PDF version. The disability rights movement came to fruition in the s after significant groundwork was laid by numerous individuals from around the country. All of those people in all of those places were reacting to one common issue — people with disabilities have the right to experience life in the same manner, and to the same degree as Americans without disabilities.
Building on the growing civil rights movement, people with disabilities began demanding access to education, services and lifestyles that others enjoyed. This is just one perspective on the important events, people and places that would bear the infant to become known as the disability rights movement.
It is important to note that the disability rights movement did not begin in a vacuum, it was one small part of the larger civil rights movement that was happening throughout America. The following are just a few of the most important events. This was very much a response to the number of disabled Vets returning from WWI.
Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act, establishing federal old-age benefits and grants to the states for assistance to blind individuals and disabled children. The act also extends the already existing vocational rehabilitation programs established by earlier legislation. The League of the Physically Handicapped is formed in New York City to protest discrimination against people with disabilities by federal relief programs.
The group organizes sit-ins, picket lines, and demonstrations, and it travels to Washington, D. It pushes for an end to job discrimination and lobbies for passage of legislation calling for a National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week, among other initiatives. This is a limited prototype for later federal disability assistance programs such as Social Security Disability Insurance. The Association for Retarded Children of the United States later renamed the Association for Retarded Citizens and then The ARC is founded in Minneapolis by representatives of various state association of parents of mentally retarded children.
