“They are owed something,” author Linda Villarosa says about the Relf sisters of Montgomery. “They lost their fertility when they were children. That is wrong, and it was government-sanctioned.”
) was a $1 million lawsuit filed in Federal District Court on behalf of the sisters by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Up to 150,000 poor people were sterilized annually under federally funded programs, the District court found. Many were forced to agree to the procedure under threat of having their welfare benefits terminated.
She relented, ultimately, and as she shared experiences raising children in New York City, she glanced at one of the participant’s name tag. “Debbie Relf,” it said.“Do you know Minnie Lee and Mary Alice Relf? And Katie Relf?” she asked. “They would be in their 60s now.”“Oh my, God,” Villarosa said to herself , “thank God I went to the parenting class.”
They’re 63 and 61 now, yet on that day the two women were much like two girls donning their Sunday best and Sunday smiles for Ebony half a century ago. Because of her deficiency, Mary Alice is hard to understand when she speaks. “Now I’m used to it,” says Villarosa. “Even sometimes on the phone Mary Alice will say things to me and I answer back. I really get it.”
“It feels like they are weighed down by this, but they are also real people who are just living their lives. They don’t really grasp their sacrifice and that what happened to them really made history.” In 2012, the North Carolina Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation was launched. It estimated there might be up to 2,000 survivors and recommended paying $50,000 to each. A year later the state legislature seeded $10 million for the effort.
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