Rage to Redemption in the Sterilization Age: A Confrontation with American Genocide - Paperback

by John Railey (Author), Edwin Black (Foreword by)

Nial Cox Ramirez, rendered barren in 1965 by one of America's most aggressive sterilization programs, made nationwide news in the 1970s as she fought for redress. Her landmark case fizzled in the early 1980s. Nial went on, raising a successful daughter, the one child she gave birth to before the state got to her. She never surrendered her dream of justice, but what happened to her and more than 7,600 others in "progressive" North Carolina receded into the background, buried under the cheery press releases the state program relied on before it closed down in 1974. Then, in 2002, a team of reporters at the Winston-Salem Journal gained access to records that exposed, for the first time, the brutal inner workings of this sterilization program that had been backed by their paper. One of those reporters, John Railey, became the editorial page editor of the Journal and made victim compensation his cause. He joined forces with Ramirez, other victims, and state legislator Larry Womble, who kept fighting even after he was almost killed in a car wreck. This is the story of their victory. It's the story of Ramirez and Railey, two unlikely friends joined forever on a faith-based justice journey.

Author Biography

John Railey, a native of Tidewater, Virginia, is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A veteran of Virginia and North Carolina newspapers, he is the editorial page editor of the Winston-Salem Journal. He has won numerous state and national awards for his work. He lives in North Carolina's Piedmont Triad region with his wife, Kathleen.