The efforts by people with disabilities to participate fully in society began centuries ago and gained momentum in the 20th century.
Full citizenship entails full inclusion. Citizens successfully challenged legal inequalities around race, culminating in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision by the Supreme Court that struck down legal segregation. In the decades that followed, women, Native Americans, lesbian, bi-sexual, gay and transgender people, Chicanos and Latinos, and other groups pushed to extend the rights of citizenship.
The Disability Rights Movement, organized in the 1970s, has been similar to other movements in important ways. Attitudes needed changing for social change to happen. Paternalism thwarted access to basic rights like education, marriage, work, and housing. Segregation and discrimination contributed to poverty and isolation.
The Disability Rights Movement has been unlike other movements in important ways, however. For social change to occur, architectural barriers also needed changing. Necessary accommodation and services were different than those for other groups. And because disability crosses race, class, and gender, and people came to it in many different ways, affiliations and expectations also varied.
Laura Hershey (1962-2010) was a lifelong disability activist and writer who lived in Denver. This poem captures the importance of advocacy and the motivation behind the work done by disability activists.
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Laura Hershey (1962-2010) was a lifelong disability activist and writer who lived in Denver. The poem "You Get Proud By Practicing," on this page, captures the importance of advocacy and the motivation behind the work done by disability activists.
ADAPT disability activists surround statue of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and reinforce disability rights as a civil rights issue.
ADAPT disability activists block traffic as they stream through downtown Atlanta.
This button counters the perception that there can be exceptions to equality and says “Equal Rights Are Not Special Rights.”
This New York University button makes the point that disability is not the problem, but rather peoples’ attitudes about it.
The button was created for a mass rally on the National Mall and says “Disabled People’s Movement March on Washington.”
This black and white button says “Equal Opportunity through Equal Access.”
Claiming rights through re-claiming language and asserting pride often go together, shown in this black and white button that says “Cripple Power.”
Al Hibbler, a “blind negro singer,” is arrested during a civil rights protest. The civil rights movement shaped many disability rights leaders’ political ideas and strategies.
The earliest law providing for “handicapped” parking was Delaware’s 1955 Code 2134. After passage of the 1968 Architectural Barriers Act, the federal government mandated parking spaces, signage, and curb cuts. The universal access symbol, closely associated with physical accessibility, also debuted that year.