The Goddess Rising Network, The Black Church/Leaders And Their Role In Eugenic

IntroductionMalthusian EugenicsThe Harlem ClinicBirth Control as a SolutionWeb of DeceitBetter Health for 13,000,000Scientific RacismSanger’s LegacyUntangling the Deceptive WebEnd Notes

Sanger shrewdly used the influence of prominent blacks to reach the masses with this message. She invited DuBois and a host of Harlem’s leading blacks, including physicians, social workers, ministers and journalists, to form an advisory council to help direct the clinic so that our work in birth control will be a constructive force in the community.22 She knew the importance of having black professionals on the advisory board and in the clinic; she knew blacks would instinctively suspect whites of wanting to decrease their numbers. She would later use this knowledge to implement the Negro Project.

Sanger convinced the community so well that Harlem’s largest black church, the Abyssinian Baptist Church, held a mass meeting featuring Sanger as the speaker.23 But that event received criticism. At least one very prominent minister of a denomination other than Baptist spoke out against Sanger. Dr. Adam Clayton Powell Sr., pastor of Abyssinian Baptist, received adverse criticism from the (unnamed) minister who was surprised that he’d allow that awful woman in his church

Grace Congregational Church hosted a debate on birth control. Proponents argued birth control was necessary to regulate births in proportion to the family’s income; spacing births would help mothers recover physically and fathers financially; physically strong and mentally sound babies would result; and incidences of communicable diseases would decrease .

Eventually, the Urban League took control of the clinic,26 an indication the black community had become ensnared in Sanger’s labyrinth.

Birth Control as a Solution