When one black mother discovered a government-funded secret plot to reduce the black population,

she took action.

I'm Jay from Push Black, and you're listening to Black History a year.

Two sisters, many Lee Ralph, age 14, and Mary Alice Ralph, age 12, were black and poor.

They lived with their parents and four siblings in Montgomery, Alabama.

Mr. and Mrs. Ralph toiled as farmhands to support their family, barely earning $150 a month.

The girls often received annual medical care from a federally funded family planning clinic.

But in 1973, the medical staff they trusted did the unspeakable.

Mrs. Ralph took her daughters in for a routine checkup.

That's when the abuse began.

The medical staff handed Mrs. Ralph a stack of papers to sign.

Mrs. Ralph was like many other poor black folks at the time, completely illiterate because

of the limited access to educational opportunities.

The medical staff took complete advantage.

Mrs. Ralph was coerced into signing consent forms for what she understood

to be experimental birth control shots for her daughters. It was all a disturbing lie.

Instead of providing birth control shots, a nurse took the girls away to a local

hospital. She told them to sign papers themselves confirming yet

another lie that the girls were 21 years old. Soon after they were prepped for

surgery. By the time the nurses returned the girls to their mother, they had been illegally

and permanently sterilized against their will, and the US government

government paid for it.

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