0:02

Happy Saturday. Today is the

0:04

International Day of Persons with Disabilities,

0:06

which is an observance that the United Nations

0:09

first established in so

0:12

today's episode draws from disability

0:14

history. It's on Ed Roberts and the

0:16

Independent Living movement that is

0:18

a movement focused on collective self

0:20

advocacy by and four disabled

0:22

people with a goal of getting people to

0:24

support they needed to live, work, and

0:27

go to school within the greater community

0:29

rather than segregated away from it. Some

0:32

of the other subjects that are touched on in

0:34

this episode include polio

0:37

and the five oh four sit Ends that took place

0:39

in nineteen seventy seven. Previous

0:41

Hosts episode on Polio was a

0:43

Saturday classic recently in September,

0:46

and the five oh four sit Ends were part of an

0:48

installment of six Impossible episodes

0:50

that came out on February of

0:54

This episode originally came out on January.

0:58

Enjoy Welcome

1:03

to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production

1:05

of I Heart Radio.

1:13

Hello, and Welcome to the podcast.

1:15

I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm

1:17

Holly Fry. Today's podcast

1:20

is a listener suggestion and I'm pretty sure it was a

1:22

comment somebody left us on our Facebook

1:24

page. I really thought I had written down

1:26

the name of the person who sent it in.

1:29

Apparently I didn't, And I feel really bad about

1:31

that because it was such a great suggestion

1:34

that was definitely from that one specific

1:36

person. It's not a suggestion I think we've gotten

1:38

other times. Besides that, by

1:42

absolute total coincidence. It was

1:44

also a Google doodle literally

1:46

yesterday. In terms of when we

1:48

are recording this podcast, uh,

1:51

it is about disability rights activist

1:53

ed Roberts, who was known as the father of the

1:56

independent Living movement. That's

1:58

a movement for and by

2:00

people with disabilities which combines

2:02

advocacy and resources and education

2:05

all towards the goal of living independently

2:07

and fully integrated with

2:09

abled society. And with one

2:11

quick heads up today there's

2:14

a brief part of today's episode while

2:17

we are discussing roberts eighteen month

2:19

hospitalization with polio, that

2:21

might be triggering for people with depression or with

2:23

eating disorders, and if that applies to you when

2:26

we get to that part of the story, you might want to

2:28

skip ahead about thirty seconds, starting

2:30

with our mention of that eighteen month

2:32

hospital stay. Edward

2:36

Verne Roberts was born on January

2:38

twenty, nineteen thirty nine, in San

2:40

Mateo, California, to Zona

2:42

and Verne Roberts and at the age of

2:45

fourteen, he contracted polio, which

2:47

is a viral disease that primarily

2:49

affects children under the age of five. In

2:52

addition to symptoms such as fever, headache,

2:55

and vomiting, polio also attacks

2:57

the nervous system and causes paralysis.

3:00

Because of its typically young patients and

3:02

the way the disease progresses, it has

3:04

also been known by the name infantile paralysis.

3:08

Polio still exists today. There's

3:10

no cure for it, but it can be prevented by

3:12

a vaccine. The first polio

3:14

vaccines were introduced in nineteen fifty

3:16

five, which was about two years after Roberts

3:18

contracted the disease, and if you're

3:20

interested, there is a whole podcast on

3:23

the history of polio and its vaccines

3:25

in our archive from past hosts

3:27

Sarah and Babuina. In many

3:30

cases of polio, the diseases progression

3:32

affects a person's ability to breathe.

3:35

Until this stage of

3:37

the disease was usually fatal, but

3:39

that year the first version of the iron

3:42

lung was introduced. The iron

3:44

lung, which is the more colloquial name for

3:46

a tank respirator or a negative

3:48

pressure respirator, could keep

3:50

patients alive during this acute stage

3:52

of the disease. An

3:55

iron lung looks like a big metal

3:57

cylinder. It's big enough for a person's whole

3:59

body to fit into from the neck down. Typically,

4:02

there's a bed inside that can be slid

4:04

in and out of the cylinder, allowing the patient

4:07

to be removed and returned when necessary.

