The Justice League
THE JUSTICE LEAGUE:
A brief history of disability rights and justice
THE DISABILITY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
We begin in the early 20th century
- Links disability with immorality
1950 -The National Association for Parents and Friends of Mentally Retarded Children founded
The vogue social movement is called "eugenics."
R
The Kennedy family got involved in this organization.
Because the powerful Kennedy Family was one such family with a family member with disabilities
Rose Kennedy
Rose Kennedy inspired her sister Eunice to start the Special Olympics
And her nephew, Anthony Kennedy Shriver, to start Best Buddies.
In 1961, President Kennedy appointed a President's Panel on Mental Retardation.
Eugenics
stated that people who were poor, needy, sick...
In 1971, the US. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama ruled against institutionalization
Wyatt vs. Stickney
people of color
of African descent
of Latino descent
people with disabilities
were poisoning the American bloodstream
Henry Wyatt
committed at the age of 15 to the Bryce Institution in Alabama
("Tomorrow's Children," 1934 film)
In 1972, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act is passed.
In 1970, funding cuts lead to almost no staff at Bryce.
Wyatt's aunt sues the state for inhumane conditions.
Movies and literature like this contributed to a climate of hysteria
Literature like Edward Goddard's book,
The Kallikak family.
The book tells the story of the Deborah Kallikak,
and how she is feeble-minded and descended from other feeble-minded people.
The book argues that these feeble-minded people should be sterilized in order to control this undesirable trait.
"The Kallikak Family" falsely ties intellectual disability to immorality and genetics.
Scientists like Edward Goddard wanted to "breed out" the bad genes
STERILIZATION
Sterilization legalized in 1927 in Buck Vs. Bell
These scientists and politicians push for institutionalizing and sterilizing people with disabilities
(and black people, poor people, and other un-American folk)
In 1927, the Supreme Court ruled that doctors could sterilize the young woman against her will.
Carrie buck
"Buck vs. bell"
Carrie Buck
"Doctor" James bell
Justice Oliver wendell holmes jr.
Legislation spreads across the United States to legalize sterilizations
Abusive institutions to capture the "feeble-minded" spread, too.
Carrie Buck actually lived in one such institution.
The Virginia State Epileptic Colony and Building for Feeble-Minded Women
In the 1950s, a movement of parents had begun to resist sending their children to these awful places.
In institutions like, this people with disabilities were used...
as farm labor...
And people with disabilities were abused...
Phew!
Have you had enough?
So had people with disabilities,
their families,
and friends.
THE PARENT'S MOVEMENT
American eugenics was out of control.
It had spread directly to Nazi Germany.
But after defeating the Nazis in World War II, American politicians and the public were wary of Nazi-like practices.
At the same time, a movement of disability rights activists was growing.
Let's take a look.