Clarence Gamble and James Hanes were founding members of the Human Betterment League of North Carolina in 1947. The League was tied to forced sterilization programs that saw both men and women, mostly poor, of assumed low IQ, and predominantly black extraction, undergo surgical sterilization without consent, with the goal being to reduce the state's welfare burden and improve the gene pool. The program ended in 1977; the state government apologized publicly in 2002. Governor Bev Perdue is advocating for financial restitution to be made to 7,600 victims.