Black ministers want bust of Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger, out of Smithsonian

WASHINGTON (Christian Examiner) – A group of black pastors who advocate ending the black community's "slavish devotion to the Democrat Party," has penned a letter to the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery asking it to remove a bust of Margaret Sanger, the eugenicist who founded Planned Parenthood.

The bust is in the museum's "Struggle for Justice" exhibit, but it hardly seems to fit with the Civil Rights leaders profiled in the exhibit, the letter said.

The minister's work is also important and also he should be trained, perhaps by the Federation as to our ideals and the goal that we hope to reach. We do not 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.

"Perhaps the Gallery is unaware that Ms. Sanger supported black eugenics, a racist attitude toward black and other minority babies, an elitist attitude toward those she regarded as 'the feeble minded;' speaking at a rally of Ku Klux Klan women; and communications with Hitler sympathizers," the letter to Kim Sajet, the director of the gallery, said.

Sanger was also the creator of the "Negro Project," which – the letter said – was an effort "to limit, if not eliminate black births."

Like the current controversy with Planned Parenthood, where secret recordings reveal the ugly work of abortion and the public relations arm of the organization presents another – women's access to quality health care – the writings of Margaret Sanger reveal much the same.

Privately, Sanger believed blacks were largely ignorant, a drain on society and incapable of caring for large numbers of children born in rapid succession. She advocated "child spacing" for black women and using "birth control" methods to eliminate the children conceived too closely together.

She also associated criminality with the poor economic conditions in the black community, and often advocated not allowing criminals to reproduce. In fact, she often referred to criminals as "weeds" that should be destroyed.

Sanger's critics often point to a letter written to another physician, Dr. C.J. Gamble in Milton, Mass., as evidence of her desire to eliminate blacks from American society. In that letter, she describes the need to employ black doctors who can carry out the work of birth control with "enthusiasm" in the black community. They could also allay the "ignorance, superstitions and doubt" of blacks, she wrote.

Sanger also wrote that black ministers were needed as allies in Planned Parenthood's birth control efforts.

"The minister's work is also important and also he should be trained, perhaps by the Federation as to our ideals and the goal that we hope to reach. We do not 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," Sanger wrote in 1939.

Sanger's comment in the private letter, taken with her other known comments about the racial inferiority of non-white races, has led many to the conclusion that her goal was a holocaust of black lives.

In public writings, like Planned Parenthood's public relations arm today, she takes a different tone. She claimed in a 1945 interview that she had been offered $10,000 by an "anti-Negro white man" to start birth control work (contraception and abortion) "in Harlem first."

"His idea was simply to cut down the number of Negroes. 'Spread it as far as you can among them,' he said. That, of course, is not our idea. I turned him down. But that is an example about how vicious some people can be about this thing," Sanger said in the interview.

In other places, Sanger said the goal of the "Negro project" was "child spacing" in the black community, an effort to which "Negro leaders" in medicine, education, and social work gave their support.

To the leaders of Ministers Taking a Stand, Sanger's original goals – whether curtailing the growth of the black population or eliminating it – represent a low view of minorities in general and blacks in particular. Sanger's view of life, and the use of eugenics to produce fewer minority babies should be condemned, the letter said.

"If the revelations were not consistent with her character and ideas, one might argue that Planned Parenthood has 'gone rogue' and abandoned Sanger. The fact is that the behavior of these abortionists, their callous and cavalier attitude toward these babies, is completely in keeping with Sanger's perverse vision for America," the letter from the ministers said.

"Like Hitler, Sanger advocated eugenics—the extermination of people she deemed 'undesirables.' Finding that the American people rejected that idea, she then switched to birth control as a way of controlling the population growth of black people and others. The name 'Planned Parenthood' was chosen for its obvious marketability. Who wouldn't want to 'plan' for children? The reality is that 90% of the organization's income comes from the deaths of unborn children."

"Planned Parenthood continues to suppress the growth of minority populations by locating 70% of its abortion facilities within in or near black and Latino communities. The Life Issues Institute has an interactive map showing this at: http://www.protectingblacklife.org/pp_targets. This explains why elective abortion remains the number one cause of death among black Americans, higher than all other causes combined. We will not remain silent while the National Portrait Gallery venerates someone who sought to eradicate our very existence. Ms. Sanger was a racist, elitist, and her beliefs led to massive destruction of unborn human life. She was no hero."

On February 21, 2015, Live Action New posted a video in which a purported donor called four Planned Parenthood facilities asking if his donation could be used specifically for the abortion of black babies, and all of the representatives taking the calls said "yes."

In one segment of that video, the donor states, "The abortions will be done specifically for the – the black community."

Sue Riggs, vice president of development for Planned Parenthood of Arkansas and Oklahoma, responds, "I can – I will mark it in such a way that it definitely will."