SubscribeIn the 1970's we made a very strategic choice as the disability rights movement. I opposed it. But then, I had only been in a wheelchair less than two years and only ran a small project at the University of Washington. I was not in a position to win the rest of the country over to my position. After all, they we not licensed ski instructors who regularly spent weeks at a time hiking and camping in my "backyard" places that are only now well-known.
In the 1970's, long before the Americans with Disabilities Act ADA) and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), we decided not to fight for outdoor accessibility. We judged, correctly as I later became convinced, that to do so would diminish our chances to win other urban-based accessibility battles.
The struggle has been long, exhausting - but exhilarating - and is nowhere near won.
Even so I'd like to take this moment along the trail to full social inclusion of people with disabilities to celebrate - in art - the truth that we will never give up!
