Paul K. Longmore, Ph.D., a disability activist and historian whose work had a major impact on the development of the disability rights movement, died Aug. 9 in his home at the age of 64.

Longmore’s death has prompted tributes and outpourings of grief among disability activists and academics who knew him, both personally and through his writings and advocacy. “Paul was one of a few disability rights activists and thinkers who changed my life in the 1980s,” says Diane Coleman, assistant director of advocacy for the Center for Disability Rights in Rochester, N.Y., and co-founder of Not Dead Yet. “Paul merged disability scholarship and political activism in a powerful way that helped frame and advance our movement. ... His media interviews and writings on [assisted suicide] helped shape my understanding of society’s profound oppression of people with disabilities and how that oppression translates in medical settings. His contributions toward the founding of Not Dead Yet are a major part of Paul’s legacy that can never be forgotten.”

“Paul was acerbic and tenacious,” says Devva Kasnitz, president of the Society for Disability Studies — a field pioneered by Longmore’s academic work. “He reveled in irony. He thought big thoughts and demanded that we all do the same.”

“Paul’s death is a huge loss to the academic world of disability studies,” says Beth A. Haller, author of Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media. “But his brilliant writings will live on in the scholarly endeavors of future generations of disability studies researchers.”

A professor of history and director of the Institute on Disability at San Francisco State University, Longmore wrote extensively on the history of people with disabilities and how they are perceived. His book, Why I Burned My Book and Other Essays on Disability, analyzed and challenged those perceptions on a wide range of fronts, from physician-assisted suicide to portrayals in media. “Previously, disability was defined as a set of limitations in the abilities of people with disabilities to function in society because of some pathology in us,” Longmore said in July at a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the ADA. “The disability rights movement redefined disability as a problem mainly out there in society — not just in our bodies and minds but in society.” His writings revealed many forgotten episodes in disability history, including an early protest by people with disabilities denied WPA benefits during the Great Depression.

Longmore was especially articulate on the subject of physician-assisted suicide, which he believed would create societal pressures for people with disabilities to end their lives. In a 1997 interview in New Mobility, he said, “It’s one thing to make fundamental choices; it’s another thing to have the society that’s oppressing us set up mechanisms to facilitate our suicides. Any society that would guarantee assistance in committing suicide by an oppressed person is simply indicating just how oppressive and hypocritical it is. ...

“What I want is for the state to guarantee me adequate health care in all its forms. What kind of a society would give me the right to die as the first right it guarantees, when it hasn't been willing to guarantee these other rights?”
 

Speaking at a White House celebration of the 20th anniversary of the ADA, President Obama announced the release of updated federal regulations implementing the Act’s provisions for accessibility.

During the July 26 ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House, Obama announced the updated ADA Accessibility Guidelines for Buildings and Facilities, the regulations and standards governing design and construction of public accommodations covered under titles II and III of the ADA. Updated regulations will also cover a wide variety of issues, such as sale of tickets for concerts and sporting events, and guidelines for accommodation of service animals.

“Beginning 18 months from now, all new buildings must be constructed in a way that’s compliant with the new 2010 standards for the design of doors and windows and elevators and bathrooms — buildings like stores and restaurants and schools and stadiums and hospitals and hotels and theaters,” Obama said. (Read more)

John Callahan, best known for his politically incorrect cartoons that drew praise and condemnation worldwide, died July 24 of complications from an infected pressure sore. He was 59.

Injured at C5 in a car crash when he was 21, Callahan drew eight cartoon books, wrote an autobiography, a “quasi-memoir” and a children’s book, recorded a CD and developed two animated series for television. He was colorful in every sense of the word — from his shock of orange hair to his unmistakable outlook — and Mother Jones magazine once described him as “a quadriplegic, recovering alcoholic ex-Catholic orphan cartoonist [who] recounts the lighter side of being paralyzed for life.”

Callahan was well-liked in his Northwest Portland, Ore., neighborhood. He did not own or drive a car, preferring to travel the streets and sidewalks in his power wheelchair. He enjoyed being close to people and was considered a friend by celebrities and homeless people alike. While his cartoons were often described as dark, iconoclastic, and twisted, he had a gentle personality and was easily approachable. Dutch filmmaker Simone DeVries, whose 2007 documentary, “Touch Me Someplace I Can Feel,” captured Callahan’s musical side, was surprised when she met him. “I expected him to be very abrasive, cynical, because of his cartoons, but he is nice and sweet and polite, even saying he was honored that I would make a film about him."

