The
most powerful human organizer, for good, that I ever knew of or met,
was Ed Roberts a key organizer of the Disability Independent Living
Movement in the U.S. and worldwide. I consider him greater than M L
King. King had a moral cause based on the military service and
sacrifice of lives over decades of the black community on his side and
the blatant history of Southern violence.
Ed Roberts created a movement out of whole cloth, with no visible community and no history of military service people to back him up.
Ed never talked about rights. Ed only talked about why we all benefit from including the disabled in our lives.
This is a part of what I wrote after Ed died:
Ed spoke slowly, and especially for the first few minutes of listening to him, he was hard to understand because he had an air tube in his mouth, which he shifted around with his tongue. He also moved his head often, and reoriented his electric wheelchair erratically to deal with his physical discomfort. In a silent video, he would have looked like a bumblebee dancing.
When Ed talked to you, however, he spoke directly to your heart. Everyone listened, fully enraptured. He used a language that was deep; he had a heart that was clear and true, and the intent in his heart was communicated directly to the person he was talking to. He reached deeply into the most human, caring part of other people. Ed was incredible on a person-to-person basis, and he was also impressive in a public-speaking mode. When Ed spoke to you, you knew that you needed Ed to be part of your life. If there were other people like Ed, with disabilities, you knew that they had to be part of your life, too.
It is impossible for me to fully communicate the power of Ed Roberts to evoke humanity and caring in the people he dealt with, though I saw him do this time and time again. I don't know the source of this power. Ed could meet someone for the first time, and within minutes that person wanted to support Ed and his project with everything they had.