4:10

Windows and portholes on the sides

4:12

of the cylinder let caregivers touch the person

4:14

who's inside, adjust their bedding,

4:16

generally care for them while they are still

4:19

inside of the iron lung and

4:21

The iron lung works by alternately

4:23

lowering and raising pressure inside

4:25

the chamber. When the pressure is lowered,

4:28

air is drawn into the lungs through the patient's

4:30

nose and mouth, and when the pressure is raised

4:32

that air is pushed out, which both

4:34

forces the patient to exhale and

4:37

allows them to speak during the exhaled

4:39

breath, so for a person using

4:41

an iron lung, speech is usually timed

4:44

with the machine cycle of breathing. Today,

4:47

iron lungs have been almost completely

4:49

replaced by other respiration technologies.

4:52

As of fourteen, there were only about

4:54

ten of them still in use in the world,

4:57

and those were mostly with people who

4:59

had survived polio in childhood

5:01

very long ago. But during Robert's

5:04

early life they were the standard

5:06

of care and polio patients who couldn't

5:08

breathe on their own. In

5:10

many patients, the muscle weakness

5:12

and paralysis associated with polio

5:15

were temporary, as was the need

5:17

for an iron lung, but in about

5:19

one and two hundred patients, the paralytic

5:22

effects of polio are permanent. This

5:25

was the case for Ed Roberts. After

5:27

contracting polio in nineteen fifty three.

5:29

He was hospitalized for about eighteen

5:32

months. While in the hospital,

5:34

he was very ill, with a very high

5:36

fever and near total paralysis.

5:39

His mother asked his doctor whether he

5:41

would live, and the doctor's answer, which

5:44

was given where Ed could hear him, was

5:46

that she should hope that he didn't because

5:48

he would be, in the doctor's words, no

5:50

more than a vegetable. And

5:53

for a while Roberts decided he

5:55

didn't want to live. He was being

5:57

continually looked after by nurses and

6:00

the only thing in his life that he had control over

6:02

was whether to eat and so he stopped.

6:05

His weight dropped to about fifty

6:07

pounds, down from approximately

6:10

a hundred and twenty. But

6:12

after the last nurse left, the

6:14

medical staff had basically decided that the

6:17

end was near for him. As he

6:19

would describe later in his life, he decided

6:21

that he did want to live. He started

6:24

eating again. He was eventually able to return

6:26

home. His family had moved

6:28

into a different house when it had fewer

6:30

stairs and could accommodate this eight

6:33

hundred pound iron lung, and

6:35

from there he returned to school, calling into

6:37

classes at Burlingame High by phone. Prior

6:40

to contracting polio, Roberts had wanted

6:42

to be a professional baseball player, and

6:44

he hadn't been particularly interested in

6:47

schoolwork, but that changed after his

6:49

illness. He was about two years

6:51

behind because of his lengthy hospital stay,

6:53

but he dedicated himself to his schoolwork

6:56

and he became an excellent student. At

6:58

this point, people with apparent disabilities

7:01

weren't really seen all that often in

7:03

American society. Many were

7:05

placed in institutions or were cared

7:07

for at home, but never really got out of the house.

7:10

But as Ed's senior year of high school approached,

7:13

his mother and his social worker insisted that

7:15

he not spent his whole life in his room.

7:18

They arranged for him to attend some of

7:20

his senior year classes, at least some

7:22

of them in person in a wheelchair. Roberts

7:25

had learned a method of breathing called glossop

7:28

angel breathing, also known as frog

7:30

breathing, and this is sort of like swallowing

7:33

air, so basically using the muscles

7:35

of his mouth and throat to force air into

7:37

his lungs. While he still

7:39

needed the iron lung for much of the time, especially

7:42

while he was asleep, he was able

7:44

to live outside of it for periods of time.

