Log In | Register
Reporting from Raleigh, N.C.—
Elaine Riddick was a confused and frightened 14-year-old. She was poor and black, the daughter of alcoholic parents in a segregated North Carolina town. And she was pregnant after being raped by a man from her neighborhood.Riddick's miserable circumstances attracted the attention of social workers, who referred her case to the state's Eugenics Board. In an office building in Raleigh, five men met to consider her fate — among them the state health director and a lawyer from the attorney general's office.Board members concluded that the girl was "feebleminded" and doomed to "promiscuity." They recommended sterilization. Riddick's illiterate grandmother, Maggie Woodard, known as "Miss Peaches," marked an "X" on a consent form.Hours after Riddick gave birth to a son in Edenton, N.C., on March 5, 1968, a doctor sliced through her fallopian tubes and cauterized them."They butchered me like a hog," recalls Riddick, now a poised and determined woman of 57.Nearly 44 years later, the state of North Carolina has proposed paying $50,000 each to compensate Riddick and other victims of its eugenics program. It's the first state to consider compensation for victims of forced sterilization — up to 65,000 in at least 30 states, according to most estimates.Between 1929 and 1974, nearly 7,600 people were sterilized under orders from North Carolina's Eugenics Board. Nearly 85% were women or girls, some as young as 10. The state estimates that 1,500 to 2,000 of the victims are still alive.
