Buck v. Bell Marker Unveiling

This photograph, taken at the 2002 unveiling of the Buck v. Bell Historic Marker in Charlottesville, shows two survivors of the Lynchburg Colony’s sterilization program, Jesse Meadows and Rose Brooks, with Paul Lombardo, a University of Virginia associate professor who sponsored the marker. Governor Mark Warner issued an apology for Virginia’s role in the eugenics movement to be read at the unveiling. Meadows, in an interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch on May 3, 2002, said that the apology was “nice,” but “I will never forgive them. When they ruin your life, you can’t forgive them. Maybe someday.”