide. I have always said their should be a form of IQ testing for people who wish to procreate, however i feel awful for making such jokes when its clear that to a degree this has been in play for decades............ certain people should never have children, however that is the individuals right as a human being to decide for themselves. the money that the state if offering will never truly compensate for what was done to those people, but it is at the very least an acknowledgement of the pain and suffering they endured. The counseling is one of the better ideas the state is proposing, and for that i tip my hat to NC. They have a long way to go to make amends but at least it sounds like they have taken some steps in the right direction.
Call it what you want, WHITE people came up with this FRANKENSTEIN method of CONTROLLING the population. They are all monsters with evil natures.
I don't know why this thing happened. I do know that choice of birthing or not is a human right. I beleive in sterilization as a species, nothing else. I also know it is not my choice to make {other than my own self}.
That being said, I think the folks who were forced into sterilization or led to it by false or other means not understood by the participants, is wrong. Those folks should be compensated monetarily for their loss. As for butchering, that is for them and the doctors who perfomed poorly to meet about. The most important issues are the mental effects, and the loss of child bearing. The state should furnish mental treatments for free, and the state should enable and pay for any capable person who was sterilized to have a cost free adoption of at least one child. This should help them and the children so often neglected by others.
WTF? More taxpayer dollars for the indigent welfare hoarders? "More, Oliver? You want more?"
How about this: instead of a child tax credit we issue a penalty, especially to the welfare queens whose squat nuggets have, for far too long, been paid for cradle to crack-induced grave by the rest of the hardworking taxpayers. A credit, meanwhile, for every person who declares themselves childfree and contributes to worthy causes. March of Dimes is not a worthy cause. NAMI is not either. The ASPCA is. Greenpeace, Humane Society, and yes, Planned Parenthood and the NARAL. A taxpayer contribution to Dignitas, meanwhile, is worthy of a f*cking Genius Grant.
In that case, Oliver would best be helped by a contribution to the NRA. "Consider yourself, a mis-take / Consider yourself, a problem of poverty..."
Humans are like the mighty Oak trees, not every acorn that falls will survive, the ones that do not, make the ground more fertile for the ones that do. Oaks have many colors just as humans, it is not the color that makes us, it is the hardness of our convictions and the strength of our species. In that respect we ALL as humans lend something to the future, loss of one gene pool leaves room for another, I beleive this to be true. When my son passes, so will my entire linage...
butchered is exactly the right word %$&% to all the "doctors" who steralized those poor women
What is never fully realized by individuals and groups that advocate purity of genetics is that your genetics are not only from your parents but skip back generations. Any program that hopes to make the human race pure cannot be successful unless they could somehow identify every trait that makes up a human being and that is not going to happen any time soon. Give it up!!! Retarded, handicap and other so called "deformed" human beings have bore us geniuses and great beauties. In the same light, so called geniuses and beauties of the world have brought into this world their share of handicap, retarded and ugly human beings. It is just one of the miracles of life here on earth. When will we ever learn that we should be about enhancing and improving ours and each other's lives. And lastly, the dirt you do will eventually come to affect you and the very ones you call yourself protecting. Just examine the world's history. This is called common sense, something else missing in ever advancing world.
99% of retards and handicaps are NOT going to be Einstein. Who cares, anyway, since all that stupid theory ever gave us was the f*ing A-bomb? Not to mention all that "nucular" debris in the aftermath since that probably poisoned all the subsequent generations, and bore us more autards, cripples, asspees, lunatics, and feeble-minded indigents.
About the second point, though, this is where euthanasia would be beneficial. Sarah Palin isn't exactly an ugly lesbo like Eleanor Roosevelt (who, by the way, got "married off" to her crippled cousin because not even a blind dude would want to f*ck her), but Trig Palin is about as much a brainiac as she is. Jenny McCarthy is a dipsh!t blonde with cocktail poisoning. No wonder her feeble-minded squat nugget is retarded; he's probably not so much an autard as he is a victim of fetal alcohol disorder. Booze doesn't always burn off so quickly, you know. Especially when mommy is a dumb MTV supermodel with the IQ level of the worm in her tequila, or whatever micro-ecosystem of unnamed bacteria were already propagating in her crotch.
If Jim Carrey is the father, though, I would say that's a cloning experiment gone horribly wrong. You're really going to be a genius if your mom is a nudie pinup girl and your dad made a career giving new meaning to "pulling jokes out of his a**."
This is truly an outrage, neither money nor any other offering could not even begin to relieve Mrs. Riddick and others who have been robbed of producing Children. I'm neither a Female nor Parent, but I could imagine this being complete torcher for any Parent, especially a Woman. My condolences go out to Her and the many Women who are in the same situation as Her. GOD BLESS!
It's kind of sad how many of you so obviously flunked statistics. *smh*
There is such a thing as too much freedom. Especially when the majority of a community (the US in this case) isnt raised with a strong moral foundation. There was such a time when girls didnt have frequent casual sex because the majority of society looked down on it as a flaw in moral character...
