Black Genocide Population Control Conspiracy Theory's

Sterilization

Further information: Eugenics in the United States

Beginning in 1907, some US state legislatures passed laws allowing for the compulsory sterilization of criminals, mentally retarded people, and institutionalized mentally ill patients. At first, African Americans and white Americans suffered sterilization in roughly equal ratio. By 1945, some 70,000 Americans had been sterilized in these programs.^[13] In the 1950s, the federal welfare program Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was criticized by some whites who did not want to subsidize poor black families. States such as North and South Carolina performed sterilization procedures on low-income black mothers who were giving birth to their second child. The mothers were told that they would have to agree to have their tubes tied or their welfare benefits would be cancelled, along with the benefits of the families they were born into. Because of such policies, especially prevalent in Southern states, sterilization of African Americans increased from 23% of the total in the 1930s and 1940s to 59% at the end of the 1950s, and rose further to 64% in the mid-1960s.
In mid-1973 news stories revealed the forced sterilization of poor black women and children, paid for by federal funds. Two girls of the Relf family in Mississippi, deemed mentally incompetent at ages 12 and 14, and also 18-year-old welfare recipient Nial Ruth Cox of North Carolina, were prominent cases of involuntary sterilization. Jet magazine presented the story under the headline "Genocide". Critics said these stories were publicized by activists against legal abortion.

Birth control

Lyndon B. Johnson and Martin Luther King, Jr., agreed that birth control was beneficial to poor black families. In 1934, Marcus Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association resolved that birth control constituted black genocide.The combined oral contraceptive pill, popularly known as "the Pill", was approved for US markets in 1957 as a medicine, and in 1961 for birth control. In 1962, civil rights activist Whitney Young told the National Urban League not to support birth control for blacks. Marvin Davies, leader of the Florida chapter of the NAACP, said that black women should reject birth control and produce more babies so that black political influence would increase in the future.

 

The Pill was considered expensive by working class women; the first users were upper- and middle-class women. After President Lyndon B. Johnson, as part of his War on Poverty, obtained legislation in 1964 for government funding of birth control^. Black militants became more concerned about a possible government-sponsored black genocide. Cecil B. Moore, head of the NAACP chapter in Philadelphia, spoke out against a Planned Parenthood program which was to establish a stronger presence in northern Philadelphia; the population in the targeted neighborhoods was 70% black. Moore said it would be "race suicide" for blacks to embrace birth control.

H. Rap Brown said that black genocide was based on four factors, including birth control.

From 1965 to 1970, black militant males, especially younger men from poverty-stricken areas, spoke out against birth control as black genocide. The Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam were the strongest voices. The Black Panther Party identified a number of injustices as contributing to black genocide, including social ills that were more serious in black populations, such as drug abuse, prostitution and sexually transmitted disease. Other injustices included unsafe housing, malnutrition and the over-representation of young black men on the front lines of the Vietnam War^. Influential black activists such as singer/author Julius Lester and comedian Dick Gregory said that blacks should increase in population and avoid genocidal family planning measures. H. Rap Brown of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) held that black genocide consisted of four elements: more blacks executed than whites, malnutrition in impoverished areas affected blacks more than whites, the Vietnam War killed more blacks than whites, and birth control programs in black neighborhoods were trying to end the black race. A birth control clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, was torched by black militants who said it contributed to black genocide.
Black Muslims said that birth control was against the teachings of the Koran, and that the role of women in Muslim society was to produce children. In this context, the Black Muslims felt that birth control was a genocidal attack by whites. The Muslim weekly journal, Muhammad Speaks, carried many articles demonizing birth control.
In Newark, New Jersey, in July 1967, the Black Power movement held its first convention: the National Conference on Black Power. The convention identified several means by which whites were attempting the annihilation of blacks. Injustices in housing practices, reductions in welfare benefits, and government-subsidized family planning were named as elements of "black genocide". Ebony magazine printed a story in March 1968 which revealed that black genocide was believed by poor blacks to be the impetus behind government-funded birth control.
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., was a strong proponent of birth control for blacks. In 1966, he was honored with the Margaret Sanger Award in Human Rights, an award based on the tireless birth control activism of Margaret Sanger, a co-founder of Planned Parenthood. King emphasized that birth control gave the black man better command over his personal economic situation, keeping the number of his children within his monetary means. In April 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., was shot and killed. Charles V. Willie wrote in 1971 that this event marked the beginning of serious reflection among African Americans "about the possibility of [black] genocide in America. There were lynchings, murders, and manslaughters in the past. But the assassination of Dr. King was too much. Many blacks believed that Dr. King had represented their best... If America could not accept Dr. King, then many felt that no black person in America was safe."

