The View from Where I Sit

Category: advocacy

  • The Black Panther Party and the ADA

    As we recognize Disability Pride Month, we’re looking back at one of the most important moments in disability rights history and the coalition that helped make it possible.

    In 1977, disabled activists occupied a federal building in San Francisco, demanding the government finally enforce Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the nation’s first major disability civil rights law. The law had already passed, but without federal regulations, it couldn’t be enforced.

    The occupation became the longest nonviolent occupation of a federal building in U.S. history.

    Officials tried to force the protesters out. Phone lines were cut. Utilities were shut off. Food became harder to get. Early donations from companies like McDonald’s and Safeway stopped once it became clear this wasn’t charity. It was civil disobedience.

    That’s when the Black Panther Party stepped in.

    Through Brad Lomax, a Black Panther living with multiple sclerosis who was inside the occupation, the Party organized daily hot meals for the protesters. When officials tried to restrict deliveries, they kept showing up.

    The Panthers explained it simply: “We support you because you’re asking America to change, to treat you like human beings, like you belong. We always support people fighting for their rights.”

    For nearly a month, they helped make sure more than 100 occupiers had food. Disability rights activist Corbett O’Toole later said that without those meals, the occupation might not have lasted.

    On April 28, 1977, the government signed the Section 504 regulations, finally making the law enforceable. Those regulations laid the foundation for later disability rights protections, including the Americans with Disabilities Act.

    This victory wasn’t won by one movement alone. Disabled organizers, labor unions, churches, community members, and the Black Panther Party all played a role.

    That’s an important reminder during Disability Pride Month. Progress doesn’t happen because people care quietly. It happens because people organize, build coalitions, and show up for each other in real, tangible ways.

  • Bermuda’s Participation in the American Revolution


    Bermuda played a crucial, though often overlooked, role in the American Revolution by supplying gunpowder and other resources to the Continental Army through covert operations and sympathetic local merchants.


    Strategic Importance and Economic Context
    Bermuda, a small British colony in the Atlantic with limited lush land, relied heavily on trade with the American colonies for food and essential goods. The island’s population of around 12,000 could only grow enough food for about two months of the year, making trade vital for survival. Bermudian merchants had long been integrated into Atlantic trade networks, moving goods such as salt from the Turks and Caicos Islands to North America and returning with American products.


    This economic interdependence created a natural alignment of interests with the American colonies, despite Bermuda’s official status as a British Crown Colony.

    The Gunpowder Plot of 1775
    One of the most significant contributions of Bermuda to the American Revolution was the raid on the gunpowder magazine near St. George’s. By mid-1775, George Washington’s Continental Army faced a severe shortage of gunpowder, with only enough for nine bullets per man.


    Henry Tucker, a prominent Bermudian merchant sympathetic to the American cause, coordinated with Benjamin Franklin and other revolutionaries to secure gunpowder from Bermuda. On the night of August 14, 1775, Tucker’s conspirators removed over 3,100 pounds of gunpowder from the magazine and transported it to Tobacco Bay, where it was loaded onto the American ship Lady Catherine and eventually supplied to Washington’s troops in Boston.


    This operation was critical in sustaining the Continental Army during the early stages of the war.

    Local Support and Risks
    The Tucker family, influential in Bermuda, openly opposed British policies and supported the American cause, though the island’s residents had to balance their sympathies with the risk of British retaliation.
    The raid involved careful planning to avoid detection by Governor George James Bruere, who remained loyal to the Crown. While the operation relied on the cooperation of local Bermudians, enslaved persons likely played a key role in physically transporting the gunpowder.

    Broader Contributions
    Beyond gunpowder, Bermuda’s maritime expertise and fast sloops facilitated the transport of essential supplies, including salt from the Turks Islands, which was crucial for preserving meat rations for the Continental Army.

    Bermudian resources also supported battles such as the 1776 defense of Sullivan’s Island in South Carolina, where gunpowder from Bermuda was used.

    These contributions highlight Bermuda’s role as part of an international network supporting the American Revolution, demonstrating that the conflict extended beyond the thirteen colonies.

    Legacy
    Bermuda’s involvement in the American Revolution illustrates the island’s strategic and economic significance. The cooperation between Bermudian merchants and American revolutionaries, particularly the Tucker family’s efforts, provided critical resources that helped sustain the Continental Army during its formative campaigns.

    Today, historical tours and museum exhibits in Bermuda commemorate these contributions, emphasizing the island’s often-overlooked role in the broader struggle for American independence.

  • Disability affects everybody!

    Siblings and families of disabled children

  • The Positive Side of Disability

    Disability Pride Month: 10 Perks Of Being A Disabled Person

  • Advocacy in Bradford

    Disabled People’s Action Group

  • Coping with Learning Difficulties in Ilkley

    Outside the Box Cafe

  • Emotional Health

    Disability & Trauma: The concept of trauma, the impact on our Emotions and overall well being

  • The Religious Perspective on Disability

    Changing the Narrative

  • What is fair?

    Equality, equity, and justice are often confused, but they address fairness in different ways.

    Equality gives everyone the same resources or opportunities.

    Equity recognizes that people start from different circumstances and may need different levels of support.

    Justice focuses on removing the barriers that create those differences in the first place.

    Understanding the distinction can help create systems that are not only equal, but truly fair.

