Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins has been a disability advocate almost her entire life. At age 6, she had already been excluded from her neighborhood elementary school in Phoenix because of her wheelchair. Her family was unsure how to fight the exclusion.

That changed when her relative, photographer Tom Olin, visited. He described his experience taking pictures at a disability rights demonstration and urged the Keelans to get involved.

Attending her first ADAPT planning meeting was electrifying for Jennifer. “It was the first time I ever saw people in wheelchairs fighting for their rights and empowering themselves. That made a humongous impression.” Jennifer was a natural. By the end of her first protest, she was leading the march.

Jennifer and her mother, Cynthia, became deeply enmeshed in the disability rights community. They joined ADAPT’s national fight for bus lifts and traveled as far as San Francisco and Montreal to march. In 1990, they relocated to Colorado to work with Wade Blank and Atlantis Community, Inc.

At marches, Jennifer especially loved leading the chant, “The people united will never be defeated.”

“That was so powerful,” she remembers. “Even as a young child. I knew what that meant.”

Often Jennifer and her younger sister were the only children at protests, but that didn’t leave her feeling isolated. “I often felt like this was something bigger than myself, that I had a responsibility, not only for myself, but also for other children with disabilities.”

In 1990, when Jennifer was 8 years old, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was introduced in Congress. The disability rights community was, at first, thrilled at the prospect of sweeping legislation to protect disability rights. But excitement changed to concern as Congress dragged its feet at voting on the bill. To pressure Congress, a wide range of disability rights groups planned a joint march on Washington.

The Keelans joined in, marching down Pennsylvania Avenue, holding posters and shouting. The march ended with a rally at the bottom of the steps of the Capitol. At a prearranged signal, people abandoned their wheelchairs and started climbing the steps in a graphic, camera-ready demonstration of the kinds of barriers people with disabilities face.

Jennifer had been in meetings where the Capitol Crawl was planned, but organizers had told her she shouldn’t join in. She was, after all, only 8 years old. But as Jennifer watched her friends and fellow activists start to climb, she started to cry.

“I was heartbroken,” she remembers. Rev. Wade Blank approached her and asked, “Why are you crying?” Jennifer remembers telling him, “Because I want to participate and the others are telling me No.” And that’s when he said, “Do what’s in your heart.”

So Jennifer climbed out of her wheelchair and joined the Capitol Crawl. Soon, it seemed every camera was riveted on her, capturing her steely determination as she made her slow way up the steps. Microphones captured her shouted vow, “I’ll take all night if I have to!”

Images of Jennifer flashed around the world and helped galvanize support for passage of the ADA. Later that summer, it was signed into law.

I write books for kids about important moments in American history. In 2017, I was trying to write about the ADA and the sweeping changes it has brought to American society. Jennifer’s close-up, kids’-eye view of the ADA seemed like the perfect way to invite other kids into the story. I reached out to see if she’d like to work with me on the book and Jennifer agreed, despite being in her busy final semester of college.

I interviewed Jennifer by telephone, and she also patiently answered questions by email. Cynthia helped establish timelines and corroborate details.

Sourcebooks Publishers eagerly signed on to publish this important story for kids, and they invited Jennifer to write the foreword to the book. As is usual, the book’s editor found an illustrator, and Jennifer again slipped into the advisor-in-chief role, as the illustrator came back to her with still more questions.

All the Way to the Top: How One Girl’s Fight for Americans with Disabilities Changed Everything will come out on March 10, 2020. Jennifer and I are doing a book tour in Denver, Phoenix and Atlanta. We’ll be sharing the book in bookstores, elementary schools, and on college campuses. Her Capitol Crawl activism is also being commemorated in a sculpture by Gina Klawitter.

