Dis/Identification with Disability Advocacy: Fraternity Brothers Fight against Architectural Barriers, 1967–1975

Abstract

This article addresses how nondisabled people identify with and become disability advocates and how this identification can also fail to occur. The advocacy work of a group of fraternity brothers in the late 1960s highlights both the local successes that personal connections to disability offer and the shortcomings of large-scale advocacy efforts that lack meaningful engagement with disabled groups. Situated histories of advocacy offer models for how we can build and sustain solidarity across difference, craft more inclusive understandings of accessibility and disability, and engage more thoughtfully in our advocacy work.

Notes

1. ¹I am grateful to Lois Agnew for her mentorship and guidance as I developed this project and to Patrick Berry for offering feedback along the way. Special thanks to RR reviewers Jay Dolmage and Julie Jung for providing me with such thoughtful, thorough comments.

2. ²The American Standards Association published the first accessibility standard in 1961, but these standards could not be enforced until they were confirmed at the state level. It wasn’t until 1973 that forty-nine states had passed accessibility legislation, so it is also significant that the brothers began advocating for accessibility in 1967.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Allison Hitt

Allison Hitt is Assistant Professor of Writing at the University of Central Arkansas. Her research is focused on how disability is constructed and mediated through technology, whose voices and stories and bodies we value through archival projects and disciplinary histories, and how we can work as a community to theorize and enact more socially just pedagogical practices. You can find out more about her work at allisonhitt.com.