Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 October 2018
Historical analyses of 1960s university campus activism have focused on activities related to the civil rights movement, Free Speech Movement, and opposition to the Vietnam War. This study supplements the historiography of civil disobedience and political activity on college campuses during that tumultuous era with an account of the initiation of the disability rights movement with the Rolling Quads, a group of disabled student activists at the University of California, Berkeley. This small group, with little political experience and limited connections to campus and community activists, organized to combat the paternalistic managerial practices of the university and the California Department of Rehabilitation. Drawing from the philosophy and strategies of the seething political culture of 1969 Berkeley, the Rolling Quads formed an activist cell that expanded within less than a decade into the most influential disability rights organization in the country.
1 Henry Bruyn, interview by Susan O'Hara, Dec. 1, 1999, transcript, Disability Rights and Independent Living Movement Oral History Series, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (hereafter cited as DRILM), 9.
2 Linda Perotti, interview by Kathy Cowan, April 2, 1999, transcript, DRILM, 109–10.
3 Perotti, interview, 111–12. Jim Donald confirmed Perotti's observations. James Donald, interview by Kathy Cowan, Jan. 23, 1998, transcript, DRILM.
4 Charles A. Grimes, interview by David Landes, transcript, Sept.2000, DRILM, 42.
5 Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie, “Shape Structures Story: Fresh and Feisty Stories about Disability,” Narrative 15, no. 1 (Jan. 2007), 115CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 For examples of these efforts, see Proposal for the Physically Disabled Students Program, first draft, 1969, box 1, Michael Fuss Papers, DRILM, Berkeley (hereafter cited as Fuss Papers); Draft Proposal for Center for Independent Living, 1969, box 1, Fuss Papers; grant application to assistant secretary of education, The Physically Disabled Students Program, 1970, box 1, Fuss Papers; Proposal for the Creation of the Office for Independent Living, Rolling Quads, Jan. 1970, box 1, Fuss Papers; and Organization Chronology, Physically Disabled Student Program Records, box 1, Fuss Papers.
7 See also Stroman, Dianne, The Disability Rights Movement: From Deinstitutionalization to Self-Determination (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2003)Google Scholar; and Fleischer, Doris Zames and Zames, Frieda, The Disability Rights Movement: From Charity to Confrontation (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011)Google Scholar.
8 Scotch, Richard K., From Good Will to Civil Rights: Transforming Federal Disability Policy (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001), 3Google Scholar.
9 Shapiro, Joseph P., No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement (New York: Times Books, 1994)Google Scholar; Stroman, The Disability Rights Movement; Fleischer and Zames, The Disability Rights Movement; and Pelka, Fred, The ABC-CLIO Companion to the Disability Rights Movement (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1997)Google Scholar.
10 Kitty Cone, “Short History of the Section 504 Sit In,” Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, https://dredf.org/504-sit-in-20th-anniversary/short-history-of-the-504-sit-in/.
11 Erib Dibner, interview by Kathy Cowan, transcript, June 6, 1998, DRILM; Ed Roberts, interview by Susan O'Hara, transcript, Dec. 1, 1999, DRILM.
12 Donald, interview, 83; Michael Fuss, interview by Sharon Bonney, Nov. 2, 1998, transcript, DRILM, 73; Billy Charles Barner, interview by Kathy Cowan, March 27, 2000, transcript, DRILM; Herbert R. Willsmore, interview by Susan O'Hara, March 7, 2000, transcript, DRILM; Caulfield, interview, 139.
13 Edna Brean, interview by Susan O'Hara, March 10, 2000, transcript, DRILM, 46.
14 Dibner, interview, 10.
15 Willsmore, interview; Zona Roberts, interview by Susan O'Hara, transcript, March, 2000, DRILM; Dibner interview; and Donald, interview.
16 Cathrine Caulfield, interview by Susan O'Hara, transcript, March 15, 2000, DRILM, 140.
17 Grimes, interview, 24.
18 For a history of the late 1960s on university campuses, see van Dyke, Nella, “Hotbeds of Activism: Locations of Student Protest,” Social Problems 45, no. 2 (May 1998), 205–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bingham, Clara, Witness to the Revolution: Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, and the Year America Lost Its Mind and Found Its Soul (New York: Random House, 2017)Google Scholar; Cohen, Robert, Freedom's Orator: Mario Savio and the Radical Legacy of the 1960s (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009)Google Scholar; Rorabaugh, W. J., Berkeley at War: The 1960s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Cohen, Robert and Zelnik, Reginald E., The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Gitlin, Todd, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (New York: Bantam Books, 1993)Google Scholar; Draper, Hal, Berkeley: The New Student Revolt (New York: Grove Press, 1965)Google Scholar; Skolnick, Jerome, “Student Protest,” AAUP Bulletin 55, no. 3 (Sept. 1969), 309–26Google Scholar; Turner, Ralph H., “The Theme of Contemporary Social Movements,” British Journal of Sociology 20, no. 4 (Dec. 1969), 390–405CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Abrams, Richard M., “The Student Rebellion at Berkeley: An Interpretation,” Massachusetts Review 6, no. 2 (Jan. 1965), 353–65Google Scholar; Eisen, Jonathan and Steinberg, David, “The Student Revolt against Liberalism,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 382 (March 1969), 83–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ferguson, John, “Student Protest and Power in the United States,” British Journal of Educational Studies 18, no. 1 (Feb. 1970), 32–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Glazer, Nathan, “Student Protest in the US,” Economic and Political Weekly 2, no. 12 (March 1967), 601–5Google Scholar.
