Carrie Buck and her mother, Emma Buck, at the Virginia Colony for Epileptic and Feebleminded Women in Lynchburg in 1924.
Author: Haley McAllister
Interviewer: Spencer Law
Between 1880 and 1940, negative eugenics reigned in Virginia through the legal compulsory sterilizations of inmates. Those with low IQs, a lack of emotional intelligence, and criminals were labeled “degenerates” and “feebleminded”. Doctors forcibly prohibited these people from reproducing and spreading these undesirable qualities through procedures that removed or altered reproductive organs. Following the 1924 Virginia Sterilization Act, the Supreme Court case of Buck vs. Bell determined it was constitutional to forcibly sterilize inmates and did not violate the fourteenth amendment. Many justifications for negative eugenics, including race betterment and economics, made it possible procedures to continue legally for decades.