Sterilization

In N.C., fears of rising cost of ADC program led to “significant shift in the racial composition of those targeted for eugenic sterilization. . . . It seemed especially pressing to save funds considering the ‘prevalence of illegitimacy among the lower-class Negro population . . . Black women were also much more likely to be separated, divorced, or widowed, which affected the number of black women in need of ADC. The public association between ADC and black female recipients was thus particularly close [which] reinforced racist stereotypes about the hypersexual black woman – the Jezebel character”(Schoen, 108, 109).