Eugenics Board of North Carolina (1933–1977)

In 1933, an act of the North Carolina legislature created the Eugenics Board of North Carolina, or EBNC, to oversee the practice of sterilization, which is the removal of an individual’s ability to reproduce, in the state. Beginning in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the US eugenics movement involved both state and non-governmental entities attempting to improve human populations through selective breeding, which included sterilization of those labeled as genetically inferior. In North Carolina, the EBNC headed the state government’s eugenics program and oversaw decisions related to the sterilization of poor and disabled people. By the time of the dissolution of the EBNC in the late 1970s, an estimated 7,600 people had undergone forced sterilization under the board’s approval. Some of them later received funds in the 2010s from the state government in one of the first programs to provide compensation to involuntarily sterilized individuals. The EBNC presided over the sterilizations of thousands of people in North Carolina, prompting one of the first attempts at eugenics reparations in the US.

1. History of North Carolina Eugenics and the Founding of the EBNC
2. Main Years of Operation, 1933–1971
3. Decline and End of the EBNC, 1971–1977
4. Impacts and Legacy of the EBNC

History of North Carolina Eugenics and the Founding of the EBNC

The EBNC arose out of a series of three North Carolina laws regarding eugenics beginning in 1919. That year, the state legislature passed the state’s first law related to eugenic sterilization. Entitled “An Act to Benefit the Moral, Mental, or Physical Conditions of Inmates of Penal and Charitable Institutions,” the law instructed medical staff in prisons and mental hospitals to facilitate surgeries on inmates to improve those inmates’ mental, moral, or physical conditions. Additionally, the law called for a two-person state board to consult on any surgeries performed under the law as well as keep a record of the procedures. The text of the 1919 law is short and lacks specific details about the nature of the procedures it mentions, and there are no records of sterilizations occurring under the law. However, the model of a state board overseeing sterilization specific procedures in North Carolina later resurfaced as the EBNC.

In the late 1920s, federal judicial approval of state sterilization programs led to North Carolina intensifying its attempt at eugenics through a second eugenics law. In 1927, the US Supreme Court decided the case Buck v. Bell (1927), which centered around a woman named Carrie Buck who was a resident of a state mental institution in Madison Heights, Virginia. She had received a diagnosis of being “feebleminded,” and the state forcibly sterilized her under the 1924 Virginia Eugenical Sterilization Act, a law similar to North Carolina’s 1919 eugenics law. In their decision, the Supreme Court sided with the Virginia officials who had Buck sterilized and affirmed that it was legal for states to sterilize people who were inmates in public institutions.

Bolstered by approval from the Supreme Court, the North Carolina legislature passed another, more direct eugenics law in 1929. Entitled “An Act to Provide for the Sterilization of the Mentally Defective and Feeble-minded Inmates of Charitable and Penal Institutions of the State of North Carolina,” the law contains more detail about the practice of sterilization than that of the 1919 law. The law directs administrators in prisons and mental hospitals to have inmates sterilized. Additionally, the law allows for county governments in the state to fund and approve the sterilizations of mentally disabled residents who are not inmates within public institutions. In those cases, the law instructs county officials to hear petitions from the legal guardians or next of kin of such disabled individuals to have their family members sterilized. The law has additional record-keeping requirements, asking for family medical histories as part of the petitioning process and requiring those records to be kept by the state. Finally, the law protects those who participate in the sterilizations from criminal charges or civil lawsuits. From 1929 to 1933, the state authorized the sterilization of forty-nine people under the law.

The creation of the EBNC then resulted from a 1933 judicial challenge to North Carolina’s 1929 sterilization law and the corresponding creation of a third eugenics law. In February 1933, the North Carolina Supreme Court decided the case Brewer v. Valk (1933), which struck down the state’s 1929 sterilization law. The court decided that the practice of sterilization under the 1929 law violated North Carolina citizens’ rights under the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution, which states that the government cannot deprive a citizen of their freedom without due process of law. Thus, North Carolina citizens had the right to receive both notice of their mandated sterilization as well as a hearing before they undergo the procedure to appeal the state’s decision. The North Carolina legislature responded quickly, passing a new sterilization law in April of 1933. That law, “An Act to Amend Chapter 34 of the Public Laws of 1929 of North Carolina Relating to the Sterilization of Persons Mentally Defective,” re-instituted the practice of sterilization seen under the previously repealed law but with specific provisions to outline a notice and hearing process.

The text of North Carolina’s 1933 law is significantly more extensive than either the 1919 or 1929 laws, and much of it discusses the creation and responsibilities of the EBNC. The law specifies that the EBNC consists of five state officials, including the state’s Commissioner of Public Welfare, Secretary of the State Board of Health, Attorney General, Chief Medical Officer of a non-central state hospital, and Chief Medical Officer of the state hospital in the capital city, Raleigh. The law requires the EBNC to receive written petitions for sterilization authorization from physicians and county officials, as well as hold and adjudicate hearings at which individuals could appeal their sterilization mandates. The EBNC, under the law, also must function as a recordkeeper for the medical histories that came with petitions and records of hearing proceedings.

