One such person from the disability community was Ed Roberts. Roberts contracted polio as a teenager and relied on a respirator to breathe. He is known as the "Father of Independent Living" because he founded the first Independent Living Center in Berkeley in the 1970s. He was the first student with significant disabilities to attend the University of California at Berkeley and later founded the Physically Disabled Students Program on campus.
In 1975, he was named the director of the California Department of Rehabilitation and was instrumental in the implementation of regulations that established civil rights for people with disabilities. Roberts died in 1995. On Jan. 23, we will celebrate our first "Ed Roberts Day" in California. Recently, U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, introduced House Resolution 1759 to declare the support of Congress for a national "Ed Roberts Day." The resolution was co-sponsored by Central Coast Congressman Sam Farr, D-Carmel, who has been a strong supporter of people with disabilities in our community.
Roberts was more than an important figure in disability history. He did not find his way into this column because of his impressive resumé. For me, his legacy will be the way he approached his life and his philosophy toward other people with disabilities. When he was told he could not attend UC Berkeley, he fought until he was allowed to do it anyway. When no one expected him to marry and have a child, he did those things anyway. When very few people with disabilities worked, he found leadership positions and excelled anyway. He taught other people with disabilities that they had a right to make choices for themselves instead of having them made for them. His slogan, "Nothing About Us, Without Us" is a core value of the disability-rights field today. On Jan. 23, take a moment to recognize Robert's legacy. As people with disabilities, we have all been told what we can't do, but perhaps, like Ed, you can just do it anyway.In many ways, Ed Roberts parallels that of many those who acquire a traumatic brain injury and are left with a drastic change in how they will continue to live and navigate their lives. Ed Roberts life and legacy was essential not only to the disability movement of the past, and as he would put it, we are still "working toward our preferred future."
Denika Boardman is the systems change coordinator for Central Coast Center for Independent Living. She writes a monthly column on "Disability Awareness" that appears in Opinion. Salute trailblazer Roberts on Jan. 23
By Denika Boardman • Disability Awareness • January 4, 2011
For a person with a disability, it can be difficult to find role models or leaders to look up to. I think that's why having some understanding of disability history is so important. People look up to other people whom they know have had similar experiences — people they can relate to; people who have transcended their situation in life and taught society lessons that it needed to learn.
