"I'm crushed. They cut me open like I was a hog. ... I have to carry these scars with me. I have to live with this for the rest of my life."—Elaine Riddick, who was a 13-year-old girl when she was raped and impregnated by a man who was never held accountable, then legally sterilized without her consent after giving birth nine months later.
Riddick's records reveal that a five-person state eugenics board in Raleigh had approved a recommendation that she be sterilized. The records label Riddick as "feebleminded" and "promiscuous." They said her schoolwork was poor and that she "does not get along well with others."Riddick, who is black, is one of 7,600 people sterilized in North Carolina between 1929 and 1974, 85% of whom were female, and 40% of whom were people of color.
She is one of the estimated 2,000 survivors, many of whom are bravely telling their stories as the state tries to figure out reparations, even though as Governor Beverly Perdue rightly notes: "There isn't enough money in the world to pay these people for what has been done to them."
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