Chapter 3 - Defining moments and Building Bridges

In the same year an agency in America, the Committee on Restrictions against Disabled People, recommended that the US government adopt Anti-Discrimination Legislation whilst in the UK, well-known Member of Parliament Jack Ashley, who was deaf, made the very first attempt to introduce Anti-Discrimination Legislation into British law. Jack Ashley’s efforts were not successful, but they inspired a growing, and relentless, campaign which eventually led to the Disability Discrimination Act of 1995.

Also in 1982 the United Nations (UN) adopted a World Programme of action concerning Disabled People and the following year the UN General Assembly proclaimed a Decade of Disabled Persons to 1992. In 1984, the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights was amended to specifically include the rights of disabled people and so it was that by the mid-1980s, the disabled people’s movement was not only firmly established in Great Britain and North America, but had now taken on global dimensions.

Bob Findlay summarised how many disability activists and academics now view the early 1980s:

“So the early ‘80s were for disabled people, the equivalent of the late ‘60s for the radical agendas around Vietnam, black power and women’s liberation. I would say that the early ‘80s was actually a defining moment for that political culture to suddenly come on over.

“The International Year got people thinking and it certainly showed some shred of light that people picked up on. But here it was more about rights of individuals to begin with, one disabled person and one non-disabled person who was very supportive, actually sitting down and you know saying ‘yes this sounds sensible’.”

To coin a well-known phrase of environmental activism which was first attributed to David Brower, founder of Friends of the Earth in 1969, rather pertinently in the context of this book, most probably originated in concept from the writing of a town planner named Patrick Geddes in 1915, in the early ‘80s Birmingham was about to become a very good example of a place that was ‘thinking globally and acting locally’.

After leaving the University of Birmingham and working with young people in Brierley Hill, in the West Midlands borough of Dudley, Bob Findlay landed some work as a researcher looking at the needs of disabled people in Birmingham:

“What the project did was to make me realise how much ignorance and prejudice existed in society around disabled people.

“One day when I went to visit the Trade Union Resource Centre in the Jewellery Quarter, I got a ticket for parking too long on a yellow line. That infuriated me and again galvanised my feelings that disabled people are not only discriminated against, but oppressed by the system.

“That had been my view for about 15-20 years, but I had felt that I couldn’t go down the route that UPIAS had gone, because it was too inward looking so I switched off and took, if you like, my eye off the ball. But my own personal experience of getting this ticket, of constantly going for a job, not getting interviews etc really started to hit home.”

In 1983, returning to live and work in Birmingham from his short spell in Brierley Hill and driven by both his own personal experience and by the wider findings of his research, Bob took a hard look around to see what existed for disabled people. Largely unimpressed, it dawned on him that something new was going to be needed if disabled people in the city were to achieve greater freedom and rights:

“In fairness to the West Midlands Council for Disabled People, I think it was trying to break out of the individual tragedy model, but was surrounded with people who were still very greatly into that.

“It was more geared around what I think we all know as the traditional building blocks: care, information, benefits. Very much the independency model of what we can do for disabled people without actually analysing why disabled people would be excluded or marginalised within the mainstream sector.

“So an organisation existed and was recognised which, in its own way, was a very traditional charity-type model. I felt that that was not going to resolve the issues that I felt were being raised by society’s attitudes and practice for all disabled people.”

Bob’s personal thinking in terms of the direction of the emergent disability rights movement and what could be developed locally in Birmingham, continued to be based around the Marxist viewpoint, an analysis in which for him very firm links could be made between the emerging disability movement and his recent research around racism, race politics and trade unionism.

“There are several things that came together as a set. If you recall I said I had visited the Trade Union Resource Centre when I got my ticket so I got them immediately on board to support my individual campaign against the ticket.

“I also discussed with them what was wrong with society and why disabled people got such ‘a shit deal’. I asked a colleague with whom I went over the pub ‘why isn’t there a movement of disabled people under your umbrella?’ He replied that he had read about BCODP, so I said ‘OK I will try to find out more about them’.

“Curiously enough, a few weeks later I picked up a copy of Disability Now (I am not sure what it was called then) and there was an advert in there about a meeting in London. It was a meeting of a liberating network of people with disabilities.

“I went to the meeting and learned that they were establishing a disability nerve centre in London which I thought ‘that sounds like what I want to do in Birmingham’. Then during a discussion on social oppression I thought ‘that’s funny that’s what I wanted to do’ and I immediately got involved in the network.”

Following an advertisement in the Birmingham Evening Mail, Bob went to see a funding advisor named Marion Bowles who was providing mentoring support to new organisations on behalf of Birmingham City Council. Marion helped Bob to complete a grant application to provide the funds needed to launch Birmingham Disability Rights Group.

Bob’s next objective was to hold meetings around the city to promote the idea of a new group and also to measure the general feelings of disabled people in the city at the time. Would other people share his frustration and anger and, if so, would they share his aspiration for a new group run by disabled people?

It was a long haul. Personal computers and desk-top printers were not widely owned in the early ‘80s, even so, Bob managed to produce a leaflet about the group and a flyer which could be used to promote meetings. He booked the group’s first meeting at Tindal Street School in Balsall Heath and began distributing the promotional flyers everywhere and to everyone he met.

In spite of Bob’s greatest evangelical efforts, the first meeting of Birmingham Disability Rights Group was not a terribly great success:

“I booked a room and I waited there on the night and nobody else came! So BDRG didn’t get off to a very good start!”

Undeterred, Bob continued to distribute leaflets and slowly began to meet individuals who were expressing an interest in the group. Within a few months BDRG membership grew from three people to five then to 12 and soon to 50, as slowly the word of mouth went round that once a month a group of disabled people were going to meet to discuss various ideas, the main one being a campaign group, but at the centre of it all would be the establishment of a disability resource centre.