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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - III. Population and Migration - 7. Population - 7. Birth Control Facilities for Negroes
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Chapter 7. Population 179
needed. Several other Southern states are on the verge of following the
example of these three. In 1937 the conservative American Medical Associa-
tion accepted birth control as an ^^ntegral part of medical practice and
education.” These rapid changes are partly the result of the general trend
toward social amelioration and secularization. They are also the result of
the excellent propaganda and organizational work under the movement
now known as the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The lead-
ing spirit in the movement, since 1916, has been Mrs. Margaret Sanger.
While the birth control movement is generally considered to be a liberal
movement, and the South is generally the least hospitable section of the
country to liberal movements, the South now leads other sections of the
country in accepting birth control.®^ The relative absence of Roman
Catholics in the South, the great attention recently of the birth control
organizations to the South, and the greater need of the South are important
reasons for this. But it is reasonable to assume that the large number of
undesired Negroes in the rural districts also has something to do with the
lack of opposition on the part of the white South.®
There is some variation in the technical organization of the programs
in the three Southern states which now have public birth control clinics,
but there is enough in common to describe a general pattern.®^ These
clinics were started by the action of the chief health officer in each state 5
he sent letters to each of the local health officers to ask them if they would
accept birth control clinics as a part of their regular health clinics. Those
who accepted^—and this now includes most of the local health officers in
North Carolina and a significant proportion in South Carolina and Alabama
—received advice, instruction and special supplies. The regular local health
offices—some of which, therefore, now have birth control clinics—are paid
for by the state governments and by the Children’s Bureau of the federal
government on a grant-in-aid basis, but they are under the control of
locally appointed health officers. The cost of birth control supplies is often
borne by the private birth control organization of the state. When the
public clinics began in North Carolina, a nurse whose salary and expenses
were paid by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America gave
instruction and supplies to the local doctors and nurses. The clinics in the
other states had a similar start. Thus at the beginning the expenses of the
program were borne by private groups, but there is a strong tendency
* As we observed in the previous sections of this chapter, Southerners will never publicly
admit that they would like to see the Negro population decrease, but they do point to the
poverty that could be avoided if there were fewer Negroes. Another indication that the
presence of the Negroes is a main reason for the lack of opposition to birth control in the
South is that, despite lack of opposition to it, birth control is taboo as a subject for public
or polite conversation even more in the South than in the North.
**
In many cases the local health officer had to get the approval of the county medical
society.
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