Which Version of Sanger Should We Believe?
Margret Sanger: feminist for all or racially motivated?
While doing research for a paper I was writing about Planned Parenthood I overheard a video my brother was watching. The video has a black man yelling at a white woman holding a sign in support of Planned Parenthood during the women’s march. He yelled at her for supporting an organization built by a racist who wanted to stop people of color from reproducing by sterilization and birth control. I immediately starting doing research on Sanger and found information suggesting the man in the video may be right. As a Blaxican Planned Parenthood supporter this makes very uncomfortable.
Margret Sanger advocated for birth control and established the American Birth Control League that became the Planned Parenthood we know today. Sanger started this advocacy early in life and the first clinic was opened in 1921. She was able to see her goals achieved before she died in the mid 1960s. According to Biography.com, she was one of eleven children in a poor working class family. This could have been the motive in getting birth control to the public. Sanger believed in negative eugenics, which means she wanted to limit the reproduction of the “unfit” for the betterment of the “race”. But what race was she looking after, the human race or the white race?
NPR is one of the sources that argue Sanger did not have any racial bias. (Biography.com also did not mention any racial bias.) Do they do this because it’s true or because NPR backs Planned Parenthood? The article claims she had no connection to Nazi Germany, but they do not mention about a speech she agreed to give to the woman’s department of the KKK. Yes, Sanger spoke to the Ku Klux Klan and openly wrote about it in her autobiography. She gave more details on the directions she was to follow in order to get to the actual location then she did on the speech she gave.( I have not read it.) It is widely believed she said she accepted the invitation because any passionate crowd was a good crowd; she was satisfied with her work done there. I hope she spoke there because she just wanted every woman to have power over there bodies regardless of their beliefs.
She worked with the black community and got support from many influential figures within the community. W.E.B. Dubious worked with her to start up the Negro Project, which was intended to bring birth control and birth control education to the community. Sanger and the early movement also got criticisms. Angela Davis points out sterilization was readily available and free while birth control couldn’t be obtained by the working class, that was mainly made up of people of color. “ When Margaret Sanger severed her ties with the Socialist party for the purpose of building an independent birth control campaign, she and her followers became more susceptible than ever before to the anti-Black and anti-immigrant propaganda of the times.Like their predecessors, who had been deceived by the “race suicide” propaganda, the advocates of birth control began to embrace that prevailing racist ideology. The fatal influence of the eugenics movement would soon destroy the progressive potential of the birth control campaign.”
And if we were to look at the presidents of planned Parent we would find one black president .Faye Wattleton, was president from 1978 to 1992. After being there for 14 yrs she was replaced by Gloria Feldt and later Cecile Richards, both white women.
I see there could be three scenarios:
- This is all a big misunderstanding and Sanger really was a feminist for all. (I wholeheartedly wish this to be true.)
2.This is perfect example of white feminist not understanding the plight of poor women and women of color .
3. Sanger was in fact racially motivated.
This could be a big misunderstanding based of off rumors started by people who did not like the liberation birth control gave women over their own bodies. It is not an uncommon tactic to spread lies about your opponent when battling. Sanger’s words could have been misinterpreted, taken out of context, or reinvented entirely. It is possible, it did happen to Oprah.
This could also be White Feminism at it’s finest. Sanger may have wanted to be a feminist for all, but because she was white she did not ever have to experience the systematic racist oppression. She may have had honest intentions of helping all women without realizing her movement only benefited the bourgeoisie while the working class and women of color had to be sterilized or raise multiple children.
If Sanger was racially motivated am I betraying myself and women like myself by supporting Planned Parenthood? How would that affect the lives of all the women who depend on Planned Parenthood for their reproductive health care. Woman in Louisiana are facing legislation that would only have one clinic that provides birth control and abortion services. Legislation like this severally hurts women of color and poor women.Planned Parenthood is vital in areas like this, but what if it was meant to help hurt these women? Should there be a new organization without the shady past? Does the possible awful past matter anymore?
