Sadly we don’t use this term enough, eugenics, even though Americans seemed to invent it in the late 1800s. Not a surprise given our history. I had only this year learned that the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations were funding eugenics starting in the early 1900s and actually were proactive in the 1920s in going to Europe to fund studies there. It turns out they funded Joseph Mengels study of Jews, and Mengels (also known as “The Angel of Death” during the Third Reich) sent his finished report from that grant back to Southern California where the granting institution and Eugenics Institute was. I I know many Americans would vehemently reject this bit of history (Americans scientific foundations funding German Nazi scientists) but like the slave jails and breeding camps, it is just a “fact” of history. Some many facts get spun and buried I’m wondering how much truth remains. Very little judging by the statues mentioned in Richmond of traitors to America who should have been jailed and tried for war crimes and treason. Not honored in any way, shaped or form.
But I was glad to hear of the one bright spot of Lumpkin’s fortune being used to open a seminary for black Americans. That is what the US government should have done more of and should still do as a form of reparations—overfund instead of underfund all schools and institutions that are predominantly black.