# Was Margaret Sanger a racist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 2, 2015, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-margaret-sanger-a-racist/721415 "2015-06-02T03:10:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Clu-Me-In](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@Clu-Me-In](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clu-Me-In)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-margaret-sanger-a-racist/721415/1 "2015-06-02T03:10:52Z")
Was Margaret Sanger really a racist who wanted to reduce the population of Blacks via Abortion rights? ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-margaret-sanger-a-racist/721415/2 "2015-06-02T03:15:47Z")
> [@Clu-Me-In](#): > > Was Margaret Sanger really a racist who wanted to reduce the population of Blacks via Abortion rights? Margaret Sanger may or may not have been a racist, but she opposed abortion, so the full answer to your question is “no”. She’d probably be ashamed at what Planned Parenthood has become. > **[Margaret Sanger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger#Abortion)** > > This is an accepted version of this page > Margaret Higgins Sanger (born Margaret Louise Higgins; September 14, 1879 – September 6, 1966), also known as Margaret Sanger Slee, was an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. She popularized the term "birth control", opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established organizations that evolved into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. > Sanger used her writings and speeches primarily to promo... "Sanger’s family planning advocacy always focused on contraception, rather than abortion.[106][note 10] It was not until the mid-1960s, after Sanger’s death, that the reproductive rights movement expanded its scope to include abortion rights as well as contraception.[note 11] Sanger was opposed to abortions, both because she believed that life should not be terminated after conception, and because they were dangerous for the mother in the early 20th century. In her book Woman and the New Race, she wrote: “while there are cases where even the law recognizes an abortion as justifiable if recommended by a physician, I assert that the hundreds of thousands of abortions performed in America each year are a disgrace to civilization.”[107] Historian Rodger Streitmatter concluded that Sanger’s opposition to abortion stemmed from concerns for the dangers to the mother, rather than moral concerns.[108] However, in her 1938 autobiography, Sanger noted that her opposition to abortion was based on the taking of life: “[In 1916] we explained what contraception was; that abortion was the wrong way no matter how early it was performed it was taking life; that contraception was the better way, the safer way—it took a little time, a little trouble, but was well worth while in the long run, because life had not yet begun.”[109] And in her book Family Limitation, Sanger wrote that “no one can doubt that there are times when an abortion is justifiable but they will become unnecessary when care is taken to prevent conception. This is the only cure for abortions.”[110]" ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-margaret-sanger-a-racist/721415/3 "2015-06-02T07:46:14Z")
She was heavily reliant on middle class ladies for support, and after a few years of campaigning she worked out what arguments would be useful to persuade those ladies of the need for legal and accessible contraception. The extent to which she actually believed those arguments, if at all, may never be known. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-margaret-sanger-a-racist/721415/4 "2015-06-02T08:47:16Z")
I’d say Sanger was a racist. She was a big believer in eugenics. Eugenics isn’t inherently racist but many of its supporters (including Sanger) introduce racism into it. They decide that “nordic” people are genetically superior to other people, which is unscientific nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-margaret-sanger-a-racist/721415/5 "2015-06-02T09:25:37Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’d say Sanger was a racist. She was a big believer in eugenics. Eugenics isn’t inherently racist but many of its supporters (including Sanger) introduce racism into it. They decide that “nordic” people are genetically superior to other people, which is unscientific nonsense. cite? ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-margaret-sanger-a-racist/721415/6 "2015-06-02T10:30:01Z")
Sanger was unabashedly in favor of eugenics. [Her own writings](https://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/documents/show.php?sangerDoc=238946.xml) are clear on that point. > [@Margaret Sanger](#): > > The eugenic and civilizational value of Birth Control is becoming apparent to the enlightened and the intelligent. > > … the campaign for Birth Control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical in ideal, with the final aims of Eugenics. > > … the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective. Less clear is her view of racial groups as it relates to eugenics. She wrote a lot about improvements to “the race” or that something was detrimental to “the race,” but she seems to be referring to the human race as a whole. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-margaret-sanger-a-racist/721415/7 "2015-06-02T14:22:37Z")
If we’re going to quote Sanger’s Wikipedia page, why not do it on race too, since that actually addresses the OP’s question? > [@](#): > > Sanger’s writings echoed ideas about inferiority and loose morals of particular races that were widespread in the contemporary United States.[82] In one “What Every Girl Should Know” commentary, she references popular opinion that Aboriginal Australians were “just a step higher than the chimpanzee” with “little sexual control,” as compared to the “normal man and Woman.”[75] Elsewhere she bemoaned that traditional sexual ethics “… have in the past revealed their woeful inability to prevent the sexual and racial chaos into which the world has today drifted.”[91] > > Such attitudes did not keep her from collaborating with African-American leaders and professionals who saw a need for birth control in their communities. In 1929, James H. Hubert, a black social worker and leader of New York’s Urban League, asked Sanger to open a clinic in Harlem.