Tense moments and tears - that's what happened Wednesday night when politicians, professionals and upset citizens gathered to talk about the history of North Carolina's eugenics program and what to do for the victims of it.

N.C. House Speaker Thom Tillis, R-Cornelius, called the town hall meeting at the Government Center in Charlotte. He praised the discussion as civil. But he also recognized the emotion of the night: "You see," he said, "what a tinderbox this is."

The state is working on possible compensation for victims of North Carolina's longtime practice of eugenic sterilization - sterilizing people seen as unfit, to keep them from having unfit children. Between 1929 and 1974, the N.C. Eugenics board authorized sterilizing some 7,600 citizens. Many were mentally ill or had asked for the operations. But others were classified as "feebleminded," and sterilized because of low IQ tests and other factors such as poverty or large families. Victims were as young as 10.

The state estimates that 1,500 to 2,000 victims are still alive. A governor's task force recommended paying $50,000 to each one, as well as providing mental health services. Tillis wants to vote on a compensation bill during the legislature's "short session" in May.

The main debate that emerged from the town hall was whether victims should hold out for better terms, or take what the legislature might be willing to do this year.

"How do you pay somebody back for something only God can make?" said the Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP. "Maybe we take this moment to get serious about correcting our past."

But Tillis said waiting might mean victims end up with nothing.

"If you wait for the perfect thing, you will likely wait 'til your grave for it to occur," he said.

The folks at the front of the room - Barber, Tillis, other government officials and a member of the John Locke Foundation - spoke for the first hour of the meeting. After that, the public was invited to speak. And the hurt poured out.

One woman who said she was sterilized in 1979 - after the state's program was officially over - said she was told she wouldn't get food stamps unless she agreed to be sterilized. (Some research shows that doctors and hospitals acting on their own sterilized people under the Eugenics Board's general guidelines. Those victims wouldn't be eligible for anything from the state.)

Elaine Riddick, who was sterilized at 14 after she was raped, brought a box of tissues for herself and other victims. "This is something that we will never get over," she said. "It's on your back every time you turn around."

A few people at the town hall opposed paying victims. Houston Blair of Monroe, a retired federal employee who worked with mental health centers in North Carolina, said the state should examine each case to see if the state was really wrong to sterilize each person.

Near the end, a woman named Odessa Price got up and spoke softly.

Price said two of her sisters were sterilized - she has filed paperwork with the state to see if their names match those in Eugenics Board records. One sister is still alive. The other died. Price says that sister was never right again after she was sterilized.

"It's like a family shadow," she said. "Nobody speaks of it."