Available From UC Press

The first biography of one of the founders of the disability rights movement, An Independent Man chronicles the life of an activist who reimagined the meaning of equality and inspired generations of reformers.

Before Jonas Salk's vaccine, polio was a social death sentence. The disabled were expected to disappear into their limitations, pitied by those around them. This might have been the story of Ed Roberts, paralyzed and consigned to sleep in an iron lung. But Roberts insisted on what all people deserve: a full life.

Scot Danforth deftly captures Roberts's adventurous personality and radical vision, chronicling his life from his student activist days at the University of California, Berkeley, in the early 1960s to his career highlights of establishing the pioneering Center for Independent Living and directing California's Department of Rehabilitation. By insisting that disabled persons are valuable members of society, and by translating his ideas into action, Roberts laid the ground for the Americans with Disabilities Act and the ongoing movement for equality.

Scot Danforth is the Jack H. and Paula A. Hassinger Chair in Education and Professor of Disability Studies at Chapman University.
 

"Ed Roberts once said, 'The only limits we have are the ones we place on ourselves.' In An Independent Man, Scot Danforth shares the manifold and crucial stories behind Roberts's personal growth. What influenced the Rolling Quads, and how did they become such a vital force in what developed into a disability rights revolution? This is an important and necessary book for anyone interested in human rights."—Stephen Kuusisto, author of Planet of the Blind

"An Independent Man explores the history of a seminal figure in the disability rights movement. In situating Ed Roberts in the politics and culture of 1970s Berkeley, Danforth offers an important window into the life and worldview of a disability rights pioneer and fills a long overdue gap.”—Ari Ne'eman, cofounder of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network and Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management, Harvard University

"This essential book shows how Ed Roberts and his collaborators cocreated a movement and generated systems and structures of access that changed the world. Groundbreaking."—Susan Schweik, author of The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public