7:47

He was worried about being stared at, and

7:49

people did stare at him, but he

7:52

quickly realized that the people staring

7:54

weren't the ones who were really uncomfortable

7:56

with with his being there. People who

7:58

were really uncomfortable avoided

8:01

looking at him, so he decided

8:03

that the ones who were staring at him were the people who were

8:05

interested and curious. So he

8:07

decided to approach it as though they were

8:09

staring at him because he was a famous person

8:12

and not because he was disabled. And

8:15

this approach to other people's reactions

8:17

to him really set the stage for the man

8:19

that Edward Roberts would become throughout

8:22

his life. The people who knew and worked with him

8:24

remarked on how charismatic and ambitious

8:27

he was, a very funny, very

8:29

determined person, an adventurous

8:31

man who loved good food and good drinks

8:33

and good company and was absolutely

8:36

unafraid to demand accessibility and

8:38

equality and to do the things that people

8:40

told him would be impossible. Uh

8:44

through the wonderful work

8:46

of oral historians and documentary

8:48

filmmakers, there is a lot

8:50

of footage and oral history from

8:52

ed Roberts, and he is a character

8:56

like he Everyone over

8:59

and over marks on just having a big,

9:01

big personality and being very gregarious

9:03

and very funny. And so we will link to

9:05

a lot of those in our shore notes for the people who are

9:08

interested and learning more, but

9:10

for now. One of Ed's first experiences

9:13

with advocacy would play out while he was actually still

9:15

in high school, and we will talk about it after

9:17

a quick sponsor break.

9:30

Even though ed Roberts had good grades

9:32

in high school, when it was time for him to graduate,

9:34

the school's principle refused to let him.

9:37

The state required credits and physical education

9:39

and driver's d. He had neither

9:42

because neither class was accessible to him.

9:45

His mother's zona, who had experienced

9:47

in advocacy through her work as a labor

9:49

organizer, first took it up with the

9:51

school. The vice principle came

9:53

by their house and suggested that since Ed

9:56

hadn't done the required coursework, his

9:58

diploma would be a quote CHIE one

10:00

and he should stay an extra year to make

10:02

up for it. And the family, of course

10:05

declined this offer. It was not

10:07

really reasonable to say, because he didn't take PE

10:09

and drivers that you need a whole extra year

10:11

of high school zone and then

10:13

took the matter to the school board, which ultimately

10:16

allowed physical rehabilitation

10:18

to account for his PE credits, and they waived

10:20

the requirement for Driver's ED, which,

10:24

uh, if you've ever done any kind of

10:26

of physical rehab it's

10:29

harder than most PE classes, Like

10:31

he should have gotten extra credit for that. Uh,

10:34

so his high school diploma received. Roberts

10:36

attended his local community college,

10:38

the College of San Mateo, from nineteen

10:41

fifty nine to nineteen sixty two, and

10:43

he at first planned to become a technical writer.

10:46

He was a good writer and he knew how to dictate

10:48

documents, so it seemed like a good way to be

10:50

able to earn a living, but after

10:52

taking a class in government, he became very

10:55

interested in political science. Roberts

10:58

had originally planned to transfer from the

11:00

College of San Mateo to u c l A, and

11:02

that was a campus that was already wheelchair accessible,

11:05

in part because of a program for World War

11:07

Two veterans that was already in place at the school,

11:09

but Ed's advisor at College of San Mateo,

11:12

Dean Worth, recommended the University

11:14

of California at Berkeley for the strength

11:17

of its political science program.

11:19

Ed's brother Ron, was going to UC Berkeley,

11:21

and Ed knew from his visits there that the campus

11:23

was not particularly accessible, but even

11:26

though Berkeley's lack of accessibility

11:28

made it a list practical choice, it was definitely

11:31

the stronger option for him in terms of academics.