Mark Zusman, editor of Willamette Week, which ran Callahan’s cartoons for more than two decades, summed up his complex personality concisely: “He had the soul of a poet and the mind of an assassin.”

Callahan himself saw it this way: “I have opted to live a life of rigorous honesty.” 

New Mobility will publish a more detailed account of Callahan’s life and death in the September issue. For one of NM's past features on Callahan, click here.  For an excellent Washington Post column on Callahan, click here. For more about Callahan and his work, visit www.callahanonline.com.

Download past NM features:
Callahan Revisited by Garp Karp, February 2002
Candidate Callahan by Victoria Medgyesi, August 1996
My Dinner with John by Sam Maddox, February-March 1993

So how do wheelchair users in Los Angeles celebrate the birthday of a barrier-breaking law? By breaking a world record.
 
On July 25, 193 wheelchair users assembled at Dodger Stadium and made their way into the Guinness Book of World Records with the largest number of wheelchair users gathered in a single moving line. The event — sponsored by the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation and organized by Reeve’s knowledge manager, Sam Maddox — surpassed the previous record of 106, set by a group in Woodstock, Vt., several years ago.

“There was a genuinely joyous spirit to the day,” Maddox says. “We had a lot of young kids, a lot of longtime wheelers and a slice of the cultural mix of the [L.A.] metroplex. Really a day for celebrating the community.”
To see more photos of the event, go to www.christopherreeve.org.

In the latest of numerous recent settlements of accessibility claims, the Justice Department on July 15 announced an agreement with QuikTrip Corp., which operates more than 5,550 gas stations, convenience stores and truck stops throughout the nation. Under the settlement, QuikTrip will takes steps to make its facilities accessible and set up a $1.5 million damages fund for people with disabilities who experienced discrimination at its stores.

“Ensuring full and equal access to all businesses open to the public is a top priority,” said Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s civil rights division. “Convenience stores and gas stations are a critical part of everyday life in America, and these facilities must afford equal access.”

The agreement was reached in response to a complaint filed about inaccessible parking by two people with disabilities in Omaha, Neb. QuikTrip decided to actively resolve the matter without litigation.

 

When we think of access at restaurants, what usually comes to mind are ramps, aisle widths and restrooms. But what about the overall experience of dining out?

On July 27 the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that two Chipotle restaurants in California were in violation of the ADA because a 45-inch wall between the customer line and the food preparation area blocked the view of wheelchair users. The restaurants — in San Diego and Encinitas — tried to accommodate wheelchair users by bringing them samples of each ingredient before ordering, but the court said this was only “a substitute experience that lacks the customer’s personal participation in the selection and preparation of the food.”

Critics of the ADA have decried the ruling as an example of the law’s excesses. But Amy Vandeveld, the plaintiff’s attorney, told the San Francisco Chronicle that newer Chipotle restaurants have changed the layout to be more accessible. “All they’re doing now is what we’ve been asking them to do for the last five years,” Vandeveld said.

Under a bill passed by the California legislature, Jan. 23 will be designated “Ed Roberts Day” to honor the man widely considered to be the founder of the Independent Living movement.

SB 1256, introduced by State Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Oakland, sets aside that date — Roberts’ birthday — for recognition of his achievements and of disability issues in California public schools. The bill was signed into law by Gov. Schwarzenegger July 20. In a press release, Hancock said she hopes the new law will help young people “gain a better understanding of the [disability] movement and its significance to California as well as a greater awareness of disability issues and the contributions disabled Californians make to our state.
 
“For many, the name Ed Roberts might not be a familiar one,” Hancock said as she introduced the bill. “However, for the countless number of disabled people throughout the world, he is the symbol and embodiment of a movement for social justice, equality, inclusion and independence.
 
"Ed Roberts was my neighbor for many years," she added. "Through my friendship with him, I watched the disability rights movement grow from a Berkeley initiative into a world-wide movement.”

Roberts, who died in 1995 at age 56, was the first person with a severe disability to attend the University of California at Berkeley. A quadriplegic from childhood polio, he faced discrimination both from the university and from the state Department of Rehabilitation, and responded by organizing other disabled students on campus. In 1970 he co-founded Berkeley’s Center for Independent Living — the first of its kind in the country — and in 1976 was appointed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown to head the Department of Rehabilitation — the same agency that had once denied him services, claiming he was too disabled to work. Roberts served in that position for eight years.

Said Hancock, “By encouraging schools to incorporate the history of the disability rights movement and the life of Ed Roberts into curriculum, young people will gain a better understanding of the movement and its significance. ... In the 20th anniversary year of the passage of the ADA, I cannot imagine a more fitting time to honor [his] work.”