Angela Davis said that equating birth control with black genocide appeared to be "an exaggerated—even paranoiac—reaction."

Black women were generally critical of the Black Power rejection of birth control. In 1968, a group of black radical feminists in Mt. Vernon, New York issued "The Sisters Reply"; a rebuttal which said that birth control gave black women the "freedom to fight the genocide of black women and children," referring to the greater death rate among children and mothers in poor families. Frances M. Beal, co-founder of the Black Women's Liberation Committee of the SNCC, refused to believe that the black woman must be subservient to the black man's wishes. Angela Davis and Linda LaRue reacted against the Black Power limitations directing women to serve as mothers producing "warriors for the revolution" Toni Cade said that indiscriminate births would not bring the liberation of blacks closer to realization; she advocated the Pill as a tool to help space out the births of black children, to make it easier for families to raise them. The Black Women's Liberation Group accused "poor black men" of failing to support the babies they helped produce, therefore supplying young black women with reason to use contraceptives. Dara Abubakari, a black separatist, wrote that "women should be free to decide if and when they want children". A 1970 study found that 80% of black women in Chicago approved of birth control, and that 75% of women in their child-bearing years were using it. A 1971 study found that a majority of black men and women were in favor of government-subsidized birth control.
In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a community struggle for and against a birth control clinic in the Homewood area of east Pittsburgh made national news. Women in Pittsburgh had lobbied for a birth control clinic in the 1920s and were relieved in 1931 when the American Birth Control League (ABCL) established one. The ABCL changed its name in 1942 to Planned Parenthood. The Pittsburgh clinic initiated an educational outreach program to poor families in the Lower Hill District in 1956. This program was twinned into the poverty-stricken Homewood-Brushton area in 1958. Planned Parenthood considered opening another clinic there, and conducted meetings with community leaders. In 1963 a mobile clinic was moved around the area. In December 1965, the Planned Parenthood Clinic of Pittsburgh (PPCP) applied for federal funding based on the War on Poverty legislation Johnson had promoted. In May 1966 the application was approved, and PPCP began to establish clinics throughout Pittsburgh, a total of 18 by 1967, 11 of these subsidized by the federal government and placed in poor districts. In mid-1966 the Pennsylvania state legislature held up family planning funds in committee. Catholic bishops gained media exposure for their assertion that Pittsburgh birth control efforts were a form of covert black genocide. In November 1966 the bishops said that the government was coercing poor people to have smaller families. Some black leaders such as local NAACP member Dr. Charles Greenlee agreed with the bishops that birth control was black genocide. Greenlee said Planned Parenthood was "an honorable and good organization" but that the federal Office of Economic Opportunity was sponsoring genocidal programs. Greenlee said "the Negro's birth rate is the only weapon he has. When he reaches 21 he can vote." Greenlee targeted the Homewood clinic for closure; in doing so he allied with black militant William "Bouie" Haden and Catholic bishop Charles Owen Rice to speak out against black genocide, and against PPCP's educational outreach program. Planned Parenthood's Director of Community Relations Dr. Douglas Stewart said that the false charge of black genocide was harming the national advancement of blacks. In July 1968, Haden announced he was willing to blow up the clinic to keep it from operating. The Catholic church paid him a salary of $10,000, igniting an outcry in Pittsburgh media. Bishop John Wright was called a "puppet of Bouie Haden". The PPCP closed the Homewood clinic in July 1968 and stopped its educational program because of concerns about violence. The black congregation of the Bethesda United Presbyterian Church issued a statement saying that accusations of black genocide were "patently false".A meeting was scheduled for March 1969 to discuss the issue. About 200 women, mostly black, appeared in support of the clinic, and it was reopened. This was seen as a major defeat for the black militant notion that government-funded birth control was black genocide.
Other prominent black advocates for birth control included Carl Rowan, James L. Farmer, Jr., Bayard Rustin, Jerome H.
Holland, Ron Dellums and Barbara Jordan.
In the US in the 21st century, black people are most likely to be at risk of unintended pregnancy: 84% of black women of reproductive age use birth control, in contrast to 91% of Caucasian and Hispanic women, and 92% of Asian Americans. This results in black women having the highest rate of unintended pregnancy—in 2001, almost 10% of black women giving birth between the ages of 15 to 44 had unintended pregnancies, which was more than twice the rate of white women. Poverty affects these statistics, as low-income women are more likely to experience disruption in their lives; disruption which affects the steady use of birth control. People in poor areas are more suspicious of the health care system, and they may refuse medical treatment and advice, especially for less-critical wellness treatments such as birth control.