Debra Blackmon (left) was sterilized by court order in 1972, at age 14. With help from her niece, Latoya Adams (right), she's fighting to be part of the state's compensation program. Eric Mennel/WUNC hide caption

Debra Blackmon (left) was sterilized by court order in 1972, at age 14. With help from her niece, Latoya Adams (right), she's fighting to be part of the state's compensation program.

Debra Blackmon was about to turn 14 in January 1972, when two social workers came to her home.

Court and medical documents offer some details about what happened that day. Blackmon was "severely retarded," they note, and had "psychic problems" that made her difficult to manage during menstruation.

Her parents were counseled during the visit, and it was deemed in Blackmon's best interest that she be sterilized.

Blackmon is among the more than 7,000 people in North Carolina many poor, many African-American, many disabled who were sterilized between 1929 and 1976 in one of the country's most aggressive eugenics programs.

North Carolina passed a law to compensate victims of the state-run program last year. This week, the state sent out the first checks to qualified applicants. But Blackmon, like many others who are fighting for restitution, is not among them.

Blackmon, now 56, has a hard time with the details of that day in 1972 but she does remember a few things from her trip to Charlotte Memorial Hospital. "My daddy said, 'Don't hurt this baby.' And he was crying," she recalls.

Latoya Adams, Blackmon's niece, says "we didn't find out until recently the extent exactly what all they did to her."

Adams grew up knowing her aunt had been sterilized. So, after the compensation law passed, she went looking for documentation and came back with a mother lode: a court order, names of social workers and the entire procedure, outlined from pre-op to discharge.

Originally posted here:

Payments Start For N.C. Eugenics Victims, But Many Won't Qualify