11:35

Ed went to the California Department of Rehabilitation

11:38

for financial help with school, something

11:40

it had made available to other disabled

11:42

students. They gave him a personality

11:45

test and later told him that it scored

11:47

him as being very aggressive, something

11:50

that Roberts suggested, given his disability,

11:52

should be seen as a positive and not a negative,

11:55

but the counselor assigned to him at the Department

11:57

of Rehabilitation denied his request

12:00

or financial aid on the grounds that

12:02

he was not employable, and

12:04

then when you See Berkeley learned about

12:06

his disability, it tried to resend his acceptance

12:09

to the university. But similarly

12:12

to how he'd had his mother's support and getting

12:14

his high school to allow him to graduate, here,

12:16

he had the support of the staff at the College

12:18

of San Mateo, including gene Worth, as

12:21

well as the school's president and Dean of students

12:24

uh and they backed his efforts to enroll at

12:26

you See Berkeley. They pointed to his

12:28

strong academic record as evidence

12:30

that he had the right to continue his education

12:32

at the school with the best academic program

12:35

that he wanted to study, and that he shouldn't

12:37

be forced to go elsewhere just to be on

12:39

a campus that was already accessible. You

12:42

See Berkeley, arguing that there was nowhere

12:44

on campus to how someone who used an

12:46

iron lung, and worried about Robert's

12:48

medical needs and the risk that something

12:50

could happen to him while he was at the school,

12:53

again said no. This

12:56

time, Roberts and his advocates went

12:58

to the newspaper You See Berkeley

13:01

eventually relented Robert's

13:04

plan to work around you See Berkeley's

13:06

lack of wheelchair accessibility by using

13:08

a wheelchair when he could, but being

13:10

carried into places like classroom buildings

13:12

or cafeterias that had stairs.

13:15

But there was still the real issue of having nowhere

13:17

in student housing that could accommodate an

13:19

eight hundred pound iron lung, and

13:22

eventually the decision was made to house

13:24

him in a wing of you See Berkeley's Cowl

13:26

Hospital, and he moved in in nineteen

13:29

sixty two. For

13:31

that first year, it was a really lonely

13:34

existence. Roberts was the only student

13:36

being housed full time in the hospital,

13:39

and his primary company was an attendant

13:41

that was paid for by state funds from

13:43

a program to provide services for people

13:45

with disabilities. Sometimes

13:47

his friends or his brother Ron helped out as

13:49

well, but at night he was basically

13:52

being treated as a patient and not a

13:54

student. At the same time,

13:56

though in typical college fashion,

13:58

he had a lot more freedom and independence

14:00

than he had had at home. He could

14:03

breathe on his own outside of the iron lung long

14:05

enough to go to class, go have a drink,

14:07

and even to go on dates. It

14:09

was that last one that prompted Roberts to try

14:11

to find a way to make a power wheelchair,

14:14

which was at this point a relatively new technology

14:17

work for him. Today

14:19

there are a lot more options for controlling

14:21

power wheelchairs, including head and mouth

14:23

controls, but at the time, hand controls

14:26

were really the only one in existence.

14:29

For this reason, Roberts threehab counselors

14:31

had told him that he wouldn't ever be able to use one.

14:33

He only had the use of two fingers

14:36

on his left hand, and not in a way

14:38

that could operate those controls.

