A 1919 circular letter from Margaret Sanger to W. E. B. Du Bois asking for financial support for the Birth Control movement.

In this circular letter, Margaret Sanger asked advocates for birth control to financially support the Birth Control movement, especially in light of Supreme Court decisions about the issue. Given her ties to the eugenics movement, her leadership in the Birth Control movement could be interpreted as a veiled attempt to implement a eugenics agenda. Today, some critics of Sanger’s movement who oppose Planned Parenthood claim that Sanger was a racial eugenicist.

In a 1939 letter, Sanger wrote about her plans to use African American ministers as liaisons to the black community to help dispel any false information and suspicion about her family planning clinics. The awkwardly worded correspondence could be read as her support for “exterminating the Negro race.” However, many scholars now refute the idea that Sanger supported racial eugenics.

Citation Information
Sanger, Margaret, “Circular letter from Margaret Sanger to W. E. B. Du Bois,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/110c54725ce465342d3926b758eeab57.
Note: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete.
Courtesy of Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries via Digital Commonwealth.

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