Main Years of Operation, 1933–1971

During the first two decades of the EBNC’s authority over sterilization in North Carolina, the board and other parts of the state government worked to establish an effective sterilization program. The 1930s, the first decade of EBNC’s authority over sterilization in North Carolina, saw the number of sterilizations start small but increase to include hundreds of people. A North Carolina government task force in the early 2010s estimated that, between 1935 and 1940, over 700 people underwent sterilization procedures in the state, and the majority were between ten and twenty-nine years of age. The focus on younger individuals, many of them children at the time of sterilization, was a pattern that lasted through the entirety of the EBNC’s period of authority over sterilizations in North Carolina.

The numbers of individuals sterilized under the EBNC continued to grow in the 1940s. Over the decade, more than 1,500 people underwent sterilization with EBNC approval. Despite thousands of North Carolina citizens having been sterilized by the late 1940s, the EBNC mentions in reports that the numbers of individuals sterilized were likely too low to achieve any significant change in the genetic makeup of the state’s population. In response, the state government increased the EBNC’s budget in 1947, allowing the board to hire full-time staff. Additionally, in 1948, the board created a manual that they circulated among welfare and medical officials in the state to encourage them to refer people to the EBNC for consideration of state-mandated sterilization.

The late 1940s through the 1960s were the years of highest activity for EBNC-approved sterilizations in North Carolina. In the 1950s, the EBNC established relationships with more hospitals throughout the state, due in part to the construction of interstate highways, which began during the second half of the decade, facilitating easier travel to less central areas of North Carolina. During the 1950s and 1960s, the EBNC approved over 4,600 people for sterilization. The North Carolina government task force, which researched sterilization within the state, labels the period between July 1946 and June 1968 as the peak years of the program when the majority of EBNC-approved sterilizations occurred.

Decline and End of the EBNC, 1971–1977

During the 1970s, the EBNC saw bureaucratic reorganization and a decline in authority. Between 1969 and 1974, the board approved 320 sterilizations, a sharp drop from the previous decade. In 1971, the North Carolina legislature passed a law that reorganized the state government, which preserved the EBNC but made the board part of the newly established Department of Human Resources, called the Department of Health and Human Services as of 2023. The Department of Human Resources oversaw the board along with many other state public health groups. In 1973, the legislature passed another law that reorganized the EBNC into the state’s Eugenics Commission, still under the Department of Human Resources. The law did not change any previous EBNC policies but did restructure the personnel of the group to include state public health officials as well as appointees from the governor. Then, in 1974, the North Carolina legislature amended the existing laws on sterilization to remove the authority over sterilization hearings and approval from the existing Eugenics Commission and give that power to county-level district courts. Three years later, in 1977, the legislature abolished the Eugenics Commission, citing a lack of need for the commission after the shift of authority to the courts in 1974. In total, between 1929 and 1974, the eugenics program in North Carolina, in which the EBNC played a central role, sterilized an estimated 7,600 people, with a known age range of ten years to fifty-nine years.

Impacts and Legacy of the EBNC

In 2003, the North Carolina legislature repealed almost all sterilization laws, only allowing for the non-consensual sterilization of mentally disabled individuals when necessary for the patient’s health. The same year, Mike Easley, who was governor of North Carolina, issued a formal apology to victims of the EBNC’s sterilization program. He also created a commission to compose a history of the EBNC and propose recommendations for reparations to the surviving sterilized individuals, which included compensation of $20,000 each. North Carolina legislature did not approve the funding to provide such reimbursement at that time.

In 2010, the next governor of the state, Beverly Perdue, created the North Carolina Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation to begin identifying living sterilization victims and assist in a new forthcoming gubernatorial task force investigating eugenics in the state. In 2011, Perdue created the task force via executive order. Over the following year, Perdue’s appointees on the task force researched the prevalence of EBNC-approved sterilization during the twentieth century. In early 2012, the task force submitted their report to Perdue in which they recommend that verified, living sterilization victims should be eligible to receive $50,000 per person in compensation, as well as mental health services from the state. Following the report, the state legislature and Perdue approved a $10-million-dollar compensation fund in 2013. Despite the passage of the compensation program, many people seeking compensation faced rejection from the program due to insufficient EBNC-related records surrounding their sterilizations. Many had undergone sterilization under the approval of social workers and judges who had not consulted the EBNC, making them ineligible for compensation.

The EBNC oversaw and provided approval for the sterilizations of thousands of people in North Carolina across the twentieth century, extending for years after many other US states had discontinued their own eugenics programs after World War II. According to Scott Neuman, a reporter with the media organization National Public Radio, the board’s work in facilitating and providing government approval for eugenic sterilization spurred one of the first attempts to compensate victims of eugenics in the US.

