"Power concedes nothing without a demand."
– Frederick Douglas
The Independent Living Movement 1970 -
What is Independent Living?
The concept of independent living is opposite that of the institutions, and a movement away from dependency on parents and professionals. Essentially, independent living means the opportunity to make decisions that affect life and pursuing activities of one's own choosing. Independent living does not necessarily mean living alone. Rather, it has to do with self-determination: making choices, being allowed to fail, and having access to appropriate services.
Unfortunately, barriers exist for most persons with disabilities: barriers to employment, public transportation, social and recreational activities, and to many other aspects of everyday life. Some barriers are obvious, like an un-ramped entrance to a building, the lack of interpreters or captioning for persons with a hearing loss, or the lack of brailled or recorded copies of printed materials for persons who are blind. Other barriers are less obvious and frequently more damaging: commonly-held stereotypes that categorize persons with disabilities as objects of pity or scorn, resulting in low expectations of what people with disabilities can achieve.
The medical model of disability, which emerged in the 18th century, led professionals to perceive and treat people with disabilities as pitiful and child-like. Disability was then viewed as a medical issue that required the services of trained professionals, rather than the result of divine intervention.
Certain assumptions were also made about people with disabilities and the role of medical professionals – people with disabilities were considered patients with a condition that required treatment or finding a cure to minimize the impact and return the person to a "normal" state. The medical model fostered dependence upon professionals as the experts and primary decision makers. For many individuals, with disabilities, the message was clearly to overcome, rather than accept, a disability.
President Franklin Roosevelt exemplifies one who "overcame" his disability through what the sociologist Erving Goffman has called "heroic adjustment." Roosevelt's legs were paralyzed from polio, but the public never saw his disability. Out of 35,000 photographs of President Franklin Roosevelt at the Hyde Park Library, only two show him seated in his wheelchair.
To hide his leg braces, he painted them black and wore black socks. He also developed an elaborate method of getting around by having his assistants hold him in a way that made him appear to be walking. Reportedly, when the actor Orson Welles was dining at the White House, President Roosevelt said to him, "You and I are the two finest actors in America."
The two extremes represented by the medical model and the model of heroic adjustment, pitifulness or heroism, were challenged powerfully in the late 1960s and early 1970s. People with different types of physical disabilities began creating community groups to identify and address barriers, and take active roles in the decisions affecting their lives.
Ed Roberts, civil rights leader and activist, and founder of the independent living movement, refused to accept a segregated lifestyle, demanded control of his own life, and the ability to make his own decisions.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt