As our parents, children, friends and neighbors, people with disabilities are -- and always have been -- everywhere. The history of the disability rights movement, however, is relatively new. While people with disabilities have always been members of most communities, it is only within recent memory that they have begun to recognize themselves as a cohesive social group.
There are nearly 54 million people with disabilities in the United States. As the largest single minority in this country, they represent a potentially formidable voting bloc. Yet many people with disabilities claim that they are still an unrecognized minority. The disability rights movement intends to change all that, and to bring the needs, concerns and rights of people with disabilities to national attention.
Historically, the condition of having a disability -- in any society -- has been viewed as tragic. In pre-industrial times, when people with disabilities often were unable to support themselves or their families, they were seen as social dependents, objects of pity or recipients of charity. In the early years of the United States, society assumed a paternalistic approach towards people with disabilities -- often institutionalizing them in special homes or hospitals. People with disabilities were looked upon as patients or clients who needed curing. In those institutions, medical professionals and social workers were considered the primary decision-makers, rather than the people with disabilities themselves.
As a result, these people found themselves excluded from the larger society. While the assumption was that people with disabilities needed to be rehabilitated from their "problems," great numbers had conditions for which there was no known cure at the time. And so society provided no room for integration, thereby perpetuating myths of inequality.
In the first half of the 20th century, however, the United States' involvement in two world wars had a profound effect on the way people with disabilities were viewed and treated by the culture at large. As thousands of disabled soldiers returned home, society made provisions for them to re-enter the work force. The first vocational rehabilitation acts were passed by the U.S. Congress in the 1920s to provide services to World War I veterans with disabilities.
The biggest changes, though, came in the throes of the civil rights movements of the 1960s. As African Americans, women and other social minorities gained political influence, so, too, did people with disabilities.
A pivotal moment in the history of the disability rights movement may have been the admission of Ed Roberts to the University of California at Berkeley in 1962. Paralyzed from the neck down due to a childhood bout with polio, Roberts overcame opposition to gain admission, where he was housed in the campus hospital. A headline in a local newspaper proclaimed, "Helpless Cripple Attends UC Classes."
Within a short period of time, several other men and women with disabilities joined him on campus. Dubbing themselves the "rolling quads," they banded together to fight for better services and for permission to live independently, rather than at the hospital. With a grant from the U.S. Office of Education, they created the Physically Disabled Students Program, the first of its kind on a college campus. It was, in effect, the beginning of the independent living movement.
This movement rests on the concepts of consumer control, self-reliance and economic rights. It rejects the supremacy of medical professionals in decision-making and advocates the right to self-determination by people with disabilities. The first center for independent living opened in Berkeley in 1971, with an eye towards providing peer support, referral services, advocacy training and general information. Today, there are more than 200 such centers across the nation.
With the success of the independent living movement, people with disabilities began to band together on behalf of their civil rights. In the early 1970s, they lobbied Congress to add civil rights language for people with disabilities to pending legislation. In 1973, the legislature passed the revised Rehabilitation Act. Its most important aspect was Section 504, a one-sentence paragraph prohibiting any program or activity receiving U.S. Government financial assistance from discriminating against qualified individuals with disabilities.
On a parallel track to the disability rights movement was a campaign to provide access to educational services for children and youth with disabilities. The Education for All Handicapped Children Act, passed in 1975, ensured equal access to public education for such students. Renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1990, it called for a free and appropriate public education for every child with a disability, to be delivered in the least restrictive environment. IDEA promotes the concept of inclusion, requiring that students with disabilities be educated in general education settings, alongside students without disabilities, to the greatest extent appropriate.
Despite these pieces of legislation, people with disabilities did not gain broad civil rights until the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990. Modeled after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, this landmark U.S. Government anti-discrimination law ensures equal access to employment opportunities and public accommodations for people with disabilities. The ADA guarantees that no person with a disability can be excluded, segregated or otherwise treated differently than individuals without disabilities. With this act, Congress identified the full participation, inclusion and integration of people with disabilities into society as a national goal.
With increased access to employment opportunities and public services, though, discrimination does persist -- with obstacles to full participation in housing, transportation, education and access to public accommodations. Many of these obstacles are the result of ongoing ignorance and lack of public awareness. This has led to the disability culture movement.
The legislative changes represented the first phase in the quest for disability rights. The second is what disability expert Dr. Paul Longmore calls "a quest for collective identity," an exploration of what it means to have a disability in today's society.
Disability culture is aimed at fostering pride in one's disabilities, creating positive self-images, and building a society which not only accepts, but also celebrates, diversity. It calls for the collection of disability history, the establishment of disability studies in academia, and the support of artistic expressions of the disability experience through poetry, art, music and dance.
"Gradually, people with disabilities are finding their history and cultural legacy," says Carol Gill, a psychologist who has studied disability culture at length. "They are seeking support and validation in the community -- the family -- of other disabled people."
U.S. Society & Values
USIA Electronic Journal, Vol. 4, No. 1, January 1999