Epilogue September 5, 2004 Victims of sterilization are still waiting for help from state Last year about this time, North Carolina seemed well on its way to making amends for the state-ordered sterilization of more than 7,600 adults and youth from 1929 though 1974. November 4, 2003 - FOLLOW-UP REPORT WFU medical school apologizes again for role After 10 months of study, Wake Forest University School of Medicine issued a report yesterday about its role in North Carolina's eugenic sterilization program, and repeated its apologies for its involvement. September 28, 2003 - FOLLOW-UP REPORT Making Amends State struggled to arrive at a consensus about what to do for those it sterilized and to keep if from happening again Suggestions abound; Wheels turning slowly How do you compensate those who were sterilized by the state of North Carolina? Women who were sterilized, legislators, members of a study committee established this year by Gov. Mike Easley and the governor himself have spent months trying to answer the question. Offer 'Too Little Too Late' Woman says threats forced her to agree to operation and that she expects N.C. to provide compensation May 31, 2003 Panel calls for compensating N.C. eugenics victims After becoming the first state to create a commission to review its role in a statewide eugenic sterilization program, North Carolina could soon take another dramatic step to compensate unwilling victims of the program. April 25, 2003 Eugenics group OKs process to ID victims A panel studying the state's role in sterilizing thousands of North Carolinians settled on a process yesterday to identify those involuntarily sterilized and agreed that they should receive counseling, medical benefits and educational opportunities. Left unsettled was whether the victims should receive cash reparations and if so, how much. April 24, 2003 Redress, counsel is aim of project Under legislation filed yesterday, North Carolina could become the first state to compensate people involuntarily sterilized as part of a nationwide eugenics movement. The bill - filed by Rep. Larry Womble, D-Forsyth - would create a legislative research commission to determine how to compensate and counsel victims. April 18, 2003 Easley repeals eugenics statute More than 30 years after Elaine Riddick Jessie and Nial Cox Ramirez were sterilized by state officials they never met, the law that authorized the irreversible operations was officially repealed. April 11, 2003 Class played a role in eugenics sterilizations, researcher says People were targeted by the state's eugenics program because of their class and gender as much as their race, a professor of women's studies told a group at Wake Forest University yesterday. "Racism was part of the problem but not the whole problem," said Johanna Schoen, whose doctoral work on the Eugenics Board of North Carolina played a key role in "Against Their Will," the Winston-Salem Journal's series about sterilization. April 4, 2003 Senate votes to repeal sterilization law The N.C. Senate unanimously agreed yesterday to remove one of the last remnants of a state eugenics program that sterilized more than 7,600 people from 1929 through 1974 - often against their will. The Senate voted on a bill that the House overwhelmingly approved last week, one that would remove a law allowing the involuntary sterilization of the mentally ill. March 27, 2003 House votes 116-1 to end sterilization law With no debate, the N.C. House voted 116-1 yesterday to strike a law that allows involuntary sterilizations of the mentally ill. Though rarely used, the law remains the last legal link to the state's eugenic sterilization program that ordered more than 7,600 sterilizations from 1929 to 1974, many of them against the wishes of the patients and their families. March 19, 2003 Panel accepts change to law An N.C. House committee unanimously approved a bill yesterday that would repeal a state law that allows for the involuntary sterilization of the mentally ill. March 15, 2003 Eugenics panel hears of pain Elaine Riddick Jessie and Nial Cox Ramirez, sterilized more than 30 years ago by order of state officials they never met, finally got to tell their stories yesterday of the pain that those operations caused. March 13, 2003 California is latest state to apologize for eugenics California has become the fifth state to apologize for its eugenic sterilization program, but North Carolina is still the only state that is examining the possibility of reparations for victims. February 19, 2003 Law that lets judges order sterilizations facing repeal A rarely used state law that allows District-Court judges to order sterilizations for mentally retarded or mentally ill people without their consent could be wiped off the books under a proposal filed in the N.C. House yesterday. Some caution against ban on involuntary sterilization Advocates for the disabled told legislators yesterday that they oppose forced sterilizations of mentally ill and mentally retarded people when the operations are ordered to prevent the patient from having a baby or making someone else pregnant. February 16, 2003 Listen to Kevin Begos on NPR's Weekend Edition (2/16/03) Little Notice and Less Explanation The state eugenic sterilization program spent its last years in a private struggle to change its course away from a pattern of operations ordered without proper consent, ones performed on children and ones based on flawed IQ testing. More than 1,400 documents released last week to the Winston-Salem Journal tell for the first time the story of the end of the Eugenics Board of North Carolina, which ordered the sterilizations of more than 7,600 people, often young women living in poverty, from 1929 through 1974. Some eugenics patients died after surgery HIGH HOPES: Birth-control clinics opened to fanfare in 1938 February 14, 2003 Eugenics panel to consider redress A committee to look into the state's eugenics sterilization program wants to hear from victims as it reviews the program and considers whether North Carolina should become the first state to award financial compensation to those who were affected by it. February 11, 2003 N.C. first to weigh eugenics amends North Carolina has become the first state to officially consider paying reparations to victims of a eugenic sterilization program. Gov. Mike Easley has appointed a committee to examine the subject, to be headed by Carmen Hooker Odom, the secretary of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. January 9, 2003 South Carolina governor apologizes for forced sterilizations South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges Wednesday made the state's first apology for decades of forced sterilization that robbed more than 250 people of their ability to have children. Advocates say the apology closes a sad chapter in South Carolina's history -- and helps people learn from past mistakes. January 3, 2003 Advocacy group wants Bush apology for eugenics Advocates for the disabled are asking President Bush to apologize on behalf of the nation for programs operated by North Carolina and 32 other states that sterilized as many as 65,000 people before ending in the 1980s. "The federal government had to know something about it if 33 states were doing this," said Keith Kessler of Dale City, Va., who sent a letter to Bush this week of behalf of the Disabled Action Committee, an advocacy group that publishes a national newsletter. December 15, 2002 Listen to Kevin Begos on NPR's Weekend Edition (12/15/03) December 13, 2002 Easley apologizes to sterilization victims Gov. Mike Easley apologized last night for the state's role in sterilizing more than 7,600 people through a eugenics program that lasted from 1929 to 1974. "On behalf of the state I deeply apologize to the victims and their families for this past injustice, and for the pain and suffering they had to endure over the years," Easley said in a statement to the Winston-Salem Journal. December 12, 2002 Editorial: Against Their Will III The faces, the voices, the stories. This newspaper's series about North Carolina's eugenics sterilization, whose last installment is running today, is disturbing in many ways and for many reasons, but it's the human elements it portrays that keep coming to mind. December 11, 2002 Editorial: Against Their Will II The story of what went wrong with the Human Betterment League, founded in 1947, can be viewed as a classic example of why democracy works better than any other political system yet devised. Where the public weal is concerned, decision-making should be participatory and inclusive. It wasn't in this instance, and the result was an awful mistake. December 10, 2002 Editorial: Against Their Will The current Journal series on eugenics and North Carolina's sterilization program opens some old wounds that many might prefer to keep closed. It was not a proud period of state history, and it is frightening to think that it lasted into the 1970s, after many other similar programs had been abandoned for many years.