Following up on the discussion of late about compensation to sterilization victims, now that I have a picture of the Eugenics Highway Marker in Raleigh, I want to make some use of it. The use I want to make of it is to compare it to Virginia's highway marker, to see how the two states present their histories to the public.
The North Carolina marker isn't long, so there's a real limit to what it can do. Recall that it says "State action led to the sterilization by choice or coercion of over 7,600 people, 1933-1973. Met after 1938 one block E." (That's in the Old Education Building, which -- irony of ironies -- is now the Justice Department.)
Compare that with the Virginia highway marker on eugenics, which is in Charlottesville (at 800 Preston Avenue). By the way, it's not the easiest to see from the street -- it's hidden behind a couple of trees. The Virginia marker is substantially longer. It reads:
In 1924, Virginia, like a majority of states then, enacted eugenic sterilization laws. Virginia's law allowed state institutions to operate on individuals to prevent the conception of what were believed to be "genetically inferior" children. Charlottesville native Carrie Buck (1906-1983), involuntarily committed to a state facility near Lynchburg, was chosen as the first person to be sterilized under the new law. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Buck v. Bell, on 2 May 1927, affirmed the Virginia law. After Buck more than 8,000 other Virginians were sterilized before the most relevant parts of the act were repealed in 1974. Later evidence actually showed that Buck and many others had no "hereditary defects." She is buried south of here.
The Virginia marker contextualized the law (most other states did it); the purpose behind the statute; Carrie Buck's story; and then tells us about the number of people who were also sterilized. I think I prefer the longer version, though there's something also quite powerful about North Carolina's emphasis that "state action" was behind the sterilization of 7000 North Carolinians.
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