page_title: Black genocide
section_title: Birth control
hierarchical_section_title: Black genocide / Conspiracy theories / Birth control
caption_attribution_description: English: Angela Davis in Moscow in 1972Deutsch: Die Bürgerrechtlerin Angela Davis in Moskau, 1972
context_page_description: In the United States, Black genocide is the characterization that the mistreatment of African Americans by both the United States government and white Americans, both in the past and the present, amounts to genocide. The decades of lynchings and long-term racial discrimination were first formally described as genocide by a now defunct organization, the Civil Rights Congress, in a petition which it submitted to the United Nations in 1951. In the 1960s, Malcolm X accused the US government of engaging in genocide against Black people, citing long-term injustice, cruelty, and violence against blacks by Whites.
  Some accusations of genocide have been described as conspiracy theories. After President Lyndon B. Johnson proposed his War on Poverty legislation including public funding of the Pill for the poor in the mid 1960s, family planning was said to be "Black genocide" at the first Black Power Conference which was held in July 1967. After abortion was more widely legalized in 1970, some Black militants named abortion specifically as part of the conspiracy theory. Most African-American women were not convinced of a conspiracy and rhetoric about race genocide faded.
context_section_description: A falling birth rate has been identified by some observers as harmful to a race of people; for instance, in 1905 Teddy Roosevelt said that it was "race suicide" for white Americans if educated white women continued to have fewer children. Certain African-American leaders also taught that political power came with greater population. In 1934, Marcus Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association resolved that birth control constituted black genocide.
  The combined oral contraceptive pill, popularly known as "the Pill", was approved for US markets in 1957 as a medicine, and in 1961 for birth control. In 1962, civil rights activist Whitney Young told the National Urban League not to support birth control for blacks. Marvin Davies, leader of the Florida chapter of the NAACP, said that black women should reject birth control and produce more babies so that black political influence would increase in the future.
  The Pill was considered expensive by working-class women; the first users were upper- and middle-class women. After President Lyndon B. Johnson, as part of his War on Poverty, obtained legislation in 1964 for government funding of birth control, Black militants became more concerned about a possible government-sponsored black genocide. Cecil B. Moore, head of the NAACP chapter in Philadelphia, spoke out against a Planned Parenthood program which was to establish a stronger presence in northern Philadelphia; the population in the targeted neighborhoods was 70% black. Moore said it would be "race suicide" for blacks to embrace birth control.
  From 1965 to 1970, black militant males, especially younger men from poverty-stricken areas, spoke out against birth control as black genocide. The Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam were the strongest voices. The Black Panther Party identified a number of injustices as contributing to black genocide, including social ills that were more serious in black populations, such as drug abuse, prostitution and sexually transmitted disease. Other injustices included unsafe housing, malnutrition and the over-representation of young black men on the front lines of the Vietnam War. Influential black activists such as singer/author Julius Lester and comedian Dick Gregory said that blacks should increase in population and avoid genocidal family planning measures. H. Rap Brown of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) held that black genocide consisted of four elements: more blacks executed than whites, malnutrition in impoverished areas affected blacks more than whites, the Vietnam War killed more blacks than whites, and birth control programs in black neighborhoods were trying to end the black race. A birth control clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, was torched by black militants who said it contributed to black genocide.
  Black Muslims said that birth control was against the teachings of the Koran, and that the role of women in Muslim society was to produce children. In this context, the Black Muslims felt that birth control was a genocidal attack by whites. The Muslim weekly journal, Muhammad Speaks, carried many articles demonizing birth control.
  In Newark, New Jersey, in July 1967, the Black Power movement held its first convention: the National Conference on Black Power. The convention identified several means by which whites were attempting the annihilation of blacks. Injustices in housing practices, reductions in welfare benefits, and government-subsidized family planning were named as elements of "black genocide". Ebony magazine printed a story in March 1968 which revealed that black genocide was believed by poor blacks to be the impetus behind government-funded birth control.
  Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., was a strong proponent of birth control for blacks. In 1966, he was honored with the Margaret Sanger Award in Human Rights, an award based on the tireless birth control activism of Margaret Sanger, a co-founder of Planned Parenthood. King emphasized that birth control gave the black man better command over his personal economic situation, keeping the number of 
caption: Angela Davis said that equating birth control with black genocide appeared to be "an exaggerated—even paranoiac—reaction."[36]
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