About two dozen anti-abortion leaders and pastors, most of them black, gathered in front of the National Portrait Gallery Thursday morning to protest its display of a bust of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger.
Chanting “you must remove the bust,” E.W. Jackson and other black activists argued that various writings and statements by Sanger prove she was a racist white supremacist who doesn’t deserve to be honored alongside civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks.
“If Margaret Sanger had her way, Rosa Parks and MLK would never have been born,” said Jackson, who heads the group Staying True to America’s National Destiny, or, STAND. “It’s an outrage the national museum would honor such a person and add insult to injury by putting her in the Struggle for Justice exhibit.”
Jackson said he has gathered 14,000 signatures for a petition to have the bust removed. It has been on display for years, but a recent series of undercover videos highlighting Planned Parenthood’s participation in aborted fetal tissue donations has fueled the opposition to it, as abortion foes seek to highlight Sanger’s backing of some eugenic policies.
The vast majority of black Americans vote for Democrats, who tend to support abortion rights. But the activists contended that they have been deceived by Planned Parenthood, a group they say is unfairly targeting black women to receive abortions with the goal of reducing births of black babies.
“What I want to see most is to see the spirit of Margaret Sanger lifting off our nation,” said Leon Threatt, pastor of Christian Faith Assembly in North Carolina.
The National Portrait Gallery has said it won’t remove the bust. Director Kim Sajet said there is no “moral test” for people to be accepted into the gallery.
“[Sanger’s] association with the eugenics movement shadowed her achievements in sex education and contraception, making her a figure of controversy, one whose complexities and contradictions mirror her times.”