19 Office of the Vice Chancellor of Finance, University of California, Berkeley, Enrollment History Since 1869, Oct. 30, 2017, https://pages.github.berkeley.edu/OPA/our-berkeley/enroll-history.html.
20 Kerr, Clark, The Uses of the University (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964), 41Google Scholar.
21 Draper, Hal, The Mind of Clark Kerr: His View of the University Factory & the “New Slavery” (Berkeley: Independent Socialist Club, 1964)Google Scholar.
22 Rorabaugh, Berkeley at War; Kerr, The Uses of the University; and Draper, The Mind of Clark Kerr.
23 “Students Accuse State Worker,” San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 19, 1969, 2.
24 Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz, Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1988), 234CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
25 Rorabaugh, Berkeley at War, 115. See also Horowitz, Campus Life, 234; Gitlin, The Sixties; Cohen, Freedom's Orator; and Cohen and Zelnik, The Free Speech Movement.
26 Fuss, interview, 56.
27 Timothy Pfaff, “A Conversation with Ed Roberts: California Q&A,” California Monthly, Feb. 1985, https://mn.gov/mnddc/ed-roberts/articles-docs/Conversation_with_Ed_Roberts.pdf; Donald, interview; Draper, Berkeley; Cohen, Freedom's Orator; and Rorabaugh, Berkeley at War.
28 Brilliant, Mark, The Color of America Has Changed: How Racial Diversity Shaped Civil Rights Reform in California, 1941–1978 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012)Google Scholar; Murch, Donna Jean, Living for the City: Migration, Education, and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010)Google Scholar; and Ed Roberts, “Our Man on the Moon,” Mouth Magazine 101/102 (May-June/July-Aug. 2007), 28–35.
29 Willsmore, interview, 210; Zona Roberts, interview, 123; Donald, interview, 87; Barner, interview, 266; Caulfield, interview; Carol Billings, interview by Kathryn Cowan, transcript, Sept. 1999, 5, DRILM.
30 Carl J. Ross to J. A. Zelle, Oct. 12, 1967, Gerald Belchick Papers, DRILM.
31 Withington, Lucile F. and Savino, Michael T., Vocational Rehabilitation of the Severely Disabled in a University Setting, Progress Report for Fiscal Year 1968–69 (Sacramento: State of California, Human Relations Agency, Department of Rehabilitation, 1969)Google Scholar; Brian Woods and Nick Johnson, “Power to Independence: A Historical Glimpse at the Interactions between Powered Wheelchairs and the Physically Disabled Students Program at Berkeley,” paper presented at the Conference of the Disability Studies Association, Lancaster University, UK, Sept. 2003; Tremblay, Mary, “Going Back to Civvy Street: A Historical Account of the Impact of the Everest and Jennings Wheelchair for Canadian WWII Veterans with Spinal Cord Injury,” Disability & Society 11, no. 2 (June 1996), 149–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Anderson, Julie, “‘Turned into Taxpayers’: Paraplegia, Rehabilitation, and Sport at Stoke Mandeville, 1944–1956,” Journal of Contemporary History 38, no. 3 (July 2003), 461–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Reaume, Geoffrey, Lyndhurst: Canada's First Rehabilitation Center for People with Spinal Cord Injuries, 1945–1998 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2007)Google Scholar.
32 Condon, Margaret E., “A Survey of Special Facilities for the Physically Handicapped in the Colleges,” Personnel and Guidance Journal 35, no. 9 (May 1957), 579–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar: and Condon, Margaret E., “The Facilitation of the Education of the Physically Disabled College Student,” Rehabilitation Literature 23, no. 9 (Sept. 1962), 266–74Google ScholarPubMed.
33 The second-year project evaluation contained summaries of the total DOR expenditures for each of the eighteen clients and projected state welfare savings based on expected future salaries in the students’ expected fields of professional employment. See Savino, Michael T. and Belchick, Gerald D., Vocational Rehabilitation of the Severely Disabled in a University Setting, Second Year Report (Sacramento: California State Department of Rehabilitation, 1970), 23–27Google Scholar. See also Lucile Withington, interview by Sharon Bonney, transcript, March 23, 1998, DRILM.
34 Withington and Savino, Vocational Rehabilitation of the Severely Disabled; Savino and Belchick, Vocational Rehabilitation of the Severely Disabled; and Withington, interview, 73.
35 John Hessler to Rod Carter, Sept. 21, 1969, Disabled Students Program Records, box 1, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (hereafter cited as DSPR).
