Ethel Benson was forcibly sterilized by the state of Delaware. In August of 1930, she was institutionalized into the Delaware Colony for the Feeble Minded and never returned home. When doctors examined her, they determined her mental age was that of a six-year-old girl, according to the few documents about Ethel that exist at the Delaware Public Archives. She was among the two dozen Black women admitted at the time. Her great sin, in the eyes of Delaware, was that she was an unmarried woman who