Disability advocates across the country are mobilizing to help create understanding and celebrate the history of individuals with disabilities! Since West Virginia passed the first…
The Museum of disABILITY History
1985
New York State holds the first conference for self-advocates with developmental disabilities.
1986
Protection and Advocacy for Mentally Ill Individuals Act passed. The Act provides protections from abuse and neglect for people with mental illness and as well as advocates for those patients rights.
Air Carrier Access Act passed. The act forbids the discrimination of people with disabilities regarding air travel and provides provisions on access and accommodations.
Bernard Carabello founded the Self-Advocacy Association of New York State.
1988
Students at Gallaudet University protest for the selection of a deaf University president. Irving King Jordan is eventually appointed as the first deaf president of the university.
Civil Rights Restoration Act
"It also specifies that an institution which receives federal financial assistance is prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability or age in a program or activity which does not directly benefit from such assistance."
1989
Original ADA legislation introduced into Congress and advocacy groups advocate for its passage nationwide.
Mouth: The Voice of Disability Rights begins publication. Rochester, NY.
1990
ADAPT organizes a support demonstration for the passage of the ADA. They occupy the capital rotunda and many are arrested.
President George Bush signs the ADA on July 26. The American with Disabilities Act was a wide-sweeping civil rights legislation giving protections to individuals with disabilities. Equal opportunity was established for employment, transportation, telecommunications, public accommodations and the state and federal government's services.
1991
Jerry's Orphans 1st annual protest of Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethon.
Self Advocates Becoming Empowered was founded in 1991 during the Second North American People First Conference in Nashville, Tennessee.
1992
International Day of Disabled Persons established by UN to create awareness and understanding.
1995
American Association of People with Disabilities is founded in Washington, D.C. "The largest national nonprofit cross-disability member organization in the United States, dedicated to ensuring economic self-sufficiency and political empowerment for the more than 56 million Americans with disabilities."
1999
Supreme Court rules on Olmstead v. L.C. and E.W. stating that the ADA requires public agencies to provide services in the most integrated setting.
Citation:
Fleischer, Doris Zames and Frieda Zames. The Disability Rights Movement. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001.
Longmore, Paul K. Why I Burned My book and Other Essays on Disability. Philadelphia: Temple University, 2003.
Malhotra, Ravi. "The Politics of the Disability Rights Movements." New Politics, vol. 8, no.3, Summer 2001.
National Association of the Deaf. "Historical Timeline of the National Association of the Deaf."
Pelka, Fred. The ABC-CLIO Companion to The Disability Rights Movement. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 1997.
San Francisco State University Institute on Disability, Disability History Dateline.
Western New York Independent Living Project. "New York State Independent Living History Timeline."
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