The Capitol Crawl is the most famous and widely-known of Jennifer’s protests, but it was far from the last. Today, Jennifer has a college degree in family and human development with a minor in political science. That professional expertise informs her continued activism and advocacy. She is working toward setting up a foundation that will help families access transportation, assistive technology in classrooms, and healthcare. In addition, she works as a Vantage Mobility International Brand Ambassador with Mobility of Denver to spread the word about their new Apex wheelchair accessible conversion van.

Both Jennifer and I hope that as children learn about the fight for the ADA they will appreciate how the ADA has improved all of our lives. We also hope that our story will remind kids that you don’t have to be a grown-up to make a difference.

Even an 8 year old can nudge the world in new directions.

Head to Amazon to pre-order the book now: All the Way to the Top: How One Girl’s Fight for Americans with Disabilities Changed Everything (affiliate link)

Not quite seeing or hearing artist Terry Galloway ambled through early childhood with mixed emotions. On one end, she was arrogant. In fact, she would even describe herself as “a little shit,” yet she also sought physical approval from the people around her.

“My deafness,” she said, “even before it was diagnosed, made me cleave more to others for a reassurance that I wasn’t quite aware I needed.”

When Galloway was 10 years old, doctors discovered she had a chemical imbalance caused by the introduction of drugs to the fetal nervous system, a result of medication her mother took while Galloway was in the womb. Ultimately, the reaction to the treatment left her deaf and with limited eyesight.

“I was saddled with glasses and hearing aids, and my deafness manifested itself then as a savage insecurity,” she said.

“I was mainstreamed,” Galloway, 68, continued, “and grew up not knowing any other kids who were deaf or Deaf. My own deafness, and my budding, constantly churning sexuality, made me feel warmer toward the kids with their own problems — kids who liked to dress differently, kids who were poor, kids who were too fucking smart for their own good, kids who felt uncertain about their sexualities, kids with disabilities — both hidden and visible. I identified with those odd ducks. When I was in my late teens, I met some other kids who were ‘big D’ Deaf. I admired the hell out of them, but they frightened me a little — they were tough. But then, they had to be.”

In her book, Galloway explained big D Deaf.

“There is a definite hierarchy in that deaf culture,” she writes. “If you are deaf of deaf — a deaf person born to deaf parents — and your language is Sign and the company you keep is primarily deaf, you are Deaf with a capital D.”

With plenty of experiences to draw from, Galloway plunged herself into the arts, and just like many young people with disabilities in the late 1960s, she faced a lot of discrimination.

“When I was graduating from high school, the guidance counselor was advising all my friends who were in the Thespians of the Scarlet Mask to apply for Yale, or UCLA, or any college that had a decent drama department,” she said. “But when I walked in the door, he took one look at me and said, ‘Oh, you’re the one.’ And handed me a brochure that read, errors and all: ‘Factory work make good job for deaf.'”

Like many LGBTQ and disabled people of that time, Galloway carved her own path into the arts. With the help of friends, she sought out or created spaces that would welcome people like her.

“Places with people who didn’t think of me as a waste of time because I couldn’t hear or talked with a kind of muffled lisp,” she said. “And from there I started to write pieces that spoke to the experiences of people like me — that’s when I started doing my solo shows.”

In 2009, Galloway published her memoir, “Mean Little deaf Queer,” which has become a cult classic among people with disabilities. Celebrated lesbian author Dorothy Allison called it “a damn fine piece of work that is unbelievably powerful.” Author Kenny Fries included it in his article on LitHub titled “8 Books That Move Disability from the Margins to the Center.”

“She gives us what we are rarely given in literature: a fully dimensional disabled person, warts and all,” Fries said.

Just a year after the release of her groundbreaking memoir, Galloway received a cochlear implant — a process not all deaf people are eligible for. And even Galloway herself was initially unsure it would work. The surgery allowed Galloway to gain significant hearing and her latest show, “You Are My Sunshine,” is about her experience of negotiating the world of sound.

Galloway identifies as being a “little d” deaf, omni-sexual, happily married, female-ish artist/activist. Along with her partner, Florida State University communication professor Donna Marie Nudd, Ph.D., she splits her time between Austin, Texas and Tallahassee, Florida.

