Disability Rights Movement Timeline

Most people know someone with a disability. The statistics bear that out. For example, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about a quarter of Americans have some sort of disability. Worldwide, the World Health Organization estimates that 1.3 billion people, or 16 percent, have a disability. But knowing someone with a disability is not the same as knowing what it is like to live with a disability, which may mean differences in a person’s vision, movement, cognition, hearing, learning, remembering, communicating, mental health, and social relationships.

For the people who live with these disabilities, their lives are not only impacted by health conditions but also by what the WHO describes as “personal and environmental factors including negative attitudes, inaccessible transportation and public buildings, and limited social support.”

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, significant strides were made in the United States to recognize and address a history of bias against disabled people. These efforts have included marshaling resources for specialized education as well as pushing for the inclusion of disabled students in the public school system; passing legislation requiring employers, schools, and public institutions to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities; designing government intervention to provide some disabled people with health care and other social benefits; and making it possible for disabled people to live independently.

None of those advancements, however, can expunge a history that included periods of mistreatment, prejudice, and abuse. Below is a timeline of some major events in disability rights in the United States.

1817: First school for deaf children

The American School for the Deaf, then called the Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons, becomes the first permanent school dedicated to educating deaf students in the United States.

1860: Braille is first taught in the U.S.

  Braille, a system of writing with a raised point alphabet designed for blind readers, is first taught in the U.S. at the Missouri School for the Blind in St. Louis, although it won’t become widely known throughout the country until the end of the 19th century. 

1867–1970s: The existence of “ugly laws”

Municipalities including San Francisco, Chicago, and New Orleans enact laws that, in the language of the 1881 Chicago law, forbid people who are “diseased, maimed, mutilated or in any way deformed, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object” from being seen in public. These laws are often enforced unevenly, targeting poor and working-class disabled people. The term “ugly laws” would be used to describe them in the 1970s by disability rights activists drawing attention to the fact that many were still on the books and advocating for the need for civil rights protections.

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1907: First forced sterilization laws

Starting with Indiana in 1907 and influenced by the eugenics movement, which argues for selecting “more suitable races or strains of blood” for the continuation of the species, more than 30 states will pass forced sterilization laws targeting those deemed unfit to reproduce, who are often disabled and disproportionately working-class women of color. In 1927 the U.S. Supreme Court rules in Buck v. Bell that it is constitutional to sterilize disabled people without their consent. As many as 70,000 people are forcibly sterilized in the 20th century.

1954: Brown’s role in disability rights

While most often remembered as the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling against racial segregation in public schools, Brown v. Board of Education also provides the legal foundation that opened the door for students with disabilities to demand equal access to education. In the early 1970s advocates for disabled students successfully bring forward cases challenging laws in Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia that exclude disabled students from public schools. Nearly four dozen similar cases in 28 states soon follow, as does federal legislation supporting free special education in the least restrictive environment: the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, which was renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 1990.

1972: Center for Independent Living

A group of disabled activists led by Ed Roberts—who, in 1962 became the first wheelchair-user to attend the University of California, Berkeley—and educator Judith Heumann—who sued to become the first wheelchair-using teacher in New York City—found the Berkeley Center for Independent Living (CIL), the first independent living services and advocacy organization run by and for people with disabilities. The CIL is considered the birthplace of the modern independent living movement, which fought for self-determination for those with disabilities.

1973–77: Rehabilitation Act and sit-ins

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, passed in 1973, prohibits organizations receiving federal funds from discriminating against people with disabilities. It offers the first federal civil rights protections for disabled people. Enforcement, however, was significantly delayed as businesses and other organizations lobbied the federal government not to issue the formal regulations necessary to enforce the law. The delay continued until disabled activists launched a wave of sit-ins in federal buildings across the country on April 5, 1977, demanding that government officials approve drafted regulations. Most of the sit-ins lasted only a day or two, but in San Francisco, disabled activists coordinated with the Black Panther Party to occupy the Health, Education, and Welfare building for nearly a month in the longest non-violent occupation of a federal building in U.S. history, called the 504 Sit-In. Government officials approved the regulations on April 28.

1978: Denver bus protests

Nineteen disabled activists from the advocacy group ADAPT stop traffic at Denver, Colorado’s busiest intersection for 24 hours to protest the large number of public buses that are inaccessible to wheelchair users. Activists roll their wheelchairs into the street and sleep in the road, forcing two city buses to stop in place until the city and transit authority agreed to make the buses wheelchair-accessible. 

1990: Americans with Disabilities Act

In 1990 U.S. Pres. George H. W. Bush signs the Americans with Disabilities Act, the most robust federal civil rights law to date pertaining to disabled people in all areas of public life and guaranteeing them equal opportunity in public accommodations, employment, transportation, state and local government services, and telecommunications. Earlier that year, pushing for the passage of the ADA, disability rights advocates staged the iconic Capitol Crawl protest, in which about 60 people with mobility disabilities climbed the steps of the U.S. Capitol Building without the use of their wheelchairs or other mobility aids, in a striking visual representation of the inaccessibility of most architecture and infrastructure.

2017: Saving the ACA

Significant protests throughout 2017 organized by the non-profit advocacy group ADAPT (American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today) in coalition with other groups contribute to the scuttling of Republican attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and cut Medicaid. Activists occupy Congressional offices and disrupt a hearing on a proposed repeal, often being arrested and dragged away by police.

These civil rights victories, while necessary and hard-won, have not succeeded in addressing all the ways in which the disabled community continues to struggle for rights. For example, sometimes onerous regulations concerning government benefits including Social Security, as well as lack of law enforcement training in dealing with disabled people, continue well into the 21st century.