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Health & healing
Margaret Sanger’s American into the general populace as services. If a woman did not
Birth Control League, and well. In 1970, the National immediately comply, workers
his book was promoted by Commission on the Causes directly threatened her with a
Sanger’s magazine The Birth and Prevention of Violence cutoff of all public assistance
Control Review. Stoddard’s found that “the overwhelming if she had any more children.
books won him wide acclaim majority of White Americans When black citizens exposed
in Nazi Germany, and, when would be ‘good Germans’ if the this coercion and called it
he visited that country, he government turned to massive “genocide,” the Pittsburgh
was allowed access to the racial repression.”6 Antipoverty Board voted
highest elements of the down funds from the United
Reich’s hierarchy. He had There was ample cause for States Office of Economic
cordial meetings with Heinrich the Commission’s concern, Opportunity (OEO) that
Himmler, head of both the because “racial repression” was would have continued Planned
Nazi secret police and the happening on a wide scale at Parenthood clinic operations
Schutzstaffel [SS], with the time. Experts testified that in six of the city’s poorer
Joachim von Ribbentrop, the there had already been many neighborhoods.8 The OEO,
German Minister of Foreign cases of outright propaganda in fact, had actually funded
Affairs, and with Adolf Hitler and coercion directed against thousands of the involuntary
himself. He also met with minorities by governmental and sterilizations of poor black
leading Nazi racialists and quasi-governmental agencies in women across the South in the
eugenicists, including Hans numerous states. 1940s and 1950s.9
F.K. Gunther, Eugen Fischer
and Franz Lenz, and visited For example, in the 1960s, the During the same period, the
their institutions. Chicago Planned Parenthood South Carolina and Delaware
Association sponsored birth legislatures considered laws
The famous war historian control “coffee parties” all that would mandate the
William L. Shirer noted that over the black sections of the sterilization of all welfare
Stoddard was given preference city—but none in the white- mothers after they had borne
by the German brass because dominated suburbs.7 In two children out of wedlock.
his racist writings were Pittsburgh, representatives In New York, municipal judges
“featured in Nazi school of federally financed “family commonly offered women
textbooks.”5 planning” programs sent a the choice of sterilization or a
brigade of “home visitors” cutoff of welfare benefits.10
Eugenics and Racism during and public assistance workers These laws directly targeted
the Civil Rights Movement to the homes of thousands black women.
of black women in order to
The eugenics mentality is convince them to make use These racist programs did
not only prevalent among the of family planning clinic not escape the notice of civil
elite, it is steadily spreading rights activists. Dr. Constance
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