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"Not Charity But an Opportunity" President’s Committee on the Employment of the Handicapped
President Harry S. Truman founded the President’s Committee on the Employment of the Handicapped in 1947 to assist physically disabled veterans in finding employment. In the 1960s, PCEH expanded its mission to include persons with mental retardation and mental illness. Although PCEH played an important role in drawing attention to employment of people with disabilities, its most important contribution in relation to the disability rights movement were unofficial results. Each spring PCEH sponsored a spring conference to provide a national forum for discussing disability issues. Many people with disabilities from around the country came for the spring conferences and began forming relationships with other people from different regions and with different disabilities. Thus, by the early 1970s, PCEH functioned as the primary gathering place for disabled activists on a national scale. Disability advocates, disability professionals, and public officials could share ideas and set agendas for the future. One of the most important outgrowths of PCEH was the creation of the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities. At the 1973 PCEH spring conference, a group of disability activists began discussing the need for a consumer-led, cross-disability organization. They met at the following year ’s conference with more than a hundred people with disabilities to found ACCD and began writing a constitution and bylaws. Then they met in conjunction with the 1975 spring PCEH conference to elect a board of directors and executive officers. |
President's Committee Examples
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