As is evident and obvious these days, the loosening of morals and values have brought us down to a nation of overpopulation which results in kids running wild in the streets with little or no discipline. Those kids having kids (and why not since the government will provide for you as long as you have dependents?). And this overpopulation affects absolutely everything else from the quality of food available which affects our health to poorly educated citizens, low-income citizens which results in crime and drug abuse, I could go on and on but dont have enough room to write it all down here, but we can trace just about every problem we face these days on the fact that we are overpopulating the world at a dangerous pace.
The problem begins with these young girls becoming pregnant in the first place. Where does the problem end? I dont know. How about sex education like "back in the old days" where instead of learning how to use a condom, the students are taught their moral responsibilities as a US citizen and human being for starters?
Because obviously it didn't work, and the "moral" arguments were all too often invalid because they had too much basis in religion. You can't throw out the 1st Amendment and reinstate prayer mandates in public schools just to stop teenage pregnancy. Even in places where there's a strong religious/moral culture (namely, the Third World, where there's next to no "real" education and people still participate in voodoo sun cults), people are, at their core, animals and will act on animal instincts. Moreover, "back in the old days" it was always the girl/woman's "fault" for being "prone to temptation" or, more likely, "tempting" towards others. Virtually no mention of male responsibility here; even child molestation was viewed as a flaw in the child's moral character or the parents' role of upbringing (specifically the mother, always the mother).
I don't want to go back to the Freudian Stepford 1950s. I do, however, think that we're becoming more and more animalistic in our nature, and that modern medicine needs to step in and basically rip everyone's tubes out because we've gotten out of control. Neither our environment nor our economy, both domestically and internationally, can support this bulk of human excess (the "surplus population," to quote a certain Mr. Scrooge) any longer. I think if we can't get our sh!t together and do away with religious doctrine about "sanctity of life" and our evolutionary impulse to f*ck, then I think we should just go the way of T. Rex (not to mention the lead singer).
But try explaining that to people from the radical right who refuse to believe dinosaurs ever existed, despite overwhelming evidence to support it, yet hold to be absolute concrete fact that the earth was made *poof* in a week by some Houdini of the skies whose alien-superman "son" pulled a posthumous disappearing act of his own after disappearing for 20 years previously.
The burden of the "problem," though, does not rest solely on "young girls becoming pregnant in the first place." Slut-shaming much? How about teaching young boys to respect young girls as human beings and not blow-up dolls, and to cut out this retarded crap about "hoes," "biatches," and "scoring," as though it were nothing more than a game? How about teaching that respecting women doesn't make you "gay" or a "mama's boy," and that furthermore, there's nothing wrong with being gay?
Oh, about the article...it happened to my cousin back in 1963 who got pregnant when she was 13 or 14. Her parents decided that she was promiscuous and not to remain fertile so made the decision to have her sterilized.
All these years my cousin sadly looked on as her siblings and cousins went on to have babies and raise families. Very sad. How dare a person make that sort of permanent decision for another human being?
Sure my cousin had sex with the 13 year old neighbor boy, even after being raised with a strong moral foundation. It happens sometimes no matter what. We were close growing up and I happen to know that she wasnt promiscuous. It was a one time big mistake on her part. But either way...I dont condone the decision that was made on her behalf.
"but over time, North Carolina shifted focus, targeting more women and more blacks than whites."
this is for Scott-2939499
When is enough a enough? When will people stop supporting such a corrupt system like corporate controlled governments? when will people stop fighting each other and wake up?
@RI Mom: That glam brat from your neck of James Woods High who put the fighting video on YouTube, the one from Dr. Phil, I would say that's a textbook example of why certain children just should not be born. Not only is she a cripple (scoliosis) but a sociopath.
Nevertheless, the cripple she beat up is a waste of CO herself.
commonsense... wrote:
No, it is valid, and its definition is not as "bad" as its connotation:
Harry Blank wrote:
Harry's earlier post indicates he doesn't support it, but I do, and I don't think it's such a bad idea. Is it really a positive trait to be able to recite pi to eleven billion places, yet not be housebroken at 35 and f*p all day to the Discovery Channel? This isn't about race, the attitudes and stereotypes of the era notwithstanding. This is about what's acceptable for society and what is undoubtedly a burden and a waste. Mental illness transcends race, ethnicity, gender, and probably 99% of standard demographic factors. Depending on your socioeconomic status, it's viewed differently, yet the underpinnings are still the same. Case in point: a sociopath in the ghetto will probably rise high in the ranks of the Bloods & Crips, scoring rewards for killing "enemies" and becoming the leader of his respective tribe. A sociopath on Wall Street (some would say that's redundant) doesn't care the emotional cost of how he makes his way up in the corporate ranks, possibly to the point of murder being his flavor of mergers and acquisitions. An Ivy League American Psycho is no less a psycho than a ruthless gang member in East L.A, and Trig Palin is no more a "person" than a throwback with lesser socioeconomic status or different racial background.
Obviously I think the world would be better off without Down syndrome or autism. It's not like saying the world should get rid of blacks or gays because neither the color of your skin nor your gender orientation affects your cognitive ability or your EQ. A bipolar homosexual is worth aborting (or sterilizing) not because s/he is gay but because s/he is bipolar. Take away the bipolar and you've got a normal person who just happens to prefer members of the same sex to become involved in romantic relationships with. If he's bipolar, on the other hand, or schizophrenic, he's probably Norman Bates. (If he's an asexual autard, though, he's probably "Gill Bates.")