

Today’s Google Doodle pays tribute to Ed Roberts, an early leader of the disability rights movement and co-founder of the World Institute on Disability.

After contracting polio at age 14, Roberts was paralyzed from the neck down. In spite of spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair and being unable to breathe without a respirator, Roberts fought for his rights — starting in high school, when he was told he wouldn’t receive his diploma because he had failed to complete phys ed and driver’s ed requirements.

Roberts petitioned his school and was awarded his diploma. He went on to be the first University of California–Berkley student with severe disabilities.

The Google Doodle Blog on Roberts shared the following quote from Roberts’s mother, Zona:

“I watched Ed as he grew from a sports-loving kid, through bleak days of hopelessness, into self-acceptance of his physical limitations as he learned what was possible for him to accomplish. His years at UCB were great ones as he both enjoyed his college status and got in touch with his leadership qualities. He took great pleasure in watching people with disabilities achieve greater acceptance.”

Among his accomplishments as a disabilities rights actives, Roberts created the Physically Disabled Students Program at his University. California Governor Jerry Brown named him Director of the California Department of Vocational Rehabilitation in 1976. Seven years later, Roberts co-founded the World Institute on Disability, a nonprofit focused on disability rights policies, research and consulting.

Marking what would have been Roberts’s 78th birthday, the doodle leads to a search for “Ed Roberts activist” and is being displayed on Google’s US home page.

Early sketches of the doodle were included on the Google Doodle Blog:

You can learn more about the World Institute on Disability’s efforts and programs at: www.WID.org.

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