SARAH LAUNDERVILLE: So hi, everybody.

I'm Sarah, and thank you all for coming today.

We're going to talk a little bit about the history time line.

We're going to take a small amount of time to do this part.

And Ruth and Justin, you want to join us up here, or do you want to 

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Do you want us to?

SARAH LAUNDERVILLE: Only if you want to.

They have a lot of information too.

We're going to take a little time and show this, and so what I would like to do when we do presentations, over in Vermont, is oftentimes combine time line histories, and so what you'll see up here, and in your handouts Mike put together, which was a time line that shows, some of the recovery movement and some of the independent living movement and some of the mainstream activities that were happening during that time.

We're not going to take you through every section of that, and really Dan is going to take you through some of the survivor movement in a little while.

But what I wanted to talk about just first is that history itself is really important as we, I think everybody has always learned, history, the whole repeating itself, if you don't learn from it type of a thing, going back and looking at, how did we get to where we are today?

And for me, personally, I think history is important because it helps me identify sort of where I land within all of these different movements.

I think that, for me, I really came in through the, the independent living movement, as a person who has a psychiatric disabilities, but really found my voice in different ways as I think people have talked about today.

So you'll see, I don't know who has the clicker, but, okay.

So you'll see in the beginning, Mike, do you want to take us through, I'm going to ask him as he's moving the presentation board.

I'm going to have him take us through a little bit of the thinking of the, the time line itself in the beginning.

MIKE BACHHUBER: Sure.

We kind of wanted to start with a lot of information starts in the U.S.

disability movement, the era after the Civil War when this whole idea of having great institutions for people with disabilities, the large insane asylums and other institutions really got their start in the 1870s and 1880s, and we tried in the chart to kind of show that in relation to other things that are going on, but probably want to spin ahead here a little bit to more modern period when a lot more was happening within our movement, so you have a mic on the table, if you can use the mic, please.

So we want to recognize that there is expertise in the whole room here, and feel free to share your expertise.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah.

I don't know how to turn this thing on.

MIKE BACHHUBER: Oh, oh.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Here it is.

MIKE BACHHUBER: Where are TA people when we need them?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: That's easier.

Not to be petty, but the AA was founded in 1935.

That's just all I wanted to say.

It has it under 1950s but actually was founded in 1935.

RUTHIE POOLE: Thanks, Pat, that's very important because it was during the depression and that had a lot to do with what was going on.

So thank you.

MIKE BACHHUBER: Sorry for getting that wrong.

So there we go.

More expertise in the room than here up at the table.

I don't know.

Basically, one of the things when we flip forward so quickly into this modern era is that after World War II we started seeing the nature of some of the social movements changing pretty significantly.

Veterans came back from World War II.

They had access to education.

They had access to health care, if they had disabilities they had veterans' benefits and we started seeing self-help in a lot of areas related to veterans or with veterans at the leadership, and we think, I think that that kind of led into some of the things that we started seeing more directly in the '60s.

So 

SARAH LAUNDERVILLE: Do you guys want to add to anything that's up there right now?

So what we were, I think a lot of folks in the room probably have learned the IL history, right, that you've gone through this, and if you haven't, I think the idea of the time line is just to show you, here's some of the major events that were happening.

There was advocacy work that was leading up, you know, and that, and then we saw the laws that came through, and you'll see as you flip through time line, it was just to give you a small breath of here's where to go with this.

I would encourage folks to really look up more specific things around history if you'd like to.

But what we wanted to ask the group is, what can we learn from combining our history like this?

What are some things that you'll see that maybe you didn't know ahead of time as you're looking through that time line that there's some shared history about, or comments folks have from this?

RUTHIE POOLE: I love how you set it up, how you guys set this up, because it really is a time of social change.

You know, the Liberation Fund, in Massachusetts we call it the Mass Up, blanking out.

It's the M, Mental Patients Liberation Front.

It was the time of radicalism for African-Americans, for women, for, it was the beginning of stone wall.

It was a time of real social change, and that's just in our area, I think probably there was stuff going on in Hawaii, I imagine.

It was a time of just to seek kind of the, to see the reflection on how you guys set this up is very moving, and I think we need to get back to those roots, frankly, and we'll talk some about that.

MIKE BACHHUBER: One of the things I think we really wanted to show is that there really has been this consumer survivor ex-patient movement that has developed right alongside the IL movement.

