Program 1: The Holocaust Began in Appalachia

A visceral examination of the 1924 Act to Define Feeblemindedness and how Virginia's "search for the unfit" became a global blueprint for sterilization and erasure.

The Narrative: In 1918, a sixteen-year-old boy named Croker died in the Virginia Colony for Epileptics and the Feebleminded. His death was not an isolated tragedy; it was a symptom of a state-mandated program designed to "cleanse" the Commonwealth of those deemed socially inadequate. This program provided the legal and scientific foundation for international crimes against humanity, eventually being cited in the Nuremberg Archives.

Jared Wilmer traces this history through the lens of his own family’s "trespass into whiteness," following the lineage from the ministry of Marlbrook and Irish Creek to the Eastern Shore of Maryland. By connecting kinship groups like the Knuckles, Adkins, and Sorrells to primary records from the Library of Virginia, this talk reveals the "connective tissue" between local Appalachian erasure and global human rights crises.

Key Takeaways:

• The Legal Blueprint: Understanding how Virginia’s eugenics laws influenced the Nuremberg laws.

• The Architecture of Erasure: Analyzing the medical and legal definitions used to categorize human value.

• Reclaiming the Lineage: A guide to using digital and physical archives to honor those the state attempted to forget.