This month in Disability History (first installment)

[capri0mni]

[Image description: A digital rendering of the Disability Pride Flag (five parallel lightning bolt lines [blue, gold, green, red, and purple] running diagonally across a black field) flying at the top of a flagpole, with a partially sunny/partially cloudy sky in the background. The flag is flying above the words: “This Month in Disability History” in dark purple letters. Description Ends]

Disability History Calendar: January (incomplete)

I am certain there’s more Disability History in January than I have listed here. One of the great ironies of life is that the more history of marginalized people is ignored, the harder it is for future generations to go back and fill in the empty spaces.

But this is a start. So: If you know of a person or event that I have omitted please include them in replies to this post.

Note: Accomplishments of disabled people themselves are given preference over actions of the typically-abled on our behalf.

4 January, 1809: (Birthday) Louis Braille, inventor of the tactile writing system for the visually impaired. He was blind -- he invented this writing system for his own use, first. Wikipedia article about him.

6 January, 1852: (Day of Death) Louis Braille.

25 January, 1882: (Birthday) Virginia Woolf, Novelist and Essayist. Virginia Woolf lived with mental illness, which some have since described as bipolar disorder. She lived and worked in an era before modern psychiatric medicines were available. Take your meds, dearies! Wikipedia article about her.

26 January, 1992: (Event) Deadline
for relevant U.S. federal agencies to develop policies to enforce the employment provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Source: U.S. Equal Employment Opportunities Commission Web site (Scroll down to the “Enforcement” section)

[Editorial Note: this is more a non-event than anything else, since the ADA was given no teeth to actually enforce the law, except to give the disabled themselves the right to sue (spoons, money, and time not provided). But I’m including it because it’s important that we remember the the promises made and broken to us, and to get angry about it, when that anger can be leveraged into change].

30 January, 1882: (Birthday) Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Governor of New York State and only four term President of the United States, was paraplegic. Note that he did not become Governor until after he became disabled. Wikipedia article about him.