People were oftentimes different but what was happening was very similar, and a lot of the same themes in the consumer survivor ex-patient and here I am doing what I was told not to, in the consumer survivor ex- patient movement one of the themes is peer support, mutual support.

And the other part of that is advocacy, that we need to recognize our human rights and advocate for them.

And so it's not exactly the same as what developed in the cross-disability or IL movement, but a lot of similarities, both what was happening, when it was happening, and the kinds of ideas that were guiding development of the movements.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah, also interesting, a bit interesting for me to know, like Ruthie mentioned, a lot of grassroots organizing and things like that going on.

With the founding of AA, that kind of kicked off, people forget about the whole big self-help movement, and self-help books and peer support groups.

And although the Civil Rights Act was established, it didn't include people of, with disabilities, as a protected group but kind of paved the way for us to see that that could, a group of people could get rights as a protected class, and kind of dovetailed into what was going on in Berkeley in the start of the first ILC, so kind of all that movement was happening and everybody was kind of dovetailing into each other and utilizing the different communities.

I think it was much later when folks started to try to establish the rights for their group is when it started to really splinter off and become siloed.

MIKE BACHHUBER: Good point.

SARAH LAUNDERVILLE: Any other thoughts folks have around time line, where we're going?

Okay.

Great.

MIKE BACHHUBER: And there's not really going to be a quiz on this.

This is basically to try to introduce the theme to this conference, which is that you know, we all are bringing something to the table.

We have a lot of similarities.

Sometimes folks think that dealing with psychiatric disability is this foreign thing, and it's not really.

It's us.

It's, you know, half of people with physical disabilities or sensory disabilities or other serious disabilities also have their own mental health struggles, and all centers are serving people with psychiatric disabilities.

Some of them are open about their disabilities, and others come in with other issues, and maybe not, don't talk about their psychiatric disability, but that's also part of the theme that we really wanted to kind of put out there.

SARAH LAUNDERVILLE: I think as you move forward through the next couple days, thinking about how you identify yourself, your family, or whatever around self-identity, but then moving on, how does your center or your organization really identify around this issue when we're saying we're cross-disability, are we really cross-disability?

And really looking at that, and if you're looking for some activities around, how do I bring this back to my group and really talk about, we have some shared history here, and this is kind of a good starting point to help people really start to see some of that, so I think, thinking about how you're going to bring it back will be a little bit helpful.

MIKE BACHHUBER: I see Ali with her hand up.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I was wondering during the '60s and '70s when the first independent living movement and like when it was all kind of starting to develop, how much interaction would you say was there between, for instance, the Insane Liberation Front and Ed Roberts and that core group of folks starting independent living.

MIKE BACHHUBER: I think Dan is going to be talking a lot more about that in the history, but go ahead.

DANIEL FISHER: Well actually there were some parallel movements, although in the Bay area, Howie the Harp did connect with the Oakland independent living center in the '80s, late '80s, and that was one of the first sort of cross overs that I'm aware of.

And then Judy Chamberlin became quite involved in cross-disability work, again probably in late '80s, early '90s, and although I don't think there's enough talk about Justin Dart played a very important role in reaching out in the '90s, especially, whenever there was an important event in Washington, he would call Judy and myself to come down, so that, the bridges were more at a national level, I'd say, than at a grassroots level, and that continues, I think, to be the case.

That's something we can talk about, is how to, how to learn from how nationally we've been able to form some of those bridges and then transfer that down to a local level.

But there hasn't been enough, I guess, is the answer.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I mean, and just as a follow-up, you don't have to answer now, but for me in understanding how things can get better today, I'd be really curious to learn more about what were the reasons why we didn't work well together back then?

You know, or in moments where it, we didn't work well together, and I think about the, the parallel experiences of every one almost, almost a lot of people in the disability community, whether be psychiatric disabilities, physical disabilities, we were all institutionalized at one point.

And that trauma that occurs and like that parallel experience, I'd be curious just to learn more about reasons why there wasn't more cross-disability and how that still is reflected on today's world.

MIKE BACHHUBER: It's a great question to ask and I hope we get a chance to talk about it more over the next few days.

I've given some thought to that, and I think the focus of IL and the cross-disability community was often on accessibility, accessible transportation, accessible other services, and I think for the mental health advocates, oftentimes it was on staying out of the hospital.

