Comments at the Dedication of the Historic Marker Commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the United States Supreme Court Case of Buck v. Bell, May 2, 1927.
We are here today because Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote an opinion in a legal case. You have all heard the line for which that opinion is known-Three Generations of Imbeciles are enough. The opinion endorsed a Virginia law that was then used to sterilize Carrie Buck and later, more than 8000 others here in the Commonwealth. Across this country, almost 70,000 were sterilized, and in Europe, almost ½ million.
That opinion said it was better, not for Carrie Buck, but better for all the world that people like her be rendered unable to have children-better to sterilize people than let them starve for their incompetence, better to sterilize people than hang their children as criminals. Holmes words have been called the most totalitarian in the history of court opinions-surely they are the most cruel, and as we now know, the most false.
For 75 years Holmes words about Carrie's family-those three generations-stood as a monument to the legally sanctioned contempt for the poor, the dispossessed, the disabled. The Buck case seemed to be the last legal word on heredity and its role in causing social problems.
75 years ago today the lawyers who had argued Buck v. Bell in Washington read the opinion-a result we now know they both-even Carrie's lawyer-- applauded. 75 years ago the local paper in Carrie's home town, called the Holmes opinion "a genuine classic" and judged the law "sane…beneficial … and progressive."
All that happened in 1927, on May 2nd. Today we have the privilege of refuting Holmes words, renouncing his cruelty and rejecting his falsehoods. Today we erect our own monument and write a more permanent history-this time written in steel. It will remain for many years to remind us of the fallibility of our institutions of government and our need to always reexamine our past. It should also stand as a reminder that it is never too late to grow into civic moral maturity and apologize, as a government and a community, for the wrongs that we have done.
I hope this marker will also remind us of humanity of the thousands of people like Carrie Buck, whose lives were permanently marked by Holmes' comments.
I want to introduce two people who are with us today and whom we should also honor. Mr. Jesse Meadows and Mrs. Rose Brooks will remove the cover to the Buck v. Bell marker. They too survived eugenic sterilization in Virginia and we are honored that they have joined us today to celebrate this occasion.
Thank all of you for coming today to share this historical event with us. When your friends come from out of town to visit the University or Monticello, take a moment to bring them by here to read this marker. More than anything, bring your children to see it, and explain to them what it stands for, and how it is their job to see that cases like Buck v Bell never happen again.