Writing in USA Today, Ben Mattlin says people with disabilities owe a profound debt of gratitude to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for his work in the civil rights movement.

Like African Americans, Mattlin says, people with disabilities share a history of being been held back by discrimination and low expectations. An excerpt:

Make no mistake: There is a legacy of shame. Just as blacks were shunted to the margins of society not so long ago, we disabled were housed in attics, basements and institutions.

What’s more, both blacks and the disabled were once considered genetically inferior. There were laws curtailing our reproductive freedom. Even today, unemployment rates for people with disabilities rival those of African Americans.

The historical and current similarities are stirring. Which is why Martin Luther King Day on Monday should have special meaning for people with disabilities. Besides showing us how to organize and agitate for equal rights, King gave voice to the simple yet revolutionary notion that we’re good enough — valuable, even — as we are. And as such we deserve better.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 15th, 2010 at 5:15 pm and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, civil rights, commentary, discrimination, 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.