Willie Mae Goodman decided to send her daughter Marguerite to the Willowbrook State School when Marguerite was four years old. Marguerite was born with developmental disabilities, and doctors argued that Willowbrook was an appropriate place for her.
Conditions for Marguerite, and other children and adults at Willowbrook, were horrible. The facility drew criticism from Senator Robert Kennedy, who described it as “not fit for animals,” as Mrs. Goodman recalls.
Judith (Judy) Heumann was one of tens of thousands of children who contracted polio during outbreaks in the late 1940s and early 1950s and became physically disabled. As a young girl, she received home instruction until her mother was able to get Judy enrolled at P.S. 219 in Queens when she was in the fourth grade. On her first day of school she rode with other children in a wheelchair-accessible bus. She met the paraprofessionals who would help her and other Disabled students get around the school, use the bathroom, and get physical, occupational, or speech therapy.1 She recalled that everyone in her class used braces or a wheelchair, and that they were taught in a basement classroom separated from the “kids upstairs”—the non-disabled students. Heumann’s special education class resembled the ungraded classes from the early 20th century, and included students aged 9-21.2 They were grouped together because of their physical access needs, in spite of their wide range of academic and social needs.
After Camp Jened closed in 1977, many former campers stayed connected to one another. The sense of community and possibility they built at camp became an inspiration and source of strength for the developing disability rights movement.1
Mrs. Willie Mae Goodman heard many people speak of her daughter’s death. When she was an infant and a toddler, doctors encouraged Mrs. Goodman and her husband to place Marguerite in an institution. Her doctors predicted that Marguerite would not live beyond two years, and they told her parents that they could send her away.
In early 1979, the Board of Education decided to change the rules for private bus operators in a way that would have lowered wages for many drivers. More than 2,000 bus drivers went on strike for over 13 weeks.
Marguerite Goodman lived at the Gouverneur Hospital in lower Manhattan. Her mother, Willie Mae Goodman, organized to improve Marguerite’s life at Gouverneur. This article by the New York Daily News identifies the many ways she and other family members of residents worked to change Gouverneur.
As institutions became more widespread, more parents sent their children with intellectual and developmental disabilities away, hoping they would be rehabilitated and come home. Many of them never did. New York built five institutions for Disabled people, starting in 1855 with a state school in Syracuse, and followed by schools in Rome, Newark, and Letchworth Village. The city also operated an “Idiot School” or “Asylum” on Randall’s Island.
The late 1960s and early 1970s saw campus activism around the United States, for social change and against the Vietnam War. In New York City, students at various campuses of the City University of New York organized and protested in ways that changed their colleges and universities in the late 1960s and early 1970s. At City College, students organized a takeover of the campus demanding admission of more Black and Latinx students to the predominantly white campus in Harlem. At Brooklyn College, students pushed successfully for the founding of programs in Africana Studies and Puerto Rican Studies.1
Bayard Rustin was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, on March 12, 1912. He was raised by his maternal grandmother, who was an active member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Because of her activism, Bayard engaged in protests against racial discrimination at a very young age. After spending time at Wilberforce College and Cheyney State Teachers College, Rustin moved to New York City in 1937. He began attending classes at City College and he became part of a radical network of activists and organizers. Through this network, he met and worked alongside Ella Baker, A. Philip Randolph, and others. Randolph quickly noticed Rustin’s talent for organizing demonstrations. In 1941, Randolph enlisted Rustin to organize a demonstration at the United States Capitol against segregation in the armed forces and racial discrimination in employment. The pressure from this proposed march compelled President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to sign an executive order that prohibited racial and ethnic discrimination in the nation’s defense industry, which was very active as World War II was underway.
Located near the town of Hunter, New York, in the Catskill Mountains (a few hours from New York City), Camp Jened was unusual at the time for its focus on Disabled campers.1
The grounds of Camp Jened included a river, a lake with a dock for boating and places to row, swimming facilities, and a stream that was great for fishing.1 Camp Jened also had a large grassy field where campers and counselors gathered to play baseball.
Camp Jened was a private camp, and it charged campers’ families for attendance. Founders Leona Burger and Honora Rubenstein reported that they kept the fees as low as possible. But not everyone could afford to pay these fees.1
For Camp Jened to be accessible to Disabled children and adults, staff and counselors had to work well with campers. Some of the staff at Camp Jened were disabled themselves, but all received training in how to support Disabled youth and adults.1
Camp Jened was located in the northern Catskills, on over 250 acres (which is about ⅓ the size of Central Park, or as big as 250 football fields) with 22 buildings near the town of Hunter, New York. The camp’s founders designed it to welcome Disabled children and adults, who did not often have access to summer camps and outdoor recreation. Camp Jened was the first camp of its kind for Disabled youth in New York and first opened in July 1953. It ran until August of 1977, and then reopened in 1980.1
Polio was a mass-disabling event that spanned nearly 50 years between the time the virus appeared in 1908 to the discovery of a vaccine in 1955. Most people who caught polio became sick, but many people died and many others became partially or totally paralyzed. Children were especially likely to catch the virus because their immune systems were less developed. In New York City, a major outbreak took place in 1916, killing more than 2,000 people and disabling thousands more. Many children who survived polio were cared for at home or lived at hospitals.
At the beginning of the 20th century, New York City required more and more students to attend school and prohibited them from working. In these years, the school system created a variety of special classes and schools for Disabled children, as well as for students who skipped school or otherwise got into trouble. Deaf students went to specialized schools for a few years, and then were expected to join their non-disabled peers in general education classrooms. Blind students were also intended to learn beside their non-disabled peers with the help of special instructors. The Board of Education created ungraded classes for children with intellectual disabilities, who educators thought should be segregated from other children and learn different subjects. Though not specifically mentioned in this document, some children with physical disabilities received home instruction because architectural barriers kept them from accessing school buildings.
Special education classes for children with intellectual disabilities were pioneered in New York City by a social welfare reformer, Elizabeth Farrell. Farrell had been working with Lillian Wald and other reformers at the Henry Street Settlement in the Lower East Side. Henry Street was built to provide community support and education to new immigrants to New York City, most of them from southern and eastern Europe.
