This award-winning series led to an apology from the North Carolina governor and the first legislation in the nation seeking to compensate victims of eugenics, or involuntary sterilization. For more than 40 years North Carolina ran one of the nation’s largest and most aggressive sterilization programs. It expanded after World War II, even as most other states pulled back in light of the horrors of Hitler’s Germany. The victims were wives and daughters. Sisters. Unwed mothers. Children. Even a 10-year-old boy. Some were blind or mentally retarded. Toward the end they were mostly black and poor.