Johnny Hunter, a Baptist minister and renowned leader of the pro-life movement in the black community, spoke Monday in Harrelson Hall as part of the Students for Life speaker series.

Hunter discussed the impact of abortion practices on the black community and compared the resulting loss of life to the lynchings that occurred during the segregation period.

“Blacks are being killed off at a rate of 1,452 per day [through abortion],” Hunter said. By those statistics, more black people are dying from abortion in three days than from all the lynchings recorded from 1882-1968, he said.

Hunter wondered aloud how many great black leaders, thinkers and artists have been aborted during the last few decades.

“Who knows who the black community has lost?” he said.

According to Hunter, abortion-rights groups such as Planned Parenthood target black people. Black women are three times more likely to have an abortion than white women, and over 80 percent of abortion clinics are located in predominantly black neighborhoods.

Hunter also pointed toward the declining fertility rates in African-American community in the past 30 years, which have dipped below white fertility rates and currently sit below the replacement level, he said.

“The biggest contributor to that decline is abortion — nothing is killing more blacks than abortion,” Hunter said.

Hunter also drew comparisons between the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1857 “Dred Scott v. Sanford” decision and the 1973 “Roe v. Wade” decision in their adverse impact toward the black population, even noting that both cases were decided by a 7-2 voting margin.

But for Hunter, the abortion issue takes on a more personal dimension, he said. He spoke about how he was stillborn when he was first delivered, with no discernible breathing or heartbeat.

Just before the attending doctor had retrieved his death certificate, his mother’s midwife, known as “Aunt Charity,” was able to elicit vital signs by striking him, he said.

“She slapped me once and then she slapped me twice … and then she said after she slapped me the third time she found out just what a big cry baby I turned out to be,” Hunter said, to the laughter of all in attendance.

Midway through the speech, Hunter’s wife Patricia sang a song written from a pro-life perspective entitled, “There’s a Purpose.”

After showing a short video featuring graphic pictures of aborted fetuses, Hunter expressed his frustration with the lack of media attention given to pro-life advocates in the black community. He identified Lynn Swann, a former NFL football star and current Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate, as an example of a black political figure opposed to abortion.

Hunter urged the attendees to take active stands in opposing abortion.

“The goodness of a people is not necessarily defined by the good things they do, but how they confront wickedness and evil,” Hunter said.

“[Hunter] brought to light how abortion leaves a hole in our generation and particularly within the African-American community,” Phil Koshute, president of Students for Life, said.

Joe Humphries, who founded Students for Life at NCSU about two years ago, said the speech was just one of a three-part seminar the group is holding over the course of the semester.

“Our goal is to educate,” Humphries said, adding that Students for Life is a nondenominational organization and is not affiliated with any political party.

Humphries said that Hunter showed the importance of abortion as an issue.

“[More than] 4,000 people are getting killed every day,” Humphries said.