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Disability Protests
From CHOICE Perhaps the photographs are the most interesting part of this book, because they communicate the human experience of the disability rights protests from 1970 through 1999. One of this reviewer's favorites is the image of activists at the Wheel of Justice March and Demonstration in 1990 climbing the 83 marble steps of the US Capitol, trailing their crutches or scooting up backward on their seats while out of their wheelchairs. The text is accessible, but primarily of interest to those who enjoy number crunching something as elusive as protest movements. Sociologists Barnartt (Gallaudet Univ.) and Scotch (Univ. of Texas at Dallas) note that the statistics do not support the notion that disability protests were as widespread as media coverage might suggest, but the statistics do help readers grasp the complexity of this new minority group, “people with disabilities.” That is, cross-disability protests occurred only 28 percent of the time. Some protests arose out of separate cultural histories for particular disabilities. For example, the National Federation of the Blind led protests against the National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped. This is an excellent book for graduate students in political science, history, sociology, and disability studies.
-- P.A. Murphy, University of Toledo Sharon Barnartt is Professor of Sociology at Gallaudet University, Washington, DC. Richard Scotch is Associate Professor of Sociology and Political Economy at the University of Texas at Dallas. ISBN 1-56368-112-9, 7 x 10 casebound, 256 pages, tables, references, index $79.95s
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