This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vidantantham.

On June 4th, 1924, a girl was admitted to the Virginia State Colony for epileptics and

feeble-minded.

She was white, dark-haired, and 17 years old.

She became colony in May 1692.

The medical superintendent of the colony examined her, he declared her healthy, free of syphilis,

able to read, write, and keep herself tidy.

And then he classified her as feeble-minded of the lowest grade, more on class.

With that designation, this young woman, who had already lost more than many people

could bear in a lifetime, was set on a path she didn't choose.

What happened next laid the foundation for one of the most tragic social experiments in

American history, the forced sterilization of tens of thousands of people.

This story has resonance even today. It's about how science and the law, tools that we

have created to help improve our lives, can easily become instruments of prejudice and oppression.

It's a story of hubris and about good intentions gone awry.

Genics and the science of better breeding this week on Hidden Brain.

First of all, please tell me your name.

Kary, Elizabeth, Gedmo.

In 1980, an NPR reporter Wendy Blair took a trip to a one-room shack outside Charlotte's

ville, Virginia. She'd come to interview a 78-year-old woman.

Her married name was Dede Moore, but her given name was Kary Buck.

You see, I was adapted for now as a little girl. I was adapted by the dubs this year in

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