California Story Fund
Documenting Disability History
Freed Center for Independent Living
Grass Valley
Project Director: Heather Heckler
The story of the disabled rights movement in rural California
This oral history project and exhibit will tell the stories of the activists, community leaders and people with disabilities in Nevada County who helped shape the movements for rights and independent living for the disabled since the 1970s.
Project Director Heather Heckler has already begun researching and reviewing the personal papers, newspaper articles and historic transcripts that reveal the decades of work behind these hard-won rights.
She will soon begin interviewing local individuals who fought at the grassroots level to deinstitutionalize people with disabilities, give them access to public spaces, and advocate for improvements in public transportation, housing, education and employment.
“Much attention has been paid to prominent activists,” said Heckler. “In California, where so much of the independent living movement was shaped, It’s important to document the stories of those on the ground level who put legislation, policies and ideas into practice.”
The interviews will be augmented with interpretive text, photographs, articles and memorabilia to create a community exhibit that will premiere in Grass Valley in October 2008, to coincide with National Disability Awareness Month.