14:40

But Roberts, highly motivated

14:42

by a desire to be alone with his girlfriend,

14:45

figured out that with the controls simply turned

14:47

around, he could operate the power wheelchair

14:50

by pulling with his two fingers rather

14:52

than pushing on them as they were designed

14:54

to be used. In nine Roberts

14:57

was no longer the only student living in Cowell

14:59

hospit Battle. He was joined by

15:01

John Hessler, who had broken his neck in

15:03

a diving accident, and soon

15:06

Cowel Hospital was home to other students

15:08

with similar disabilities as well. By

15:10

nineteen sixty seven, at which point Roberts

15:13

had finished a bachelor's and the Masters,

15:15

and had moved on to PhD work in political

15:17

science. There were about twelve students

15:19

living in Cowel Hospital who called themselves

15:22

the Rolling Quads. They formed

15:24

a support network and advocacy group,

15:26

coming up with ideas and strategies for

15:28

better accessibility both on and off

15:31

campus. You

15:33

see, Berkeley was a hotbed of

15:35

political activism, including

15:37

protests for women's rights, free

15:40

speech, and against the Vietnam War. Berkeley

15:43

is one of the campuses that shows up

15:45

again and again in coverage about student

15:47

protests, some of them uh

15:50

quite radical, and this was true for

15:52

the Rolling Quads as well. When

15:54

the program administrators tried to cut

15:56

funding for students who weren't completing their

15:59

coursework fast and the Rolling Quads

16:01

petitioned and then went to the media on

16:03

the grounds that the same standards were

16:05

not being applied to non disabled

16:07

students. Basically, the school was in a hurry

16:10

for the students with disabilities

16:12

to finish faster because it was more expensive

16:14

to house them, but that same measurement

16:16

was not being applied to other students who

16:19

were in more typical student housing. When

16:21

the city started refurbishing a shopping

16:24

center near the campus, eight of

16:26

the Rolling Quads went to a city council

16:28

meeting to demand that curb cuts

16:30

be included in the budget. They were

16:32

with the city devoting fifty thousand dollars a

16:34

year to making accessibility improvements

16:37

to city streets. The curb cut

16:39

is just that little slope that goes from the curb

16:41

level to the street level, which

16:44

today is completely standard, was

16:46

not standard at that point, and it meant

16:49

that, you know, if if you were using a wheelchair,

16:51

it was really hard for you to get from

16:55

like across the street. And when

16:57

they went to the city council, one of the arguments that

16:59

they got back, well, we don't need those, We never

17:01

see any people out in wheelchairs.

17:04

And they were like, well, yeah,

17:07

because it is because safe, we can't use

17:09

the sidewalks. It's

17:12

such like a jacked up logic.

17:14

I know. Uh.

17:17

As all of this was going on, Robert's

17:20

former counselor, back from the College

17:23

of San Mateo, Jean Worth, had been working

17:25

on a college readiness program for minority

17:27

students. And this was a program that was working toward

17:30

reducing high school dropout rates and preparing

17:32

minority students for college. Through peer

17:35

counseling, students who were at

17:37

risk for dropping out were paired with other students

17:39

who were their mentors who could help them

17:41

remove whatever obstacles were in the way

17:43

and keeping them from finishing school. Based

17:46

on the work that the Rolling Quads had been doing UH

17:49

and how much they had been able to advocate for themselves

17:51

and support one another, Roberts thought the same

17:54

model could be used for students

17:56

with disabilities. So Roberts

17:58

flew to Washington to help Worth write

18:00

a plan that included disability among

18:03

the minority students the program sought to

18:05

help, and he presented a grant

18:07

proposal to the Department of Health, Education,

18:09

and Welfare to implement a peer support

18:11

program at UC Berkeley.

18:14

The department approved eighty one thousand dollars

18:16

in funding. With this

18:18

grant, Roberts and the Rolling Quads started

18:20

the Physically Disabled Students Program

18:23

or PDSP. The p DSP

18:25

was run by and for students

18:27

with disabilities, and it sought to provide attendance,

18:30

wheelchair repair, and resources

18:32

for accessible housing, including the

18:34

relocation out of Cowell Hospital

18:37

into actual accessible housing

18:40

rather than a hospital ward. Even

18:42

though it was only meant to be a

18:44

student program, it was so successful that

18:46

people in the greater community began to rely

18:48

on it really quickly. Something that was technically

18:51

against the rules, but the p DSP was

18:53

just not really willing to turn people

18:55

away. It was grounded

18:58

in the self advocacy and the folk us

19:00

on self determination that became the hallmarks

19:02

of the independent living movement. Much

19:06

of the disability advocacy before this

19:08

point had been by and on behalf of

19:10

caregivers, not of people with

19:12

disabilities themselves. It was

19:14

often paternalistic, and it approached people

19:16

with disabilities as a population to be pitied

19:19

and looked after, not as autonomous

19:21

human beings capable of making

19:23

their own decisions. Although there

19:25

are still divisions between self advocacy

19:28

and caregiver advocacy today, the

19:30

independent living movement changed that direction

19:33

entirely. You will definitely

19:35

see huge divisions especially

19:38

among like uh parents

19:41

of children with disabilities

19:43

and then those adults who have grown

19:45

up and are able to advocate for themselves.

