ATTENTION: ASSIGNMENT DESKS

10/26/00
Contact: Kathleen Maclay (510) 643-5651

"Intersections of Civil Rights and Social Movements: Putting Disability in its Place," a symposium in which civil rights historians, scholars and leading 1960s activists will explore parallels and differences among social movements, and how the disability rights movement fits into this larger context.

The program marks the opening at the University of California, Berkeley, of a new collection of oral histories, photos, documents and personal papers of early participants in the disability rights and independent living movement. The collection is at the campus's Bancroft Library.

A highlight of the event, which is free and open to the public, will be readings of new oral histories of early disability movement leaders in the Bay Area.

Symposium participants include:

* Co-moderators Jonathan Young, associate director for disability outreach at the White House Office of Public Liaison, and Mary Lou Breslin of the Disability Rights and Education Fund in Berkeley.

* Diane Nash, leader of the first lunch counter sit-in, Nashville, 1960. * Ruth Rosen, UC Davis history professor and author of "The World Split Open: How the Modern Women's' Movement Changed America."

* Charles Cobb, organizer of Mississippi voter registration in the 1960s.

* Kitty Cone, principal organizer of a 28-day sit-in in San Francisco by people with disabilities in 1977 for federal accessibility regulations.

* Katherine Ott, curator, Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.

* Waldo Martin, UC Berkeley history professor and co-editor of "Civil Rights in the United States: An Encyclopedia."

* Paul Longmore, San Francisco State University history professor, co-editor of "The New Disability History: American Perspective."

* Horacio Roque Ramirez, UC Berkeley graduate student, ethnic studies.