    An illustration depicting four panels on the themes of reality, equality, equity, and justice. In the first panel, a person stands on a tall stack of boxes while others struggle to see over a fence. The second panel shows an equal distribution of boxes, yet not everyone can see the game. The third panel illustrates equitable support, allowing everyone to see the game. The final panel represents justice, where all can see without barriers after addressing systemic issues.

  • Rosa May Billinghurst

    More than 100 years ago, Rosa showed that disability and power can exist in the same story.

    A wheelchair did not limit her voice. It amplified it.

    From 31 May 1875 – 29 July 1953, Rosa Billinghurst was a British suffragette and women’s rights activist. She was known popularly as the “cripple suffragette” as she campaigned in a tricycle.

    Early life
    She was born in 1875 in Lewisham, London, the second of nine children of Rosa Ann (Brinsmead) Billinghurst and Henry Farncombe Billinghurst. Her mother came from a family who manufactured pianos and her father was a banker.

    As a child she survived polio, which left her unable to walk. She wore leg-irons and used either crutches or a modified tricycle. She became active in social work in a Greenwich workhouse, taught in a Sunday School, and joined the temperance Band of Hope.

    Politics
    She was an active member of a Women’s Liberal Association (fifteen of which joined in 1887 to become the Women’s Liberal Federation that ultimately grew to 942 affiliated associations) and later, in 1907, a member of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). She took part in the WSPU march to the Royal Albert Hall in South Kensington, London, in June 1908. Billinghurst helped organise the WSPU response in the July 1908 Haggerston by-election; polling was on the day that twenty-four suffragettes were released from Holloway prison and came around the area canvassing to ‘keep the Liberal out.’

    In 1909, she was presumed by Annie Barnes to be the wheelchair user seen distracting a police horse, who laughed as another woman seemed to tip the rider off to fall in a horse trough. The occupant of the wheelchair was the one arrested and rough-handled into a waiting police van.

    Two years later, she founded the Greenwich branch of the WSPU. As its first secretary she took part in the ‘1910 Black Friday’ demonstrations, using an adapted tricycle for mobility. She was arrested after the police capsized her from the trike. Billinghurst knew that she was helpless when this happened, but she was quite prepared to take the added publicity to benefit the cause of suffrage. The police once exploited her disability leaving her in a side street after letting her tyres down and pocketing the valves.


    Billinghurst was able to get closer to the House of Commons on another occasion in 1911, when police thought the better of attacking her trike with ‘Votes for Women’ banner during the rush. She is thought to have been one of the suffragettes to avoid the 1911 census on the night of Sunday 2 April 1911, in response to the calls from suffragette organisations for a boycott.

    She would place her crutches on both sides of her tricycle and would charge any opposition. She was arrested several more times in the next few years.

    The Glaswegian suffragette Janie Allan apparently worked in partnership with Billinghurst during the window-smashing campaign of March 1912, with Billinghurst apparently hiding a supply of stones under the rug that covered her knees. Billinghurst’s first stint in Holloway Prison was for smashing a window on Henrietta Street during this campaign, for which she was sentenced to one month’s hard labour. The prison authorities were confused regarding her sentence to hard labour, and gave her no extra work. She was befriended by many other prisoners, including Dr. Alice Stewart Ker, who had Billinghurst smuggle a letter out to Ker’s daughter on her release.


    On 8 January 1913, she was tried at the Old Bailey and sentenced to eight months in Holloway Prison for damaging letters in a mailbox. Billinghurst represented herself in court to plead the case for women’s suffrage. Her defence titled “The Guilt Lies on the Shoulders of the Government” was published in The Suffragette. She subsequently went on a hunger strike, and was force-fed along with the other imprisoned suffragettes participating in the strike. She became so ill that she was released two weeks after her force-feeding began.

    She spoke at a public meeting in West Hampstead in March 1913. On the 24th of May, she chained herself to the gates of Buckingham Palace and on 14 June she was dressed in white on her trike in the funeral procession for suffragette Emily Wilding Davison, who was killed while reaching for the reins of the King’s horse at the Epsom Derby.

    Billinghurst also took part in the mass deputation of suffragettes to petition King George V on 21 May 1914. Although she was not arrested, two policemen deliberately tipped her out of her tricycle.

    Billinghurst supported the Pankhursts’ lead when they decided to prioritise the war over the campaign for women’s rights. She helped in Christabel Pankhurst’s campaign to be elected in Smethwick in 1918.

    However, she had joined the Women’s Freedom League (WFL) and became part of the Suffragette Fellowship. She supported Jill Craigie’s Equal Pay Film Fund.

    Billinghurst stopped her activity for women’s suffrage after the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918 gave some women the vote. She later attended the funeral of Emmeline Pankhurst and the unveiling of Emmeline’s statue in 1930.

    Family
    In 1911, she was residing with her parents at 7 Oakhurst Road, Lewisham, London.

    Billinghurst lived in the garden house of her property “Minikoi”, Sunbury, Surrey (then in Middlesex), with her adopted daughter, “Beth”. Beth has since written a book describing her relationship with her adopted mother. Her brother was Alfred John Billinghurst, an artist, with whom she lived after 1914.

    Death
    She died on 29 July 1953 at a hospital in Twickenham, leaving her body to science.

    Memorial recognition
    Her name and picture (and 58 other women’s suffrage supporters) are on the plinth of the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, London, unveiled in 2018.