David E. Simpson (producer/director) is an independent media artist who has worked in film and video over 15 years. His experimental film Dante's Dream received top honors at five festivals. His productions have received numerous awards including a CINE "Golden Eagle" and an International Television Association "Philo," and his work as editor and associate producer for several NOVA documentaries was nominated for an Emmy. Simpson is currently at work on a series episode for the PBS/BBC series, People's Century. Simpson lives in Chicago. IL.
Wade Blank was the founder of Atlantis/ADAPT in Denver, the birthplace of the struggle for equal access to public transportation. Blank's "gang of nineteen" successfully and repeatedly blockaded Denver's public busses which were not wheelchair accessible. Denver subsequently became one of the country's first cities to offer accessible public transportation, and later erected a plaque honoring the gang's landmark action. ADAPT is currently engaged in the fight to free the hundreds of people with disabilities needlessly and expensively locked away in nursing homes, When You Remember Me, a television movie based on Blank's experiences, commemorates the beginnings of that struggle. In February, 1994, while vacationing in Mexico, Wade Blank died trying to save his son from drowning. Both were lost. WHEN BILLY BROKE HIS HEAD...AND OTHER TALES OF WONDER is dedicated to his memory.
Kay Gaddis is the mother of four, grandmother of 10, and a great-grandmother who lives on social Security Disability Income in Chicago. Formerly a violinist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, she is legally blind - although she must recertify her blindness yearly to maintain benefits. Coincidentally, Gaddis is a member of Minnesota's most well-known legal family - both her father and her uncle sat on the State Supreme Court.
Larry Kegan is a writer, musician, songwriter and "model" for Willem Defoe's character in Oliver Stone's Born of the Fourth of July. As a musician, he has "opened" for Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton, performed at Neil Young's Bridge Concerts, and has toured Europe (with Dylan) four times. Kegan founded a program for "attitude reassessment about disability and sexuality" which has been a student requirement at the University of Minnesota Medical School for the last ten years. His autobiography, Some Get the Chair, is currently available for publishing.
Barb Knowlen is a disability activist living in Minneapolis, MN. Knowlen heads Barrier Brakers, an organization dedicated to accessibility issues. As one who actually understands and can utilize the Social Security Agency's Program to Achieve Self Sufficiency (PASS ) - currently the only system (although extremely Byzantine) devised to allow disabled people to keep a portion of their earnings while retaining needed benefits - Knowlen is one of the program's only "client" consultants.
Paul Longmore is a professor of history at San Francisco State College. One of America's leading academic experts on the history of the disability movement, Longmore was among the first to point to the historical similarities between the treatment of persons with disabilities and other "minorities." Longmore has also taught at Stanford University and UCLA.
Joy Mincy-Powell is an actor and disability activist who, with two other persons with disabilities, has been a key participant/performer with the Open Door Theater (Minneapolis, MN). Open Door utilizes the performing arts to inform, educate, and entertain mixed ability audiences about disability issues, perceptions, and attitudes.
Ed Roberts is the co-founder of the Center for Independent Living (CIL) in Berkeley, Ca. - the original model for the 411 CILs across America. Labeled "infeasable" when he sought employment assistance from the California Department of Rehabilitation Services, Roberts was appointed director of that same state agency fourteen years later by then-governor Jerry Brown . President of the World Institute on Disability, located in Oakland, CA, "Special Ed" Roberts is a noted expert and lecturer on disability issues, has been featured by 60 Minutes (CBS), and is a father.
Robin Stephens, a disability activist living in Denver, is an organizer at Atlantis/ADAPT, headquarters for the national organization concerned with disability rights. Begun originally to champion public transportation accessability, ADAPT (then the American Disabled for Accessable Public Transportation), the Denver office and the organization's national chapters (now known as the American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today) are currently involved in the nursing home vs independent living battle.
Lee Swenson is a former policeman who is living with Lou Gerhig's disease. Despite his wishes and abilities, Swenson has been forced to living in a nursing home, a situation stipulated by Despite obvious and considerable economic savings, Medicaid refuses to allow Swenson to live independently with the assistance of a live-in aide - in effect refusing Swenson his dignity and freedom.