Righting a Wrong: NC to Pay Victims of Forced Sterilization

Willis Lynch clearly remembers the day, 66 years ago, when his bloodline was stopped.

Lynch was only 14 years old when the state of North Carolina forcibly sterilized him while he was a student at the Caswell Training School for Mental Defectives in Kinston, N.C. The school was a holding tank for children who were mentally disabled or were delinquents or unwed mothers. Sterilization was required before they could return to their families, according to documents from the state's eugenics board.

Lynch, now 80, says memories of the operation are still vivid: the nurse putting a mask over his face and then asking him to sing her a song while he inhaled the anesthetic.

"I didn’t know what was going on," he said -- not even the next day, when he found himself stooped over trying to get out of bed. Many years later, however, he discovered state documents that made clear he had been given a vasectomy. Lynch said officials also documented the desire to operate on his mother, who was reliant on state welfare.

"They didn't want her...