Jennifer Ritterhouse

From Grassroots to Ginsburg: How a Feminist Network Absorbed Lessons from Southern Black Women’s Experiences, Fought Involuntary Sterilization, and Won a Late-1970s “Magna Carta” for the ACLU

Abstract In 1973, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Women’s Rights Project filed a lawsuit on behalf of Nial Ruth Cox, a Black woman who had been sterilized as a teenager by the state of North Carolina. The lawsuit initiated an ACLU campaign against involuntary sterilizat...