Sierra Club, New York Planned Parenthood Publicly Denounce Their Own Founders Over Their Racism, Beliefs in Eugenics

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The national reckoning over race sparked by the George Floyd protests has resulted in multiple groups reviewing their own legacies, and in the case of two of America’s most prominent liberal organizations, even publicly denouncing their own founders over issues of racism and bigotry.

That’s what happened this week regarding Planned Parenthood’s founder Margaret Sanger and the Sierra Club’s founders John Muir, Joseph LeConte, and David Starr Jordan.

As the Los Angeles Times reported, the Sierra Club “acknowledged a darker part” of the history of their founders this week, posting a statement on their website. Muir, who has long been revered in the environmental movement for his work helping to form the National Park Service and to save areas like the Yosemite Valley, nonetheless “made derogatory comments about Black people and Indigenous peoples that drew on deeply harmful racist stereotypes.”

The Times noted Muir’s documented “hatred of indigenous Californians,” and how his work seeking protection for environmentally sensitive lands often went hand-in-hand with advocating displacing native people from those lands that had been their homes for countless generations. LeConte and Jordan were also white supremacists and Jordan was a “leading believer  in eugenics” who supported forced sterilizations of minorities, the poor, and the disabled, reported the Times.

The Sierra Club also addressed the “whiteness and privilege of our early membership” in their statement from executive director Michael Brune:

In these early years, the Sierra Club was basically a mountaineering club for middle- and upper-class white people who worked to preserve the wilderness they hiked through — wilderness that had begun to need protection only a few decades earlier, when white settlers violently displaced the Indigenous peoples who had lived on and taken care of the land for thousands of years. The Sierra Club maintained that basic orientation until at least the 1960s because membership remained exclusive. Membership could only be granted through sponsorship from existing members, some of whom screened out any applicants of color.

The Sierra Club’s examination of Muir’s life and writings, as the Times notes, also includes findings that “his views evolved later in his life,” and “he came to admire [Native Americans’] stewardship of the land and expressed concern about the cruel ways they were treated.”

Regarding Planned Parenthood, Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in America and was a vocal advocate for family planning and reproductive rights. A pro-birth control organization she founded, the American Birth Control League, later became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Many PP clinics today bear Sanger’s name and until 2015, the organization annually presented the “Margaret Sanger Award” to “recognize leadership, excellence, and outstanding contributions to the reproductive health and rights movement,” calling the award their “highest honor.” Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the honoree in 2009, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in 2014.

Sanger was also a vocal advocate for eugenics. She denounced those who had religious beliefs against contraception or who opposed it for other reasons as “irresponsible and reckless ones having little regard for the consequence of their acts.”

“Many of this group are diseased, feeble-minded, and are of the pauper element dependent entirely upon the normal and fit members of society for their support,” said Sanger in a 1921 speech. “There is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the procreation of this group should be stopped.”

Sanger’s 1922 book The Pivot of Civilization voiced her support for forced sterilization of those with mental disabilities.

“Those least fit to carry on the race are increasing most rapidly,” wrote Sanger. “People who cannot support their own offspring are encouraged by Church and State to produce large families. Many of the children thus begotten are diseased or feeble minded. Many become criminals. The burden of supporting these unwanted types has to be borne by the healthy elements of the nation.”

Sanger did not personally elucidate some of the more patently obvious racist ideas of her contemporaries, but her work was enthusiastically embraced by them.

Lothrop Stoddard, a virulent racist and member of the Ku Klux Klan, was a co-founder of Sanger’s American Birth Control League and board member of the group for years. Stoddard’s writings advocated for eugenics and anti-miscengation laws, and directly influenced the genocidal policies of Nazi Germany. Sanger herself gave a speech to a KKK women’s auxiliary group in 1926.

PP has sought to put Sanger’s history in “context,” adding additional comments to their biography of Sanger on their website, referring to the KKK as a “mainstream movement” and “legitimate anti-immigration organization with a wide membership” at that time:

In the 1920’s, the KKK was a mainstream movement and was considered a legitimate anti-immigration organization with a wide membership that included many state and local officials. At that time, it defined its enemies as Blacks, Catholics and Jews. Planned Parenthood today denounces Sanger’s address to the Ku Klux Klan.

To be clear, from the beginning of its founding shortly after the Confederacy lost the Civil War, the KKK employed tactics of harassment, violence, and even cold-blooded murder to discourage Blacks and Southern Republicans from voting, running for political office, or otherwise advocating for civil rights.

The Klan of Sanger’s era expanded their original goals of opposing rights for Blacks to attacking Catholics, Jews, and immigrants as well. They organized as a fraternal organization and often engaged in charitable projects for local causes, but still engaged in acts of intimidation like burning crosses and as well as horrific acts of violence. Archived articles from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram describe area Klansmen whipping, tarring and feathering those who opposed their white supremacist views, as well as documenting multiple incidents of kidnapping, beating, branding, or lynching Black men.

In addition to the updates to the national organization’s website, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York (PPGNY) announced on Tuesday that it would be renaming their Manhattan Health Center, currently named for Sanger.

“The removal of Margaret Sanger’s name from our building is both a necessary and overdue step to reckon with our legacy and acknowledge Planned Parenthood’s contributions to historical reproductive harm within communities of color,” said Karen Seltzer, the chair of PPGNY’s board. “Margaret Sanger’s concerns and advocacy for reproductive health have been clearly documented, but so too has her racist legacy.”

Added Merle McGee, chief equity and engagement officer at PPGNY, “It’s not complicated. She championed birth control and she supported racist ideas. Both of those things are true.”