A Look at Where We Were, & Where We Need to Be

HAPPY 25 YEARSA.D.A. !!!

Table of Contents• Our Dark Beginnings…The Pendulum Shifts• Methods for Dealing with Disabilities throughout

the years• Three Models of Thought• The Disability Hierarchy• Activists of the Past (4 slides)• Vets Lead the way to Change• Question and Answer• The Big Three• Accomplishments Made when Groups Organize & Collaborate• The Disability Rights Movement (2 Slides)• Other Minority Rights Groups• The Disability Rights Movement (1 Slide)• Parents of Children• Established or Influenced (2 slides)• The A.D.A. has made Changes• Wrap-Up• References

Our Dark Beginnings … The Pendulum Shifts

It has been said that in primitive societies, people with disabilities were viewed as equals. Though they may have possessed limitations they were still able to contribute in some way, and always had a place within their communities.

Unfortunately as society moved toward the challenges of the industrial age many with disabilities experienced a wide range of cruel fates from being locked away and abused to being denied life-saving treatments and euthanized, as societal beliefs and values swung , like a pendulum, from tolerance and acceptance to one of fear and embarrassment.

Asylums & Institutions

Witch Hunts

Eugenics & Sterilization

Lobotomies Involuntary Experiments

Euthanasia & Denial of Life-saving Treatments

Methods of Dealing with Disabilities Throughout the Years

Three Models of ThoughtEnlightenment

Medical

Independent Living

• PWD seen as either gifts from God or Products of sin.

• PWD viewed as sources of inspiration or shame• Cures/miracles can only happens if sins are

repented• PWD viewed as broken and need to be fixed• PWD are incurable and therefore cannot function in

society as “normal” • Good quality of life will never be achieved because the

person presents with too many limitations

• PWD viewed as fine; Society is viewed as broken• Quality of life can be achieved through removal

of environmental and attitudinal barriers

Enlightened/Spiritual

Medical

Independent Living (patterned after the Minority Model)

The Disability Hierarchy The steps on this photo

represent levels of acceptance. Acceptance by society depends on 4 things:

• Level of Visibility• Level of Severity• Level of society’s

understanding• Societal values

Activists of the PastNot everyone from the past believed that people with disabilities were an embarrassment or worthless. Many educators for example, saw the their potential to reason and learn and some were willing to train using more practical, humane and conventional methods to help those with intellectual disabilities succeed in community life.

Others wrote of the mistreatment and abuses they personally have experienced in order to expose institutions and asylums, advocating for more humane treatment and ultimately, de-institutionalization.

Dorothea Dix1802–1887Educator

In 1841, while teaching Sunday school to women in jail, Dix noted the deplorable conditions that those with mental illness had to face. She fought to get that changed. Her success in doing so prompted her to visit jails throughout the state and eventually throughout the country, reporting her findings and managing to get a total of 32 hospitals erected around the country. In 1848 she asked Congress to grant over 12 million acres of land to be used for the mentally ill as well as the blind and deaf. Congress approved it but President Franklin Pierce vetoed the bill, stating that it wasn’t the federal government’s job to take care of the disabled.

Activists of the Past Continued

Thomas H. Gallaudet1787-1851Educator

Cardano was the first physician to recognize the ability of the deaf to reason.

Jean Marc Gaspard Itard1774-1838Physician

Itard spent 5 years training Victor the "Wild Boy of Aveyron," devising methods of instruction that are still influential.

Girolamo Cardano1501-1576Physician

The Founder of Gallaudet University established the first free American school for the deaf and hearing impaired in 1817, It later became known as the American School for the Deaf. Gallaudet was also an advocate of manual training in all schools. Vocational education was added to his school's curriculum in 1822.

Edouard Seguin 1812-1880Educator

In 1832, The Perkins School for the Blind is opened in Boston, by Howe, who became the country's leading expert on educating the disabled. In 1848, He establishes the Massachusetts School for Intellectually Impaired Children and Youth, one of the first of its kind in the United States.