19:47

A lot of times very different

19:49

needs and opinions. But

19:51

before this movement really started,

19:54

the only voice was the

19:57

more paternalistic I need

19:59

to look after you. Here's how I'm

20:01

going to fix your problem kind of voice. Soon,

20:05

the p DSPs work made a more official

20:07

move off of campus, rather than just seeing

20:09

to the needs of community of the community, even though

20:11

it was really a student program, and we will talk about that

20:13

after another quick sponsor break.

20:27

As more students with more types of disabilities

20:29

came to Berkeley's Physically Disabled Students

20:32

Program for help, the p DSP broadened

20:34

its focus from primarily wheelchair

20:36

users to include, for example, providing

20:39

rail readers for blind students. And

20:41

as we noted before the break, the p DSP didn't

20:44

want to turn away anyone who needed help, regardless

20:46

of whether they actually went to Berkeley or not,

20:48

so almost immediately the p DSP

20:51

staff of nine full and part

20:53

time counselors was just completely overwhelmed.

20:56

The result was that in Robert

21:00

and the Physically Disabled Students Program

21:02

launched the Center for Independent Living.

21:05

It followed the same model as the PDSP,

21:07

an organization run by and for people

21:10

with disabilities, incorporating a broad

21:12

range of disabilities and working towards

21:14

the goal of completely integrating people

21:16

with disabilities into the greater community.

21:19

The by laws stipulated that at least fifty

21:21

one of the staff and board had

21:24

to be people with disabilities. While

21:26

the p DSP had been launched by federal

21:28

grant money, the Center for Independent Living

21:30

was funded by whatever money its founders

21:32

could scrape together, including donations,

21:35

occasional grant money, and ten percent of the

21:37

pot at some of the founders

21:40

periodic poker games. And

21:42

after a brief time away from Berkeley teaching

21:44

community organizing at an all black

21:46

school, Roberts returned to

21:49

the Center for Independent Living in nineteen

21:51

seventy four. As its director, he

21:53

began more explicitly approaching his disability

21:56

rights advocacy in terms of civil rights.

21:59

Other centers for Independent Living soon

22:01

opened in other states, following the same

22:03

model for self advocacy, self

22:05

determination, integration, and quality

22:07

of life. By the nineteen eighties,

22:09

there were more than three hundred of these centers

22:12

around the United States. Roberts

22:14

stayed and his in his role at the Center for Independent

22:17

Living for about eighteen months until nineteen

22:19

seventy five, when California Governor Jerry

22:21

Brown came for a tour. After

22:24

seeing the work that Roberts was doing, he offered

22:26

him a new position, director

22:28

of the state's Department of Rehabilitation. This

22:31

was the same department that had told Roberts

22:33

he was unemployable when he was looking for financial

22:36

help to go to UC Berkeley and

22:39

Roberts would work as the director of the state Department

22:41

of Rehabilitation for the next nine years.

22:44

During that time, he would radically shift the

22:46

department's direction and the way that it offered

22:48

services. The department's

22:50

federal funding was based on how many people

22:53

it was able to place into jobs, so

22:55

for years it had focused most of its attention

22:57

on the people whose disabilities were easiest

23:00

to accommodate in a workplace setting, and

23:03

that was why it had written Roberts off as

23:05

unemployable. Instead,

23:07

Roberts added day to day support for a

23:10

person's independent quality of life to

23:12

the Department of Rehabilitation's roster of duties,

23:14

as well as advocacy for non discrimination

23:17

policies other things that were

23:19

basically meant to take a broader, more

23:21

holistic scope to what the department was doing.