The couple also co-directs the Mickee Faust Club — an arts nonprofit that creates performance opportunities for marginalized communities through workshops.

“I love Mickee Faust,” said Galloway. “I love playing the head rat, Mickee Faust, who is supposedly the sewer dwelling, cigar chomping, beer guzzling, foul mouthed, rat bastard brother of that other more famous unctuous rodent in Orlando.”

To learn more about the Mickee Faust Club, visit http://www.mickeefaust.com. To follow Galloway’s other projects, check out www.theterrygalloway.com.

Some books become classics because they bring to the forefront new ideas, while others are imprinted in our consciousness because they shine light on a little known world.

Resistance and Hope: Essays by Disabled People, edited by Alice Wong, is one of those rare anthologies that both highlights new ways of examining disability, as well as raises the profile of the disability community. Wong, a San Francisco-based disability rights activist and journalist, has gathered 16 essays from some of the leading voices in disability advocacy, to shed some light onto disability issues in the Trump era. While several of the authors identify as members of the LGBTQ community, for this column, I have chosen to focus on three of my favorite essays by LGBTQ contributors; however, all of the essays in this collection are worth reading.

“Hip Hop and Disability Liberation: Finding Resistance, Hope and Wholeness,” by DJ Kuttin Kandi and Leroy Moore:

“If we, as a hip-hop community can face our own internalized ableism as we confront institutionalized ableist systems, we can find truth in our futile search for hip-hop ‘authenticity,'” the authors write.

Like a hailstorm, Kandi and Moore deliver a slew of examples of ableist behavior by some of the leading voices in hip-hop. They offer criticism, but also ideas on how hip-hop as a community could be more inclusive of artists and fans with disabilities. The result is a poignant essay that captures the struggles and hopes for hip-hop.

“Building Back Belonging, Hope and Possibility,” by Mia Mingus:

Mingus writes, “Resistance is only as powerful as what it is in service of. Resistance by itself — resistance just to resist — is not meaningful and will lead to burnout very fast. It’s when resistance is in service of something larger than itself that the true power of resistance is unleashed.”

With sharp prose, Mingus shares how her own journey shaped her advocacy work. As someone who helps people who have experienced violence regain belonging, Mingus discusses the process of cultivating hope in a world that spills a lot of hate. This thought-provoking essay offers optimism, as well as a model for contributing to social causes during challenging times.

“Back into the Fires that Forged Us,” by Shain M. Neumeier:

“For one, many Americans have an authoritarian streak, or at least concede that even extremely harmful forms of authoritarianism are legitimate or necessary, either out of genuine belief or for political gain,” Neumeier writes. “This includes many of the very people who use the rhetoric of freedom and independence, at least where it concerns guns or the right to emotionally abuse others.”

Neumeier’s expository essay examines the criminalization of resistance to injustices by marginalized communities. It highlights the participation of the media, government officials, and civilians in inflicting abuse in the name of American freedom. Well-cited and narrated, this piece looks at how the law has been used to hurt underrepresented groups — especially the disability community.

Resistance and Hope is a quick read that not only brings the reader a deeper understanding of disability discourse during the age of President Donald Trump, but also offers people with disabilities and their allies a guide to joining the disability justice movement at many levels.

You can grab a copy of Resistance and Hope: Essays by Disabled People on Amazon. (Please note this is an affiliate link. By clicking this link, you consent to us placing a cookie on your browser for commission purposes. Thank you for your support!)

Other contributors to Resistance and Hope include: Vilissa Thompson, Victoria Rodriguéz-Roldán, Anita Cameron, Stacey Milbern, Naomi Ortiz, Talila A.”TL” Lewis, Aleksei Valentín, Cyree Jarelle Johnson, Lev Mirov, Lydia X.Z. Brown, Mari Kurisato, Maysoon Zayid, and Noemi Martinez.