Disability disabled activists

In Marin I ran into situations time and again when someone I knew couldn t enter the hospital because there was new carpet, or couldn t get a pap smear or a breast exam, or couldn t take kids to the ER or to a clinic because of chemical barriers. I began working with some of the disability activists in Marin County and San Francisco and tried to learn what the laws were. In 1985 I started a newsletter, called The Reactor, about civil rights and access rights for people with chemical and electric magnetic field sensitivities. 

Disabled activists have, however, recognised the tensions between the individual and social action and the potential for allies - intellectuals - to become enemies ... 

Harold Krents was a Washington, D.C., attorney and activist for the rights of the disabled. Before his death in 1987, Krents served on the President s Committee on Employment of the Handicapped and was a member of the Vera Institute of Justice and Mainstream, Incorporated. His autobiography To Race the Wind was published in 1972 his life was the inspiration for the Broadway play and popular movie Butterflies Are Free. This essay originally appeared in The New York Times in 1976. 

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