Study examines disproportionate effect of eugenics on NC’s Black population

The Cincinnati Herald

By Lucas Hubbard

August 25, 2020

DURHAM, N.C. – A sordid element of North Carolina’s history is its eugenics program, which authorized sterilization of many citizens throughout much of the 20th century.

A new Duke University study shows that the eugenics program’s disproportionate effect on Black citizens was no accident: Instead, the program was designed explicitly to “breed out” nonworking Black residents.

“This suggests that for Blacks, eugenic sterilizations were authorized and administered with the aim of reducing their numbers in the future population — genocide by any other name,” the authors state.

The paper, titled, “Did North Carolina Economically Breed-Out Blacks During its Historical Eugenic Sterilization Campaign?” was the result of research by Gregory N. Price, an economics professor at the University of New Orleans; William A. Darity Jr.; and Rhonda V. Sharpe, the founder and president of the Women’s Institute for Science, Equity, and Race.