Samuel Gridley Howe1801-1876Educator

In 1839, Seguin opened the first school for the severely retarded in France. His methods for educating mentally disabled children by using sensory training became famous throughout the world. In 1850 Seguin immigrated to the United States and established other teaching centers that utilized his methods.

Activists of the Past Continued

Elizabeth Packard1816-1897Author & Advocate

The Prisoners' Hidden Life or Insane Asylums Unveiled. Chicago: Published by Packard in 1868.Written as an expose on insane asylums in the 19th century, Packardadvocates for sweeping changes in the institutional system. Institutionalized herself, the author offers a first-hand account from inside the insane asylum.

Clifford Beers1876 - 1943Author & Advocate

In 1908, Beers publishes his autobiography, A Mind That Found Itself, advocating for change in mental institutions. A year after the publication, the National Committee for Mental Hygiene is formed to advocate for changes to the mental health system. In 1909, Beer founds the National Committee for Mental Hygiene.

Vets Lead the Way Toward Change

• Until the end of the civil war back in the late 1800s. Society did not consider providing for people with disabilities

• But with so many soldiers returning home severely wounded it became clear that Medicine needed to become more advanced and society could not ignore the needs of those who were once able to fight for their country. As such, the first hospitals for vets were established and congress made it possible for Vets to receive some form of monetary compensation by giving them at least 50% of their pensions.

• In 1918 WWI Veteran’s were the first to benefit from the Smith-Fess Act: an act geared toward providing vocational guidance and training to obtain jobs in the community.

• Thanks to Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, by the end of the 2nd World War, Veterans and others with disabilities could receive Social Security. But this was not enough.

Question:“How do you think Veterans and

other people with disabilities managed to deal with the day-to-

day challenges of living independently?”

“They start to organize and

fight !”

Answer:

The Big Three

Edward Roberts1939 - 1995

Judith Heumann1947 – Still Alive &

Kicking

Justin Dart Jr.1930 - 2002

Though there were 3 very prominent figures who stood out in the fight for equal rights, it must be mentioned that they were just a few, from the many people out

there who played a strong role by letter writing, organizing, making phone calls and marching and

protesting.

Accomplishments Made when Groups Organize & Collaborate

• De-Institutionalization• Accessible Transportation for all• Equal access to education via the

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

• Equal access to telecommunication for all

For more facts and details refer to your timelines

History of the Disabled Rights Movement – Edward Roberts

Edward Roberts

• In 1962 Ed. Roberts stepped foot in Berkley University.

• With Ed’s help a minority drop-out prevention Mentoring Program was established for Students with disabilities.

• In 1967, through Ed Roberts, the first Center for Independent Living got started in Berkley.

• By 1972 Centers for Independent Living Became incorporated

History of the Disabled Rights Movement - Judith E. Heumann

• Judy Heumann from New York was originally going to become a speech therapist but was denied by the Board of Education, as she was seen as an insurance Liability

• In 1970 Heumann and several friends with disabilities founded Disabled in Action, an organization set to securing the protection of people with disabilities under civil rights laws

• She organized the sit-ins at the U.S. Department of Health Education, and Welfare offices in San Francisco resulting in HEW Secretary Joseph Califano signing the Rehabilitation Act's Section 504 regulations• Disabled in Action is founded in New York City by Judith Heumann, after her successful employment discrimination suit against the city's public school system. With chapters in several other cities, it organizes demonstrations and files litigation on behalf of disability rights.

• As a legislative assistant to the chairperson of the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, in 1974 she helped develop legislation that became the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. An early leader in the Independent Living Movement.

• She moved to Berkley in 1975 and became Deputy Director of it’s CIL and later co-founded the World institute on Disability along with Ed Roberts and Joan Leon.

Other Minority Rights Groups• The 1960’s was a time for lots

of protest. Disability Rights leaders like Heumann and Roberts looked to other minority rights groups for guidance on how to get their voices heard.

• These groups provided the example of organizing and that strength and power lies in numbers

• Demonstrator protests were for the most part, peaceful BUT persistent with mass media exposure.

