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"As we get older, we realize that disability is just a part of life. Anyone can join our group at any point in life. In this way, the disability rights movement doesn't discriminate...."
Ed Roberts
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Member of the
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for more information, go to the
Special Needs Alliance Website
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ORGANIZATONAL HIGHLIGHT
The Ed Roberts Campus mission is to ensure that people with disabilities can live independently and without discrimination.
Located at a fully accessible transit hub, the Ed Roberts Campus is a national and international model dedicated to disability rights and universal access.
CLICK HERE
to link to the website
The Ed Roberts Campus commemorates the life and work of Edward V. Roberts, an early leader in the independent living movement of persons with disabilities. Ed believed in the strength of collaborative efforts: He called it "working toward our preferred future."
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Special Needs Trust Seminar
March 23rd, 2011
Special Evening Workshop from
6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
No cost to attend!
The Dale Law Firm
1670 Riviera Ave., Suite 101
Walnut Creek, CA 94596
To register for this workshop or to find out more about future workshops, please contact us at:
(925) 280-0172
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This Month's Video
 Free video access to recorded workshops are available at the Achieving Independence website
This month's special video highlight is a clip from a lecture given by Ed Roberts at a
DREDF Workshop at the University of California - Berkeley.
to view this month's video
More videos are available on our website:
achievingindependence.com
We appreciate your
comments and questions.
NOTE: This video will open in a new page. The video will begin when 10% of the video has uploaded. In order to have full access to the entire video, we suggest you place the video on 'pause' for approximately 3 - 5 minutes. Once the video has fully loaded, you will have full access to the table of contents along the left side of the video allowing you to skip to specific sections.
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Special Promotion
New clients will receive a discount on their estate planning if they attend a workshop, watch an on-line video or view a free educational DVD from the Dale Law Firm.
For more information,
go to the
"Educational Workshop"
section of the Achieving Independence website.
There are two applicable videos to view. The first video is listed under "Special Needs Trusts" and is 1 hour, 40 minutes long.
The Limited Conservatorship workshop is listed in 5 sections under "Limited Conservatorship".
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A Newsletter for People with Disabilities and Their Families
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This issue's focus:
Celebrating Edward V. Roberts
Dear Reader:
We wanted to celebrate the New Year in a special way! Last year, California's Legislature instituted January 23rd as Ed Roberts Day. Who, you may ask, is Ed Roberts? This issue of the Achieving Independence Newsletter will help answer that question. Our entire newsletter is dedicated to an inspiring and dedicated champion known as "The Father of Independent Living." We are pleased to honor a good friend and a great man.
Nina S. Jones, Editor
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Using Ed Roberts Day as a Teaching Opportunity
by Stephen W. Dale, Esq., The Dale Law Firm, PC
In July of 2010, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill creating Ed Roberts Day. January 23rd, Ed Roberts' birthday, is now a day set aside to encourage schools and other institutions to educate the public about the disability-rights pioneer every year. The signing of the bill was followed by House Resolution 1759, introduced by Representative George Miller, which passed the house of representative by a vote of 386 to 8 which would expand the recognition of Ed Roberts Day as a national holiday.
Ed Roberts, who passed away on March 14, 1995 at age 56, became disabled after contracting polio as a teenager and relied on a respirator and an iron lung to breathe for the remainder of his life.
His career as a disability rights advocate began when a high school administrator threatened to deny him a diploma because he had not completed driver's education and physical education.
Ed had many accomplishments to his name. He became the first student with significant disabilities to attend UC Berkeley, where he began advocacy efforts and helped found the campus' Physically Disabled Students Program. Ed was the first person with a disability to serve as director of the California Department of Rehabilitation, appointed by then Governor Jerry Brown.
He was a co-founder at the first Center for Independent Living in Berkeley in 1972 which continues to serve as a model for disability advocacy and self-help services across the nation and around the world. In 1984, after receiving a MacArthur Foundation "genius" award, Ed used the grant from the award to co-organize the World Institute on Disability (WID) which is an influential public policy center. The California law designates Ed Roberts Day as having "special significance" in public schools and educational institutions, and encourages those entities to conduct suitable commemorative exercises on that date, remembering his life, recognizing his accomplishments as well as the accomplishments of other persons with disabilities. The Ed Roberts Day objective is not only to celebrate the life and accomplishments of Ed Roberts, but also to commemorate the disability rights movement and the importance of advocacy for inclusion of persons with disabilities in society by educating students about the civil rights movement for persons with disabilities.
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Ed Roberts
In His Own Words
The following quotes are taken from speeches and presentations made by Ed Roberts during his long and successful work for freedom of access and disability rights.
We have to begin to think very clearly, that what we need to do is help raise the consciousness of our fellow Americans with disabilities, to help them come out from behind, from the back wards, from the institutions, from the places, the garbage heaps, of our society. We have to stop the warehousing, the segregation, of our brothers and sisters. We have a long way to go. But we have one giant step ahead.
I want to talk about anger. Most psychiatrists and service professionals who work with us tell us that anger is a bad thing...a stage to get over or something that we need to overcome. But anger is a powerful energy. We don't need to suppress or get over our anger, we need to channel it into making change for the greater good. We need to make sure that we don't turn our anger in on ourselves or our loved ones, but focus it on removing obstacles, and making things happen. I've seen friends turn their anger in on themselves, and it killed them. And why do we turn our anger on our loved ones? It's safe, but they don't deserve it, and our relationships suffer from it. I get angry all of the time. I'm angry that people with disabilities are still second class citizens in this country. I get angry at how 97% of the billions of federal dollars spent either perpetuate our dependency on the system or increase it. 
We can only really be free and take our place in this society if we have economic freedom, which means careers. I remember we used to talk to employers about hiring people with disabilities as a moral issue: it was a charitable thing to do. Now, we have the ADA and there are companies like McDonald's who are hiring many people with disabilities. I once met the president of McDonald's and asked him why he hired disabled people. "Because it's good for my bottom line." he said. "We have found that people with disabilities are loyal workers". This is how it is today. People with disabilities want to work. We have converted our approach from asking to be hired out of sympathy to marketing ourselves as a significant employee pool, and a consumer pool as well. This is the legacy of the disability civil rights movement. |
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