[94] Sanger secured funding from the Julius Rosenwald Fund and opened the clinic, staffed with black doctors, in 1930. The clinic was directed by a 15-member advisory board consisting of black doctors, nurses, clergy, journalists, and social workers. The clinic was publicized in the African-American press and in black churches, and it received the approval of W. E. B. Du Bois, founder of the NAACP.[95] In 1939 Sanger wrote, “We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” She did not tolerate bigotry among her staff, nor would she tolerate any refusal to work within interracial projects.[96] Sanger’s work with minorities earned praise from Martin Luther King, Jr., in his 1966 acceptance speech for the Margaret Sanger award.[97] > > From 1939 to 1942 Sanger was an honorary delegate of the Birth Control Federation of America, which included a supervisory role—alongside Mary Lasker and Clarence Gamble—in the Negro Project, an effort to deliver birth control to poor black people.[98] Sanger wanted the Negro Project to include black ministers in leadership roles, but other supervisors did not. To emphasize the benefits of involving black community leaders, she wrote to Gamble “we do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” This quote has been cited by Angela Davis to support her claims that Sanger wanted to exterminate black people.[99] However, New York University’s Margaret Sanger Papers Project, argues that in writing that letter, “Sanger recognized that elements within the black community might mistakenly associate the Negro Project with racist sterilization campaigns in the Jim Crow South, unless clergy and other community leaders spread the word that the Project had a humanitarian aim.”[100] ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2015, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-margaret-sanger-a-racist/721415/8 "2015-06-03T12:03:18Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > If we’re going to quote Sanger’s Wikipedia page, why not do it on race too, since that actually addresses the OP’s question? Because the question asked specifically about whether she supporting selective abortion of Black babies, not about her views on race more generally. I’m more interested in her views on abortion than on race, so that’s the bit I focused on. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2015, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-margaret-sanger-a-racist/721415/9 "2015-06-03T14:41:17Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > Because the question asked specifically about whether she supporting selective abortion of Black babies, not about her views on race more generally. I’m more interested in her views on abortion than on race, so that’s the bit I focused on. Read the last paragraph, which is so absolutely direct to the point that it cites who made the claim and a quote from someone refuting it. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2015, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-margaret-sanger-a-racist/721415/10 "2015-06-03T14:48:56Z")
It doesn’t actually tell us anything about what she thought, though. It just tells us she was keen to avoid as being _seen_ as a black baby exterminator. She may or may not have actually wanted to be one. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2015, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-margaret-sanger-a-racist/721415/11 "2015-06-03T21:52:25Z")
I’ve seen the quote about “we do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population” used by the extreme anti-abortion side as proof that she wanted to exterminate them but wanted it covered up. ---
**Author:** ![Quill\_Scroll](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Quill\_Scroll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quill_Scroll)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-margaret-sanger-a-racist/721415/12 "2015-06-04T01:52:17Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > If we’re going to quote Sanger’s Wikipedia page, why not do it on race too, since that actually addresses the OP’s question? OMG, you actually use Wikepedia as a _ **source** _? Wikipedia is an amalgamation of statements, many of which are incorrect. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-margaret-sanger-a-racist/721415/13 "2015-06-04T02:37:38Z")
> [@Quill\_Scroll](#): > > OMG, you actually use Wikepedia as a _ **source** _? > > Wikipedia is an amalgamation of statements, many of which are incorrect. How original a thought. I’ll pass it along to the hundreds of others here who have used that site for cites, although I’ll correct your original and imaginative spelling of it first. By the way. Do you have any evidence that this particular statement on this particular page is wrong? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-margaret-sanger-a-racist/721415/14 "2015-06-04T02:41:23Z")
> [@Quill\_Scroll](#): > > OMG, you actually use Wikepedia as a _ **source** _? > > Wikipedia is an amalgamation of statements, many of which are incorrect. So you have no idea how Wikipedia works, or even how to follow a citation link? I ask merely for information, and to guide the conversation better. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-margaret-sanger-a-racist/721415/15 "2015-06-04T03:36:19Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > I’ve seen the quote about “we do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population” used by the extreme anti-abortion side as proof that she wanted to exterminate them but wanted it covered up. Yes, that does appear to be prevalent on the Internet and was responded to [here](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/01/1190652/-Margaret-Sanger-Planned-Parenthood-and-Racism). > [@](#): > > This has been interpreted by some people (like Angela Davis) as proof that the project was actually a secret conspiracy to exterminate African-Americans (I find it a bit ironic that conservatives are, perhaps unwittingly, agreeing with Davis diagnosis of a white conspiracy). In fact, in the context of the debate Sanger was having with other members of the Birth Control Federation, the real meaning was almost certainly that she believed that black leadership was necessary to prevent the mistaken belief that the purpose of the project was racist. In another quote from this debate Sanger stated: “I do not believe that this project should be directed or run by white medical men. The Federation should direct it with the guidance and assistance of the colored group…”