scholarly journals Contextualizing Disability

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-33
Author(s):  
Carolyn Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Progressive Era ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Societal Context ◽  
Eighth Edition ◽  
Medical Advances ◽  
Genetic Fitness

The interconnection of language and societal context is demonstrated through the Library of Congress Subject Headings surrounding disability. This study examines and compares how language encapsulates contemporary understandings of disability in the second edition (1919) and eighth edition (1975). Created and published during the so-called “Progressive Era,” the second edition emphasizes Victorian beliefs in the correspondence of morality with participation in the labour force and genetic fitness (i.e., conformity to physical and psychological norms). The language of this context further marginalized persons with disabilities. In contrast, the eighth edition marks the growing respect for and autonomy of people with disabilities, with language related to the civil rights movement, medical advances, and the replacement of ableist terms such as “Deaf and dumb” with neutral terms or self-definitions, such as “Deaf.” This evolution demonstrates the positive effects when we as librarians accept our social responsibility to eschew marginalizing language and instead use language that affirms minority identities.

Affirmative Action, Cultural Diversity, and Disability Policy Reform: Foundations to the Civil Rights of Persons with Disability

1998 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 9-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renée A. Middleton ◽  
Debra A. Harley ◽  
Carolyn W. Rollins ◽  
Tamala Solomon
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Independent Living ◽  
Disability Services ◽  
Rehabilitation Act Of 1973 ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
The 1960S

The authors discuss how the impetus for rehabilitation reform historically received momentum from civil rights activities in the 1960s. The origins of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the American with Disabilities Act, and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, are discussed from the political context at the time of passage. Thus, the reader comes to understand how persons with disabilities, through the independent living movement; a civil rights movement within a movement for equality, were empowered to become a major force in prompting the signing of the ADA. The paper is based on the belief that current disability legislation must be inclusive of all persons with disabilities. To that end, connections are made between affirmative action, a major vanguard of equality, cultural diversity and multiculturalism. A rational is provided for the assertion that elimination of affirmative action will have serious repercussions for the long-term effectiveness and survival of other civil rights legislation. Finally, recommendations for achieving multiculturalism are made and concluding remarks predict the outlook for the future with respect to disability services, policy and practice.

Not as It Is Written

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 78-100
Author(s):  
Benjamin Houston
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
International Exhibition ◽  
Black Experience ◽  
American Perspective ◽  
History Of ◽  
Black Life ◽  
Made In

This article discusses an international exhibition that detailed the recent history of African Americans in Pittsburgh. Methodologically, the exhibition paired oral history excerpts with selected historic photographs to evoke a sense of Black life during the twentieth century. Thematically, showcasing the Black experience in Pittsburgh provided a chance to provoke among a wider public more nuanced understandings of the civil rights movement, an era particularly prone to problematic and superficial misreadings, but also to interject an African American perspective into the scholarship on deindustrializing cities, a literature which treats racism mostly in white-centric terms. This essay focuses on the choices made in reconciling these thematic and methodological dimensions when designing this exhibition.

Too Close for Comfort: Canada, the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, and the North American Colo(u)r Line

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Asa McKercher
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
North American ◽  
The North ◽  
The U.S

Too Close for Comfort: Canada, the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, and the North American Colo(u)r Line

Innovation by Political Outsiders

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Epstein
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Women's Suffrage ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Nineteenth Amendment ◽  
Suffrage Movement ◽  
Communication Goals ◽  
Print Era ◽  
Women’S Suffrage

This chapter explores communication innovations made by American social movements over time. These movements share political communication goals and outsider status, which helps to connect innovation decisions across movements and across time. The chapter primarily explores two long-lasting movements. First is the women’s suffrage movement, which lasted over seventy years of the print era from the mid-nineteenth century until the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. Next is the long-lasting fight against racial discrimination, which led to the modern civil rights movement starting in the print era, but coming of age along with television during the 1950s and 1960s. Both the women’s suffrage movement and civil rights movement utilized innovative tactics with similarly mild results until mainstream coverage improved. Finally, these historical movements are compared with movements emerging during the internet era, including the early Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and the Resist movement.

Religion, Race, and Sports

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Scholes
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
The United States ◽  
Baseball Player ◽  
Sports History ◽  
Jim Crow Era ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
African American Race

Race, religion, and sports may seem like odd bedfellows, but, in fact, all three have been interacting with each other since the emergence of modern sports in the United States over a century ago. It was the sport of boxing that saw a black man become a champion at the height of the Jim Crow era and a baseball player who broke the color barrier two decades before the civil rights movement began. In this chapter, the role that religion has played in these and other instances where race (the African American race in particular) and sports have collided will be examined for its impact on the relationship between race and sports. The association of race, religion, and sports is not accidental. The chapter demonstrates that all three are co-constitutive of and dependent on each other for their meaning at these chosen junctures in American sports history.

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