Black History Month: Celebrating Black Disability Rights Activists
February is Black History Month. This special month traces its beginnings to 1926 when Carter G. Woodson organized the very first Negro History Week to draw attention to Black Americans’ contributions to U.S. history. The concept gained immediate popularity and was later expanded to a month. For this year’s Black History Month the Washington State Law Library recognizes four Black Americans who made significant contributions to the disability rights movement.
Independent Living Movement
Two important Black figures in the Independent Living Movement were separated by decades in their activism. The movement, which is part of the larger disability rights movement, drew much of its inspiration from the deinstitutionalization and civil rights movements, gaining steam in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Donald Galloway*, who was blinded as a result of an accident in his teen years, noted that the movement was not very inclusive of disabled persons of color. He used his position as director of services for the blind and, briefly, as a board member at the highly influential Berkeley Center for Independent Living to bring attention to the problem of inclusivity in the movement, encouraging the Center to make connections in the larger Black community in Oakland, including the Black Panthers. He would go on to “[s]uccessfully challeng[e] discriminatory laws that barred people with disabilities from serving as employees in the United States Foreign Service” and to win a case against the Washington D.C. Superior Court for its policy to automatically exclude blind jurors from service.
Lois Curtis, a party in the 1999 landmark Supreme Court Case, Olmstead v. L. C., 527 US 581 (1999), was one of two women with mental disabilities living in psychiatric isolation in a state hospital who sued the state of Georgia. The state refused to provide financial assistance to the women if moved into a community treatment setting, despite recommendations by their care teams to do so. The Court ruled that “the ADA required the placement of patients with mental disabilities in ‘integrated settings’ when they are medically cleared for such settings, they themselves express a desire for such settings, and the resources for such a transfer are available.” Lois Curtis lived in the Georgia Regional Hospital from age 11 to 29, and was able to finally live independently after winning her court fight. The case that bears her initials is considered one of the most important milestones in the Independent Living Movement.
The 504 Sit-In
The 1977 Section 504 Sit-In was a major event on the road to expanding rights for the disabled. It was the longest non-violent occupation of a federal building in U.S. history. Approximately 150 disability rights activists occupied San Francisco’s regional offices of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare for 26 days to protest the federal government’s failure to enact regulations enforcing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The act prohibits federally funded programs from discriminating against persons based on their disability.
Participants considered 24 year old student Dennis Billups* the spiritual backbone of the sit-in. Billups and his twin sister were blinded shortly after birth from oxygen treatment that was meant to help with their premature birth. Raised in the Catholic tradition, Billups nevertheless began studying meditation when he was 9 years old and had an interest in Asian spiritualism. From the very first day of the sit-in, which he attended at his twin’s urging, Billups led chants and kept the activists’ spirits up. Of the experience he said, “I went around the building, sometimes all night, doing cheering, doing counselling, doing listening, doing debating, that kind of stuff. I had to keep people up. I think that’s what I saw as my greatest gift: that I brought in the universal aspect with the meditation and spiritualism that kept a lot of stuff together.” The activists succeeded in their bid to force the government’s hand and Section 504 regulations were signed on April 28, 1977.
Scholarship that Paved the Way for Stronger Protections for the Disabled
Dr. Sylvia Walker*, founder of the Howard University Center for Disability and Socioeconomic Policy Studies and director of the university’s Training Center for Access to Rehabilitation and Economic Opportunity, was determined to get the education that society at large didn’t expect of someone who was born blind in 1937. She received four degrees and put them to use at Howard University studying the unique needs of underserved disabled populations. She also focused her research on access to vocational rehabilitation services for disabled persons of color.
Dr. Walker’s scholarship directly contributed to the development of what would become the Americans with Disabilities Act. In fact, her reputation earned her a seat in 1988 on the Congressional Task Force on the Rights and Empowerment of Americans with Disabilities which studied the state of disability rights and recommended the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (Donald Galloway also served on the Task Force). She also served as vice chair of the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities under President Clinton.
In his January 31st Proclamation on National Black History Month President Biden wrote, “National Black History Month serves as both a celebration and a powerful reminder that Black history is American history, Black culture is American culture, and Black stories are essential to the ongoing story of America — our faults, our struggles, our progress, and our aspirations.” Donald Galloway, Lois Curtis, Dennis Billups, and Dr. Sylvia Walker — their disability rights stories are America’s disability rights stories. (SC)
*We were unable to verify permissions for photos of these individuals. Please find photos at the links provided within this post.