History of the Disabled Rights Movement – Justin Dart Jr.

Among his Accomplishments:• Known as the father of the A.D.A. and the

Godfather of the Disability Rights Movement.

• He was present at the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act on July 26, 1990.

• In 1998 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

• In 1989 Dart was appointed to chair the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities. Once there, Dart quickly shifted the focus of the committee from urging businesses to hire the handicapped, to advocating for full civil rights of People with Disabilities.

• In 1986 he was assigned to head the Rehabilitation Services Administration

Parents of Children with Disabilities Take a Stand

As everyone is aware, parents are every child’s first teacher. This is especially true when the child has, or develops a disability. Children like Ed Roberts learned through example. Zona Roberts fought hard to keep her son in school during the first years of Ed’s having Polio. Without parents who accept disability as a part of life, children, and society in general will continue to view disability negatively.

As time moved forward parents became determined to see that their children with disabilities enjoy the same rights and privileges as their able-bodied counterparts. Through them, many laws and organizations sprouted up.

Zona Roberts Back in 2013 at Berkley University

Established & Influenced by Parents1949 - The National Foundation for Cerebral Palsy is chartered by

representatives of various groups of parents of children with cerebral palsy. Renamed the United Cerebral Palsy Associations, Inc., in 1950, it becomes a major force in the parents' movement of the 1950s and thereafter.1950 – The Muscular Dystrophy Association was formed. The Association for Retarded Children of the U.S. (The Arc) is founded in Minneapolis by representatives of various state association of parents of mentally retarded children.1966 – The Federal Bureau for the Handicapped was formed to serve the educational needs of disabled children.1970 - The above mentioned Bureau began providing funds for the training of Special Ed Teachers and for making separate materials for classes The Developmental Disabilities Services and Facilities Construction Amendments are passed. They contain the first legal definition of developmental disabilities and authorize grants for services and facilities for the rehabilitation of people with developmental disabilities and state "DD Councils.“

Established & Influenced by Parents1972 – District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in

PARC v. Pennsylvania, strikes down various state laws used to exclude disabled children from the public schools. These decisions will be cited by advocates during the public hearings leading to passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975. PARC in particular sparks numerous other right-to-education lawsuits and inspires advocates to look to the courts for the expansion of disability rights.1975 - "The Education for All Handicapped Children Act," public law 94-142, was passed in 1975. This act allocated federal dollars to states and localities in order to provide education for children with disabilities. Included in the act were provisions for a free and appropriate education, individualized education programs with parental involvement, establishment of due process proceedings, and to provide an education in the least restrictive environment.

The A.D.A. has Made Changes But We Still Have a Ways to Go…

Not Enough Adults with Disabilities Pursuing HigherEducation

Approx. 77% of Adults with Disabilities are still Unemployed

State Government Funding will be Cut causing people with disabilities to lose their assistants and ultimately, their ability to live independently and be contributingMembers of their communities.

Youth with disabilities needing mentors to guide them and give them equal footing as their nondisabled peers

Wrap-UP: What all this means Evolving from the blood, sweat, & tears of those with disabilities and supporters throughout history, the Americans With Disabilities Act is a powerful document that has changed the lives of so many. But this act has its’ limits and more changes have to occur in order for there to be true equality.

People with disabilities are a largely untapped pool of talent, for the workforce, and as contributing resources to the community in general. Let’s work together to make our community accessible and prosperous.

Let’s keep that pendulum from swinging back into the darkness.

Reference ListThe Museum of Disability Historyhttp://disabilityhistoryweek.org/pages/timeline/?page=11

An Introduction to the Disability Rights Movementhttp://www.protectyourincome.com/education-center/an-introduction-to-the-disability-rights-movement

Encyclopedia of American Disability Historyhttp://www.fofweb.com/History/MainPrintPage.asp?iPin=EADH0676&DataType=AmericanHistory http://ncld-youth.info/index.php?id=61 National Coalition on Leadership & Disability

Wikkipedia Online Encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_disability_rights_in_the_United_States