Website and Project of the Month

On February 1, 1930, Margaret Sanger opened a branch office of her New York City birth control clinic in the center of Harlem, at 2352 7th Avenue near 138th Street. For the next five years, until 1935, the Harlem Branch of the Clinical Research Bureau offered African American and white women clients gynecological examinations by a physician and contraceptive instruction by a nurse. The Harlem Branch clinic also conducted educational programs for the community and carried out fundraising activities to support the clinic's expenses. From its inception, the clinic involved the collaborative efforts of both African American and white birth control advocates. After the clinic opened, Sanger assembled an Advisory Council of African American community leaders. Some of Harlem's most prominent African American health professionals, clergy, and social activists participated in the clinic's work. What Perspectives Did African American Advocates Bring to the Birth Control Movement and How Did Those Perspectives Shape the History of the Harlem Branch Birth Control Clinic? offers a window on the views and actions of African American birth control advocates associated with the Harlem clinic. Intertwined, and sometimes conflicting, elements of women's rights, economic security, and racial progress laid the ground for cooperation and conflict between the Advisory Council and Sanger and the white clinic staff.