36 Ed Roberts, interview; and Withington, interview, 76–77.
37 Ed Roberts, interview, 36.
38 Willsmore, interview, 186.
39 Withington and Savino, Vocational Rehabilitation of the Severely Disabled; Savino and Belchick, Vocational Rehabilitation of the Severely Disabled; and Withington, interview.
40 A year later, in fall quarter 1969, Billy Charles Barner was the first African American to be housed in the Cowell residence program. Barner, interview.
41 Grimes, interview, 62–3.
42 Withington, interview, 99.
43 Fuss, interview, 60.
44 Dibner, interview; Fred Collignon, interview by Mary Lou Breslin, transcript, March 1998, DRILM; Zona Roberts, interview; and Grimes, interview.
45 Withington, interview, 87.
46 Withington, interview, 77.
47 Fuss, interview; Collignon, interview; and Manning Peterson, “Highlighting Disabled Activism's Incubator,” The Advocate, The Student Voice of Contra Costa College, Oct. 29, 2015, https://cccadvocate.com/3037/opinion/highlighting-disabled-activisms-incubator/.
48 Withington, interview.
49 Ed Roberts, interview, 37.
50 Fuss, interview; Ed Roberts, interview; Edna Brean, interview by Susan O'Hara, transcript, March 10, 2000, DRILM; and Perotti, interview.
51 Ed Roberts, interview, 36.
52 Lee, Philip, “The Curious Life of In Loco Parentis in American Universities,” Higher Education in Review 8 (2011), 65–90Google Scholar; and Lake, Peter F., “The Rise and Fall of In Loco Parentis and Other Protective Tort Doctrines in Higher Education Law,” Missouri Law Review 64, no. 1 (Winter 1999), 1–28Google Scholar.
53 Rorabaugh, Berkeley at War, 44.
54 Horowitz, Campus Life, 234; Rorabaugh, Berkeley at War; Lipset, Seymour Martin, Rebellion in the University: A History of Student Activism in America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972)Google Scholar; and “The Open University,” Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 23, no. 7 (April 1970), 3–12.
55 Wolfensberger, Wolf, Normalization: The Principle of Normalization in Human Services (Toronto: National Institute on Mental Retardation, 1972), 71Google Scholar; and Hale Zukas, “Center for Independent Living History,” Hale Zukas Papers, box 1, folder 1, DRILM (hereafter cited as Zukas Papers).
56 Willsmore, interview. The letters include Rolling Quads to Rod Carter, Sept. 1969; Larry Biscamp to Rod Carter, Sept. 18, 1969; Cathrine Caulfield to Rod Carter, Oct. 9, 1969; James Donald to Rod Carter, Oct. 8, 1969; John Hessler to Rod Carter, Sept. 21, 1969; Herbert R. Willsmore to Rod Carter, Sept. 19, 1969; Larry Langdon to Rod Carter, Sept. 19, 1969; Donald Lorence to Rod Carter, Sept. 17, 1969; and Ed Roberts to Rod Carter, Sept. 1969. All are located in box 1, DSPR.
57 “They Fought Disabilities and Won,” Daily Ledger (Antioch, CA), May 2, 1982, 10.
58 Barbara A. Kirk to Don Lorence, Aug. 27, 1969, box 1, DSPR; Bod Find to Colleen Nutt, Dec. 8, 1969, box 1, DSPR.
59 Sociology 198, Fall 1969, class meeting notes, box 4, DSPR.
60 Sociology 198, Fall 1969, syllabus and class meeting notes.
61 Belchick, interview by Sharon Bonney, transcript, Oct. 13, 1999, DRILM, 189.
62 Ed Roberts, interview.
63 Mario Savio, “Sit-in Address on the Septs of Sproul Hall” (speech, University of California at Berkeley, Dec. 2, 1964), American Rhetoric, ” http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mariosaviosproulhallsitin.htm.
64 Cohen, Freedom's Orator; Rorabaugh, Berkeley at War; Draper, Berkeley; and Cohen and Zelnik, The Free Speech Movement.
65 Ed Roberts, interview.
66 Dibner, interview; Barner, interview.
67 Belchick, interview, 190.
68 “UC Cripples Score Cut of Monies,” Berkeley (CA) Daily Gazette, Sept. 20, 1969, 1.
69 “Students Accuse State Worker,” San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 19, 1969, 2; and “UC Cripples Score Cut of Monies.”
70 “Students Accuse State Worker.”
71 “UC Cripples Score Cut of Monies.”
72 “They Fought Disabilities and Won,” Daily Ledger (Antioch, CA), May 2, 1982, 10.
73 Belchick, interview, 196.
74 Savino and Belchick, Vocational Rehabilitation of the Severely Disabled; Belchick, interview; and Withington, interview.
75 Ed Roberts, “Independent Living: Born on Campus,” Mouth Magazine 101–102 (May-Aug, 2007), 43.
76 Judith Heumann, “The Disabled Need a Voice in the International Development Agenda,” Thornburgh Family Lecture in Disability and Law and Policy, University of Pittsburgh School of Law, Pittsburgh, PA, Feb. 9, 2006; and Zukas, “Center for Independent Living History,” Zukas Papers.