RALEIGH, N.C.  – House members have endorsed teaching North Carolina public school students about how thousands of people were sterilized through a state program in the mid-20th century.

The House Education Committee approved legislation Tuesday that would order the eugenics program be included in the public school curriculum. The bill also direct students and professors at University of North Carolina campuses to interview program victims so future generations know what happened.

About one-third of the 7,600 people sterilized by choice or coercion are still alive. The program ended in the 1970s. Then-Gov. Mike Easley apologized in 2002 for what happened.

The bill now goes to another committee.

It’s unclear if a separate effort to pay survivors will wind up in the state budget.

RALEIGH, N.C. – A movement to help North Carolina learn more about thousands of people who were sterilized under a state program in the mid-20th century is getting another chance to be heard.

A House committee scheduled debate Tuesday on legislation that would order the public schools to teach about the eugenics program. Students at University of North Carolina campuses also would be directed to interview program victims so future generations know what happened.

About one-third of the 7,600 people sterilized by choice or coercion are still alive. The program ended in the 1970s.

The state unveiled a roadside marker in downtown Raleigh two weeks ago recalling the program.

It’s unclear whether a separate effort to pay survivors will wind up in the state budget.

RALEIGH, N.C. – State officials are dedicating a historical marker to remember the forced sterilization program that affected thousands of people in North Carolina.

The North Carolina Highway Historical Marker will be dedicated Monday at the North Carolina Community Colleges building in Raleigh.

Social reformers advocated for eugenics programs a century ago as a way to cleanse society of the mentally handicapped and mentally ill. North Carolina adopted its program in 1929 and aggressively continued the program after World War II, targeting the program at the poor.

About 7,600 people were sterilized between 1929 and 1975. A state House panel has recommended that the state give $20,000 to victims of the eugenics program.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – The chief advocate for compensation to North Carolina residents sterilized against their will by the state says he’s fighting to get it approved this year.

A House judiciary committee approved a bill Tuesday that would provide $20,000 to any person sterilized by the state between 1929 and 1975. The measure seeks $18 million to pay claims.

The state’s eugenics program sterilized 7,600 people considered at the time as mentally disabled or genetically inferior. The state has apologized for the program.

Rep. Larry Womble of Forsyth County is a primary sponsor. He says a third of the victims are still alive, so time is running out.

The budget proposals of Gov. Beverly Perdue and the Senate offered startup money for compensation but nothing for claims.

Winston-Salem Journal

Gov. Bev. Perdue made a good step toward helping the victims of North Carolina’s forced sterilization program when she included in her proposed budget $250,000 to start the process of providing financial compensation for them. Legislators should approve the allocation. And they should all also approve health-care benefits for the victims, as well as setting up a monument to them and including lessons about the sterilization program in the state’s public-school curriculum.

From 1929 through 1974, this state’s low-profile program, based on the junk science of eugenics, sterilized more than 7,600 men, women and children. Most were poor. They were operated on after being determined to be unfit to reproduce, a determination that was often based on questionable information supplied by overzealous social workers.

The program went largely unnoticed until late 2002, when a Journal investigative series brought it to light. Former Gov. Mike Easley led an initial charge to help the surviving victims. But his push soon fizzled, and little has been done to help the victims. Rep. Larry Womble of Forsyth County has kept pushing. As she ran for governor, Perdue promised to help as well. She deserves credit for following through on that promise in the midst of a state budget crisis.

The recession has probably been especially hard on the surviving victims of this program, which may number as many as 3,000. Many have been left with emotional and physical scars.

The $250,000 that Perdue included in her proposed budget would create a nonprofit foundation that could serve as a first step toward compensation for the victims. “It would be up to the foundation to work on the framework of identifying (victims) and compensation – and the money allocated in the budget would be able to do that – to support the parameters of the foundation and setup of a compensation fund,” Chrissy Pearson, the spokeswoman for Perdue, said in an e-mail last week. “It’s the first step to get to compensation.”

If the legislature approves the allocation, it will be one of many steps in a long process. In the meantime, Womble has filed a bill that would give the victims $20,000 each. The compensation would be justified. But it stands little chance of being approved in this tight economic year.

Another bill Womble has filed, one based on a legislative committee’s recommendations, is more realistic. It would give the victims mental-health care benefits, include the story of the program in the public-school curriculum and require that a historical marker about the program be created.

The victims should also receive help with the lingering physical effects of some of these operations. Perhaps that care could be provided at the state’s university hospitals. Such health-care benefits were part of recommendations that Easley approved almost six years ago.

So was a monument to the victims, not a historical marker. The monument should finally be approved as well.

The victims are growing older by the day. Many are dying. The state is running out of time to redeem itself and reach out to the victims of its colossal injustice.

RALEIGH, N.C. – North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue wants to take a step toward paying people forcibly sterilized through a state-sponsored eugenics program in the mid-20th century.

Perdue released her proposed two-year state government budget Tuesday and asked the Legislature to put $250,000 in a proposed Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation.

Perdue provided few details in the budget except it would provide assistance for people who were forcibly sterilized between 1929 and 1974. About 7,600 people were sterilized because they were mentally handicapped or considered genetically inferior.

A state commission recommended financial compensation in 2003, but it has never occurred. Perdue said in her campaign last year she would carry out the panel’s recommendations.

A House panel last year also recommended the state give $20,000 to victims.

A bill filed by four House Democrats would give victims of the state’s sterilization program $20,000 each, the N&O reports.