Excerpt
RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): North Carolina was by no means the only state to have people sterilized against their will, but it was among the most aggressive in pursuing the policy.
Roughly 7,600 people were sterilized between 1929 and 1974, many of them poor, sick, uneducated, or institutionalized, sometimes through force and coercion. The vast majority of the procedures took place in the years after World War II, when other states pulled back from such programs.
The state apologized for the offenses in 2002. Today, a task force voted to pay the remaining living victims $50,000 apiece.
We look at the history and today's decision with one of the principal activists working with the state's task force.
My hat's off to North Carolina.
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