Sources

1. An Act to Amend Chapter 34 of the Public Laws of 1929 of North Carolina Relating to the Sterilization of Persons Mentally Defective, North Carolina Public Laws and Resolutions Passed by the General Assembly at Its Session of 1933 Chapter 224 (passed April 5, 1933). https://digital.ncdcr.gov/Documents/Detail/public-laws-and-resolutions-passed-by-the-general-assembly-at-its-session-of-...1933/4113808?item=4117981 (Accessed December 6, 2023).
2. An Act to Benefit the Moral, Mental, or Physical Conditions of Inmates of Penal and Charitable Institutions, North Carolina Public Laws and Resolutions Passed by the General Assembly at Its Session of 1919 Chapter 281 (passed March 11, 1919). https://digital.ncdcr.gov/Documents/Detail/public-laws-and-resolutions-of-the-state-of-north-carolina-passed-by-the-general-assembly-at-its-session-of-...1919/1956455?item=2132432 (Accessed December 6, 2023).
3. An Act to Further Effectuate the Reorganization of State Government #2, North Carolina 1973 Session Laws and Resolutions Passed by the 1973 General Assembly at Its First Session Chapter 476 Section 133 (passed May 14, 1973). https://digital.ncdcr.gov/Documents/Detail/session-laws-and-resolutions-passed-by-the-general-assembly-1973/4020464?item=4047855 (Accessed December 6, 2023).
4. An Act to Provide for the Sterilization of the Mentally Defective and Feeble-minded Inmates of Charitable and Penal Institutions of the State of North Carolina, North Carolina Public Laws and Resolutions Passed by the General Assembly at Its Session of 1929 Chapter 34 (passed February 18, 1929). https://digital.ncdcr.gov/Documents/Detail/public-laws-and-resolutions-passed-by-the-general-assembly-at-its-session-of-...1929/1952786?item=2039001 (Accessed December 6, 2023).
5. An Act to Repeal the Law that Authorizes the Involuntary Sterilization of Persons Who Are Mentally Ill or Mentally Retarded, to Permit the Sterilization of Mentally Ill or Mentally Retarded Wards Only When There Is a Medical Necessity, and to Make Conforming Changes to the General Statutes, North Carolina Session Laws and Resolutions Passed by the 2003 General Assembly at Its Regular Session S.L. 2003-13 (passed April 7, 2003). https://digital.ncdcr.gov/Documents/Detail/session-laws-and-resolutions-passed-by-the-general-assembly-2003/3709275?item=3709585 (Accessed December 6, 2023).
6. An Act to Reorganize State Government, North Carolina 1971 Session Laws and Resolutions Passed by the General Assembly at the Regular Session Chapter 864 Section 15 (passed July 14, 1971). https://digital.ncdcr.gov/Documents/Detail/session-laws-and-resolutions-passed-by-the-general-assembly-1971/4119394?item=4147991 (Accessed December 6, 2023).
7. An Act to Repeal G.S. 143B-151 and G.S. 143B-152 so as to Abolish the Eugenics Commission, North Carolina 1977 Session Laws and Resolutions Passed by the 1977 General Assembly at Its First Session Chapter 497 (passed June 8, 1977). https://digital.ncdcr.gov/Documents/Detail/session-laws-and-resolutions-passed-by-the-general-assembly-1977/4020607?item=4048313 (Accessed December 6, 2023).
8. An Act to Rewrite Chapter 35, Article 7 of the General Statutes Entitled “Persons with Mental Diseases and Incompetents,” North Carolina Session Laws and Resolutions Passed by the 1973 General Assembly at Its Second Session 1974 Chapter 1281 (passed April 11, 1974). https://digital.ncdcr.gov/Documents/Detail/session-laws-and-resolutions-passed-by-the-general-assembly-1974/3785934?item=3797907 (Accessed December 6, 2023).
9. Antonios, Nathalie, Raup, Christina, “Buck v. Bell (1927)”. Embryo Project Encyclopedia (2012-01-01). ISSN: 1940-5030. https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/buck-v-bell-1927 (Accessed December 6, 2023).
10. Brewer v. Valk. 204 N.C. 186, 167 S.E. 638. Supreme Court of North Carolina. February 1, 1933. https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/5914ccf8add7b0493480ea16 (Accessed November 20, 2025).
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13. Gartner, Danielle R., Anna L. Krome-Lukens, and Paul L. Delamater. “Implementation of Eugenic Sterilization in North Carolina: Geographic Proximity to Raleigh and its Association with Female Sterilization During the Mid-20^th Century.” Southeastern Geographer 60 (2020): 254–74.
14. Mennel, Eric. “Why Some NC Sterilization Victims Won’t Get Share of $10 Million Fund.” WUNC North Carolina Public Radio. Last modified October 6, 2014. https://www.wunc.org/law/2014-10-06/why-some-nc-sterilization-victims-wont-get-share-of-10-million-fund (Accessed December 6, 2023).
15. Neuman, Scott. “North Carolina Set to Compensate Forced Sterilization Victims.” NPR, July 25, 2013. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/07/25/205547272/north-carolina-set-to-compensate-forced-sterilization-victims (Accessed November 20, 2025).
16. North Carolina Governor’s Task Force to Determine the Method of Compensation for Victims of North Carolina’s Eugenics Board. Final Report to the Governor of the State of North Carolina Pursuant to Executive Order 83. January 27, 2012. https://www.doa.nc.gov/jsv/ojsv-1272012-final-report-pdf/open (Accessed November 20, 2025).