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Virginia sterilization strategy focuses specifically on poor white people in order to create a white elite.

1924-1979

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One of the only states to use a racialized approach focusing specifically on white people living in poverty, Virginia sterilization authorities round up entire families in poverty-stricken mountain communities in order to attempt to sterilize people on public assistance. Sheriffs go looking in the mountains for families on welfare who are "in hiding." The sheriffs force families into cars and drive them to the Western State Hospital, where they are not released until they consent to being sterilized.