Providing information, education, and training to build knowledge, develop skills, and change attitudes that will lead to increased independence, productivity, self determination, integration and inclusion (IPSII) for people with developmental disabilities and their families.

Ed Roberts, Activist

Dr. William Bronston: The Fight For the ADA

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Dr. William Bronston: The ADA hadn't passed yet when he came out of… office.

So, this was a straight-up climb up a glass mountain, I mean, in order to get this to happen because the whole world didn't want to change. They didn't want to make theaters accessible, restaurants accessible. I mean, you know… and so his campaign was to all America. He had to make it clear that the changes he was calling for were not special changes for special people. They were universal opportunities for access and political life for every human being to make a global village. He was a global, you know, kind of Johnny Appleseed…

They were fighting for America. They were fighting for fundamental change in schools, in housing, in jobs, in transportation, in the courts. I mean, in the legislature, you couldn't get anybody with a wheelchair into the legislature at a certain point. You couldn't get women in, because there was no women's restroom, you know, back there. But the issue of physical access was a whole other deal. Now, if something isn't physically accessible, something's wrong.

I mean, nobody's gonna let that be, because, you know, it's just a few years, you're going to need that access yourself. It's not going to be Ed that needs the access, it's gonna be you that needs the access.

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The GCDD is funded under the provisions of P.L. 106-402. The federal law also provides funding to the Minnesota Disability Law Center, the state Protection and Advocacy System, and to the Institute on Community Integration, the state University Center for Excellence. The Minnesota network of programs works to increase the IPSII of people with developmental disabilities and families into community life.

This project was supported, in part by grant number 2401MNSCDD, from the U.S. Administration for Community Living, Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C. 20201. Grantees undertaking projects with government sponsorship are encouraged to express freely their findings and conclusions. Points of view or opinions do not, therefore, necessarily represent official ACL policy.

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