23:24

The department did see a fair amount of turnover

23:26

as employees resisted the shift in direction

23:29

and in some cases were let

23:31

go because they did not agree with the shift in

23:33

direction, and the debate on

23:35

how much to continue to focus on

23:37

more easy to place jobs for the

23:39

sake of federal funding continued, and really

23:41

in a lot of places continued still today

23:44

and in the midst of all of this UH,

23:46

in those same years, Robert got married and

23:48

he and his wife Catherine also had a son

23:50

named Lee. Also

23:53

during these same year's very busy collection

23:55

of years was a lengthy

23:58

governmental back and forth related to what's

24:00

known as Section five oh four. This

24:02

is a non discrimination clause and the Rehabilitation

24:04

Act of nineteen seventy three UH.

24:07

Section five oh four reads quote, no

24:09

otherwise qualified handicapped

24:11

individual in the United States shall,

24:14

solely on the basis of his handicap,

24:16

be excluded from the participation, being

24:18

denied the benefits of, or be subjected

24:21

to discrimination under any program

24:23

or activity receiving federal financial

24:25

assistance. Section five

24:28

oh four was added to the Rehabilitation Act

24:30

almost unnoticed during the Nixon administration,

24:33

and the fight over it lasted into the administration

24:35

of Jimmy Carter, largely due to the financial

24:38

costs involved with making buildings

24:40

and programs accessible and fears

24:43

about its scope being too broad. A

24:46

four year delay in writing regulations

24:48

to actually implement section five oh four

24:51

ultimately led to an enormous takeover

24:53

of the Regional Health, Education and Welfare

24:55

Building in San Francisco in nineteen

24:58

seventy seven, one or and ized

25:00

by Judy Hyman, who had been paralyzed

25:02

after contracting polio as a baby.

25:05

Roberts made several visits to this sit in,

25:07

which was ultimately successful, prompting

25:10

Carter's Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare

25:12

to finally sign off on the necessary regulations

25:15

also in nineteen seventy seven. Section

25:17

five oh four would eventually lead into

25:19

the Americans with Disabilities Act in nine ed

25:23

Roberts continued to be a strident advocate

25:26

for disability rights and independent living

25:28

for the rest of his life, and this included

25:30

travel all over the world, which itself

25:32

involved advocating for accessible airports

25:35

and airplanes. He helped found

25:37

the World Institute on Disability in nineteen

25:39

eighty three, and he was awarded a MacArthur

25:42

Foundation grant in nineteen eighty

25:44

four. He served on the board

25:46

of directors of numerous disability

25:48

rights organizations while also serving

25:50

as the president of the World Institute of Disability

25:53

until until his death from cardiac arrest

25:55

on March fourteenth of nineteen five

25:58

at the age of fifty six. His

26:00

wheelchair is now part of the Smithsonian

26:02

Collection. He was inducted

26:05

into the California Hall of Fame in eleven

26:08

and the United States House of Representatives declared

26:10

at January at

26:12

Roberts to day. Also January

26:16

is the day that he was a Google doodle. Coincidentally,

26:20

as I was like, that was the day I finished

26:22

writing this podcast. Good

26:25

accidental timing, Tracy Well,

26:27

and as I was doing the research, I was like, oh,

26:29

his birthday's coming up, and

26:31

then there was the Google doodle

26:34

today. The nonprofit Ed Roberts Campus,

26:36

a fully accessible campus and events based

26:38

in Berkeley, is also named

26:41

for him. That

26:43

is had Roberts. He

26:45

really did so much to

26:47

shift the way that people thought about disability

26:50

and to shift the way that people regarded

26:52

people with disabilities. Uh,

26:55

not at all to suggest that everything

26:57

is perfect now. I mean basically,

27:00

everybody I know who is living with a disability,

27:02

especially if it is not

27:04

something that is easily

27:07

accommodated, faces

27:09

a basically continual uphill battle

27:12

to get services and basic

27:16

uh equipment and care. But

27:20

going from nothing two

27:24

to that, like it was a huge, a huge

27:26

deal. So I think we definitely

27:28

owe a lot to Ed Roberts. Heany

27:36

so much for joining us on this Saturday.

27:38

Since this episode is out of the archive. If

27:40

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