Hospitals are horrible places, how do we, how do we keep our peers out and stay out ourselves?

And so I think that that was probably a major factor but there may have been other factors as well, and it is something for us to think about, and hopefully come up with some answers on how, how those movements, how we can work together today and in the future.

RUTHIE POOLE: I'm going to actually talk more about the history of NILP tomorrow, but it really, I really credit Charlie Carr, who is a national leader in the independent living movement.

He started, he and some others the Boston Center for Independent Living, which my understanding, and you all know the history better than I do, the second place after Berkeley, I don't know if that's accurate 

MIKE BACHHUBER: That's true.

RUTHIE POOLE: But he sat down with Pat Deegan, who is one of, as I said, the great thinkers in our movement, and said come work with me in '87, they realize, what you're saying, Ali, what I want to talk about there is the shared oppression.

What it's about is oppression.

And so they really spent a great deal of time on a very personal level, and realized, like, oh, my God, you may have had a spinal cord injury at 15 and I went, the lid came off the box and I went crazy at 15, but we shared so much, our early trauma, et cetera.

It just was really kind of remarkable and they really explored that on a personal level for quite some time.

And then kind of took it from there.

So I, I kind of know the more hopeful end of it than the reasons why not.

MIKE BACHHUBER: Can you grab your mic here?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: From my knowledge, and, Missouri partners and policy making graduate, back in 2012, so I mean, I met some people, some of them were institutionalized, some of them were in shelter workshops.

And it seems that, ADAPT, which is mainly for people with physical disability, whole institutionalization seems to be across the board, often different facilities, maybe sometimes the same, but nursing homes or state psychiatric facilities, so I think two groups shared history of institutionalization is something they actually have in common.

RUTHIE POOLE: I just want to add, when we talk about institutionalization, I think we need to add our prison system to that mix.

There are so many folks with disabilities who are warehoused in prison systems.

I appreciate that comment.

I wanted to rise that up as well.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Back to your question, I don't know if it's always back then so much of that everyone playing nice together or not caring about each other.

People were trying to stay alive, and so you have folks that were working on physical access and that was what their main priority was, you know, at that time.

It's like when we have consumers who come into VCIL, new consumer, and they're looking for personal care attendant services and housing, they're not really ready to even talk about community organizing and systemic advocacy because they're trying to get their immediate need.

I need housing, talk to me about that after I get my crib, that's the vibe they give us right.

In Boston, the second independent living center, we were fortunate to have folks like Charlie Carr and Judy Chamberlin who lived in Boston and I had the pleasure to work with, because she was such an amazing advocate, she was always out organizing and trying to get the, you know, the needs of the community that she represented met, so natural partnerships formed.

But I don't know if it was always an issue of folks not caring about the other issues, but, like, folks who are immigrant workers, trying to work on their issues may not be as plugged into what's going on in systemic advocacy with folks with psychiatric disabilities or transportation access because folks are trying to focus on that.

Once rights established, that's when coalitions begin.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I think we have time for one more comment.

I know Dan needs to get on with his part.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I want to continue the Boston domination here.

I want to say, playing off of what Courtland said, in the Victorian era, we were all thrown in the same snakepit but as we tried to claw ourselves out, when you're trying to get our needs met, you rely on the strategies that you can, and one of those strategies is making yourself look at palatable as possible to the person who you're trying to get rights from.

So I still hear, and not in my center, because Lord knows people get more than major side eye for that, you still hear people say, my body maybe what it is but my mind works fine.

But you also here in the psyche community, at least I look normal.

So I think in an effort to pass or make ourselves as respectable or palatable as possible we've gotten a long way by using those strategies but I think we've also splintered ourselves so I think that's something to be mindful of in the back of our heads as we go forward not to keep replicating those patterns.

MIKE BACHHUBER: So as you are all aware, we have an agenda.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I want to say something.

It does relate to all of this quickly.

The stigma, the stigma of mental illness is very real, okay?

 So it was even explained to me when I started working there, oh, mental illness is at the bottom of the totem pole of disabilities.

I mean, it's very real, even in the disability community.

And even people, even people coming back from war with brain injuries don't want to be connected to psychiatric disabilities, even though that's, that's kind of how they're very similar.

So I just wanted to bring that, I know that will be addressed later.