From the Orange County [CA] Register:

Cal State Fullerton student Gina Alessi, 19, won the university’s first Martin Luther King Speech Competition by comparing the African American civil rights movement to the current struggle for equality in the disability community. Alessi has two sisters, Patricia, 20, and Madeline, 15, who have Down syndrome.

An excerpt from her speech:

“Since the days of the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King’s dream, we have done our best to strive for equality for all people. That brave man lived and died so that we could have a world that would not discriminate against others.

“I know that if you saw a group of white-skinned people beating an African American, you would do something about it. But, if we changed that African American into a person with a disability, and those whites became a group of snickering people calling him or her a ‘retard,’ would you do something then?”

See also: ‘Keeping the dream alive’ — Daily Titan (student newspaper of Cal State Fullerton)

(Orange County Register photo courtesy of CSU Fullerton)

This entry was posted on Monday, March 9th, 2009 at 6:04 am and is filed under civil rights, discrimination, Down syndrome, language, personal stories, politics, public attitudes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.