Smithsonian: Bust of Planned Parenthood founder Sanger to remain in 'Struggle for Justice' exhibit

Christian Examiner ^ | 8/14/15 | Gregory Tomlin

[markomalley]

The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery has issued a statement saying a bust of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger will remain in the museum even after a group of black pastors asked for it to be removed.

In a letter to the gallery last week, the group – Ministers Taking a Stand – said Sanger was a eugenicist who favored slowing the birthrate of blacks or eliminating it altogether.

"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. >

For that reason, it is all the more ironic that the bust of Sanger is in the gallery's "Struggle for Justice" exhibit, near portraits of Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, the letter said.

On Aug. 11, the gallery's communications director told CNSNews in a statement that "Sanger's alliance with aspects of the eugenics movement raises questions about her motivations and intentions. The museum's intent is not to honor her in an unqualified way, but rather to stimulate our audiences to reflect on the experience of Americans who struggled to improve the civil and social conditions of 20th-century America."

According to the statement, the National Portrait Gallery said its goal is to put American biographies in their historical contexts through portraiture. The statement also said the gallery is not "a hall of fame" but a collection of portraits that represent the complex nature of American history, including "the admirable and inspiring personalities, as well as others whose lives were complicated and complex."

"We are both a history museum and an art museum, requiring that we see the past clearly and objectively. Margaret Sanger is included in the museum's collection, not in tribute to all her beliefs, many of which are now controversial, but because of her leading role in early efforts to distribute information about birth control and medical information to disadvantaged women, as well as her later roles associated with developing modern methods of contraception and in founding Planned Parenthood of America," the statement said.

Other notable figures that have impacted American history negatively – such as presidential assassins John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald – are also included in the National Portrait Gallery. Neither, however, rises to the level of Sanger, whom the pastors said specifically targeted blacks for extermination.

"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 .... 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," the letter from the pastors said.

To date, the pastors have not issued a new statement on the National Portrait Gallery's decision to keep the bust of Margaret Sanger on display.

[markomalley]

Margaret Sanger was one of the most evil women of the 20th Century, if not THE most evil woman of the 20th Century. She was a Eugenicist who wanted to wipe out whole populations. For example, in this 12/10/1939 letter to Charles Gamble, founder of P&G, she discloses:

If you take a look at page 102 of the April, 1933 issue of the Birth Control Review (Sanger's Journal of her Birth Control League which, after the war, morphed into Planned Butcherhood) you will note an interesting article titled, Eugenic Sterilization: An Urgent Need. The doctor was Dr. Ernst Rüdin. In case you're not familar, Dr. Ernst Rüdin was honored by Hitler as being the "pioneer of the racial-hygienic measures of the Third Reich." He was one of the collaborators of Margaret Sanger.

Sanger was a child of the sexual revolution 50 years before the sexual revolution was even conceived. She believed the birth of a child was a shame and a large family was a catastrophe:

Many, perhaps, will think it idle to go farther in demonstrating the immorality of large families, but since there is still an abundance of proof at hand, it may be offered for the sake of those who find difficulty in adjusting old-fashioned ideas to the facts. The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.

Margaret Sanger, Woman and the New Race, (New York: Eugenics Press, 1920), chapter 5.

(btw, if you click on the link, there's even worse to read in that book)

Personally I think it is highly appropriate to have a bust of Sanger in the Smithstonian, but not in the Struggle for Justice exhibit. Rather, she should be featured in the America: Descent into the Depths of Depravity exhibit that should be created.

[UMCRevMom@aol.com]

Sanger also believed the Irish were a “bad seed” to be eliminated. Never forget Bill Gates avoid suppporter

[2ndDivisionVet]

She hated soldiers and veterans, too.

[kearnyirish2]

Blacks just found their race card trumped by the gender card; unless they have a homo card to top that they’ve lost. Did Sanger attack homos?

[NTHockey]

Blacks are ok with someone who wanted to wipe them all out; yet they want to erase all vestiges of the Confederacy.

No wonder so many turn to the “religion” of their captors, Mohammedanism.

[Popman]

This is good that PP is being exposed as a organization born dedicated to eradicating of the black race...

Dems please keep making public statements backing and supporting them...

Blacks will notice...

After 8 years of Obama where blacks thought their lives would be vastly improved and the opposite happened they must be pretty discouraged in thinking their vote matters...

They may not vote republican, but they will stay home...

[Pontiac]

After 8 years of Obama where blacks thought their lives would be vastly improved and the opposite happened they must be pretty discouraged in thinking their vote matters...

They may not vote republican, but they will stay home...

All true except that last bit which is wishful thinking.

The Black political class is imbedded and beholden to the Democrat Party.

The Black Political Class depends on the Democrats for their seats and their extracurricular cash. Not to mention their campaign assistance.

If you ever happen to notice there are no Black Democrat senators you can count that to the fact that House seats are allocated and protected (gerrymandered) for Black representatives thanks to Democrat Party. If they leave the Democrat Party they have no chance of reelection. You can’t gerrymander a senate seat.

Democrats are the patrons of the complainer class. Since the squeaky wheel gets the grease the Blacks that over the last 60 years have come to expect more and more goodies from Uncle Sam the Blacks are a great fit to the Democrat Party.

Sure there are a goodly percentage of Proud and Independent Black but the majority of inner city Blacks are in the tank for the handouts and the Democrat Party. And a majority of the Free Blacks are cowed in to submission to follow the herd.

[silverleaf]

They should add a confederate flag to that display

[left that other site]

(sigh) There goes the Smithsonian.

Used to be my favorite tourist trap in DC.

Oh Well.

[JSDude1]

I guess “black lives” really don’t matter to these people (who run the current government), only the right to choose immorality matters to them..!

[Popman]

And a majority of the Free Blacks are cowed in to submission to follow the herd.

Well, nobody knows how they will vote when they fill out their ballot...

Almost all the blacks I know are working class or middle people...

Privately, they have told me how disgusted they are with the democratic party, taking their vote for granted, empty promises, using race as an excuse not to solve the very real problems the black community faces...

[Tripoli]

If you really believe that, I have a bridge you might want to buy.

I am in my 80s and I cannot tell you how many times I have been told that very same thing. I will believe it when I see it.

[GOPJ]

Leaving the ust of Sangter is a slap in the face to every ethnic group except whites... it’s a disgraceful choice...

[noinfringers2]

I am very close to 90 years of age as a WWII overseas vet and I tend to think you have it right. All thoughts that somehow/sometime the black peoples vote will go to what the white population has built is wishful prognosticating. When I was a young boy I never had any problems living and playing with ‘black’ youths. We even liked being on a team with ‘black’ youths because they were among the best of players even back then. For years in my youth we lived in a house that was next to the residence and church of the towns ‘black’ pastor. My brother and I were both invited to the pastor’s house the day his wife gave birth to their second child. I’ll never forget the experience and awe of seeing a newborn baby for that wonderful family. I often wonder/muse about how the US society has changed to make such changes of attitudes.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks markomalley.

[omegatoo]

a WWII overseas vet

Thank you.

Love,
O2