ASALH 2023 Book Prize Finalist Reveals how disability and disablement have shaped Black social life in America Through both law and custom, the color line has cast Black people as innately disabled and thus unfit for freedom, incapable of self-governance, and contagious within the national body politic. Disabilities of the Color Line maintains that the Black literary tradition historically has inverted this casting by exposing the disablement of racism without disclaiming disability. In place of a triumphalist narrative of overcoming where both disability and disablement alike are shunned, Dennis Tyler argues that Black authors and activists have consistently avowed what he calls the disabilities of the color line: the historical and ongoing anti-Black systems of division that maim, immobilize, and stigmatize Black people. In doing so, Tyler reveals how Black writers and activists such as David Walker, Henry Box Brown, William and Ellen Craft, Charles Chesnutt, James Weldon Johnson, and Mamie Till-Mobley have engaged in a politics and aesthetics of redress: modes of resistance that, in the pursuit of racial and disability justice, acknowledged the disabling violence perpetrated by anti-Black regimes in order to conceive or engender dynamic new worlds that account for people of all abilities. While some writers have affirmed disability to capture how their bodies, minds, and health have been made vulnerable to harm and impairment by the state and its citizens, others’ assertion of disability symbolizes a sense of community as well as a willingness to imagine and create a world distinct from the dominant social order.

"Rather than simply engaging in a triumphalist narrative of overcoming where both disability and disablement are shunned alike, Disabilities of the Color Line argues that Black authors and activists have consistently avowed disability as a part of Black social life in varied and complex ways. Sometimes their affirmation of disability serves to capture how their bodies, minds, and health have been and are made vulnerable to harm and impairment by the state and society. Sometimes their assertion of disability symbolizes a sense of commonality and community that comes not only from a recognition of the shared subjection of blackness and disability but also from a willingness to imagine and create a world distinct from the dominant social order. Through the work of David Walker, Henry Box Brown, William and Ellen Craft, Charles Chesnutt, James Weldon Johnson, and Mamie Till-Mobley, Disabilities of the Color Line examines how Black writer-activists have engaged in an aesthetics of redress: modes of resistance that show how Black communities have rigorously acknowledged disability as a response to forms of racial injury and in the pursuit of racial and disability justice"--

This groundbreaking volume brings together major figures in Disability Studies in Education (DSE) and Critical Race Theory (CRT) to explore some of today’s most important issues in education. Scholars examine the achievement/opportunity gaps from both historical and contemporary perspectives, as well as the overrepresentation of minority students in special education and the school-to-prison pipeline. Chapters also address school reform and the impact on students based on race, class, and dis/ability and the capacity of law and policy to include (and exclude). Readers will discover how some students are included (and excluded) within schools and society, why some citizens are afforded expanded (or limited) opportunities in life, and who moves up in the world and who is trapped at the “bottom of the well.” Contributors: D.L. Adams, Susan Baglieri, Stephen J. Ball, Alicia Broderick, Kathleen M. Collins, Nirmala Erevelles, Edward Fergus, Zanita E. Fenton, David Gillborn, Kris Guitiérrez, Kathleen A. King Thorius, Elizabeth Kozleski, Zeus Leonardo, Claustina Mahon-Reynolds, Elizabeth Mendoza, Christina Paguyo, Laurence Parker, Nicola Rollock, Paolo Tan, Sally Tomlinson, and Carol Vincent “With a stunning set of authors, this book provokes outrage and possibility at the rich intersection of critical race, class, and disability studies, refracting back on educational policy and practices, inequities and exclusions but marking also spaces for solidarities. This volume is a must-read for preservice, and long-term educators, as the fault lines of race, (dis)ability, and class meet in the belly of educational reform movements and educational justice struggles.” —Michelle Fine, distinguished professor of Critical Psychology and Urban Education, The Graduate Center, CUNY “Offers those who sincerely seek to better understand the complexity of the intersection of race/ethnicity, dis/ability, social class, and gender a stimulating read that sheds new light on the root of some of our long-standing societal and educational inequities.” —Wanda J. Blanchett, distinguished professor and dean, Rutgers University, Graduate School of Education

“Disability rights activist Alice Wong brings tough conversations to the forefront of society with this anthology. It sheds light on the experience of life as an individual with disabilities, as told by none other than authors with these life experiences. It's an eye-opening collection that readers will revisit time and time again.” —Chicago Tribune One in five people in the United States lives with a disability. Some disabilities are visible, others less apparent—but all are underrepresented in media and popular culture. Activist Alice Wong brings together this urgent, galvanizing collection of contemporary essays by disabled people, just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, From Harriet McBryde Johnson’s account of her debate with Peter Singer over her own personhood to original pieces by authors like Keah Brown and Haben Girma; from blog posts, manifestos, and eulogies to Congressional testimonies, and beyond: this anthology gives a glimpse into the rich complexity of the disabled experience, highlighting the passions, talents, and everyday lives of this community. It invites readers to question their own understandings. It celebrates and documents disability culture in the now. It looks to the future and the past with hope and love.

