Watertown Commission on Disability

One of my favorite people, fighting the good fight/keeping the faith, a few towns over in Somerville!

‘The last great struggle’
A pioneer views disability as the final frontier in civil rights
By Don Aucoin, Globe Staff | February 26, 2008

SOMERVILLE – It is a raw, bone-chilling day on the rugged streets of this rugged city, yet Keith P. Jones is out and about in his motorized wheelchair, steadily making his way to his favorite diner. Fittingly enough, Jones is headed into the wind.

It’s been that way his whole life, one way or another.

When you’re born with cerebral palsy, you have to battle constantly against the low expectations of others. When you’re black and in a wheelchair, you have to combat the assumption that you are a victim of gang violence. When you’re whip-smart in ways that the world may not see, you have to make the world see it.

Easier said than done, as Jones, 38, is the first to admit. “When I was a kid, there were no real role models for youths with disabilities, especially African-American youths with disabilities, no sense that you could grow up to be Barack Obama,” he says. “Even now, there still isn’t.”

He is out to change that. Jones has emerged as a forceful disability rights activist, arguing to legislators, educators, business owners, and anyone who will listen that the cause of people with disabilities is the next frontier of civil rights. “It is the last great struggle,” he says. [continued … ]