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year for Nonfiction "...an essential and engaging look at recent disability history."— Buzzfeed One of the most influential disability rights activists in US history tells her personal story of fighting for the right to receive an education, have a job, and just be human. A story of fighting to belong in a world that wasn’t built for all of us and of one woman’s activism—from the streets of Brooklyn and San Francisco to inside the halls of Washington—Being Heumann recounts Judy Heumann’s lifelong battle to achieve respect, acceptance, and inclusion in society. Paralyzed from polio at eighteen months, Judy’s struggle for equality began early in life. From fighting to attend grade school after being described as a “fire hazard” to later winning a lawsuit against the New York City school system for denying her a teacher’s license because of her paralysis, Judy’s actions set a precedent that fundamentally improved rights for disabled people. As a young woman, Judy rolled her wheelchair through the doors of the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in San Francisco as a leader of the Section 504 Sit-In, the longest takeover of a governmental building in US history. Working with a community of over 150 disabled activists and allies, Judy successfully pressured the Carter administration to implement protections for disabled peoples’ rights, sparking a national movement and leading to the creation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Candid, intimate, and irreverent, Judy Heumann’s memoir about resistance to exclusion invites readers to imagine and make real a world in which we all belong.

"Historians, sports scholars, and students will refer to Benching Jim Crow for many years to come as the standard source on the integration of intercollegiate sport."ùMark S. Dyreson, author of Making the American Team: Sport, Culture, and the Olympic Experience --

Meet the learning needs and preferences of all students using Children with Disabilities: Reading and Writing the Four-Blocks(R) Way for students in grades 1–3. This 144-page book provides a glimpse into an inclusion special-education classroom that uses the Four-Blocks(R) Literacy Model. This wonderful collection of ideas, strategies, and resources includes information on Self-Selected Reading, Guided Reading, Writing, and Working with Words. It also includes strategies for reading and writing success in special-education classrooms, variations for students with disabilities, teacher's checklists, IEP goal suggestions, examples of assistive technology, and answers to commonly asked questions. The book supports the Four-Blocks(R) Literacy Model and provides a list of children's literature that can be used in lessons.

Blackness and Disability makes a unique contribution to Disability Studies scholarship. Christopher Bell and the other contributors to this volume help fill a glaring gap in the literature by examining the intersection between race - specifically, blackness - and disability. This volume should be in the library of every Disability Studies scholar. (Series: FORECAAST - Vol. 21)

The first major behind-the-scenes account of the history, passage, and impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)—the landmark moment for disability rights The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is the widest-ranging and most comprehensive piece of civil rights legislation ever passed in the United States, and it has become the model for disability-based laws around the world. Yet the surprising story behind how the bill came to be is little known. In this riveting account, acclaimed disability scholar Lennard J. Davis delivers the first on-the-ground narrative of how a band of leftist Berkeley hippies managed to make an alliance with upper-crust, conservative Republicans to bring about a truly bipartisan bill. Based on extensive interviews with all the major players involved including legislators and activists, Davis recreates the dramatic tension of a story that is anything but a dry account of bills and speeches. Rather, it’s filled with one indefatigable character after another, culminating in explosive moments when the hidden army of the disability community stages scenes like the iconic “Capitol Crawl” or an event when students stormed Gallaudet University demanding a “Deaf President Now!” From inside the offices of newly formed disability groups to secret breakfast meetings surreptitiously held outside the White House grounds, here we meet countless unsung characters, including political heavyweights and disability advocates on the front lines. “You want to fight?” an angered Ted Kennedy would shout in an upstairs room at the Capitol while negotiating the final details of the ADA. Congressman Tony Coelho, whose parents once thought him to be possessed by the devil because of his epilepsy, later became the bill’s primary sponsor. There’s Justin Dart, adorned in disability power buttons and his signature cowboy hat, who took to the road canvassing 50 states, and people like Patrisha Wright, also known as “The General,” Arlene Myerson or “the brains,” “architect” Bob Funk, and visionary Mary Lou Breslin, who left the hippie highlands of the West to pursue equal rights in the marble halls of DC.

The Routledge History of Disability explores the shifting attitudes towards and representations of disabled people from the age of antiquity to the twenty-first century. Taking an international view of the subject, this wide-ranging collection shows that the history of disability cuts across racial, ethnic, religious, cultural, gender and class divides, highlighting the commonalities and differences between the experiences of disabled persons in global historical context. The book is arranged in four parts, covering histories of disabilities across various time periods and cultures, histories of national disability policies, programs and services, histories of education and training and the ways in which disabled people have been seen and treated in the last few decades. Within this, the twenty-eight chapters discuss topics such as developments in disability issues during the late Ottoman period, the history of disability in Belgian Congo in the early twentieth century, blind asylums in nineteenth-century Scotland and the systematic killing of disabled children in Nazi Germany. Illustrated with images and tables and providing an overview of how various countries, cultures and societies have addressed disability over time, this comprehensive volume offers a global perspective on this rapidly growing field and is a valuable resource for scholars of disability studies and histories of disabilities.