Disability March
The Disability March was an online contingent of the 2017 Women's March on Washington that allowed disabled and chronically ill protesters to participate by creating profiles and descriptions on a website. The Disability March was organized by a group of disabled volunteers and was an official co-sponsor of the Women's March on Washington. The Disability March has been the subject of academic research.
Origins
[edit]The Disability March was organized by Sonya Huber, a creative writing professor at Fairfield University and disabled woman.[1] Although Huber wanted to attend the Women's March on Washington, she realized that it would negatively affect her health.[2]
Huber gathered an ad-hoc group of about 20 volunteers to create the website and post submissions from marchers. Volunteers identified as disabled.[3]
The March
[edit]The Disability March website went live in mid-November and asked participants to join by writing a 300-word post about why they are participating and what the Disability March means to them.[4] The Disability March began posting on December 21and concluded on January 29 with a total of 3,014 marchers.[5] Disability Marchers joined from across the United States and the world, including Scotland, Australia, Belgium, Canada, and the United Kingdom.[3] Ages of marchers ranged from 5-92.[6]
The Disability March highlighted the concerns of disabled activists and their allies, reminding elected officials and activists that the disabled community has a voice and deserves a space in protest movements.[3][7] Marchers particularly highlighted how the disabled community would be particularly harmed by the Trump Administration's agenda, particularly the dismantling of the Affordable Care Act.[6]
The Disability March has been described as an official co-sponsor.[8] The Women's March listed it as a "partner."[9] It was not listed as "Sister March" by the Women's March.[10]
Academic studies
[edit]The Disability March has been studied and analyzed by disability and protest scholars.
Benjamin W. Mann published an analysis of the Disability March in Disability Studies Quarterly noting themes of disability disclosure, support for health care coverage and human rights, and opposition to the incoming administration. He argued that this demonstrates of disability cyberprotests can promote disabled individuals in protest discourse and policy issues.[11]
A team of Indiana University researchers interviewed Disability Marchers to explore how the perceived of themselves as activists, especially given the prevalence of online activism being considered a form of slacktivism.[12]
External links
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Dazed (2017-01-20). "The virtual disability march is making activism accessible". Dazed. Retrieved 2025-05-29.
- ^ Truong, Kimberly. "This Organization Is Helping People With Disabilities Join The Women's March". www.refinery29.com. Retrieved 2025-05-29.
- ^ a b c "The brilliant way this woman brought the Women's March to the disabled community. - Upworthy". www.upworthy.com. 2017-01-19. Retrieved 2025-05-29.
- ^ "The Disability March Allows People With Disabilities To Protest Trump's Presidency, No Matter Where They Are". Bustle. 2017-01-20. Retrieved 2025-05-29.
- ^ "About Us". Disability March. 2016-11-15. Retrieved 2025-05-29.
- ^ a b Vargas, Theresa (2017-01-25). "'They want a voice': Disabled who couldn't go to Women's March found a way to be heard". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2025-06-05.
- ^ "People With Disabilities Are Virtually Joining The Women's March". HuffPost. 2017-01-20. Retrieved 2025-06-05.
- ^ Saxena, Jaya (2017-01-19). "People with disabilities have launched a virtual march—so they can participate too". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 2025-05-29.
- ^ "Partners". Women's March on Washington. Archived from the original on 2017-05-04. Retrieved 2025-05-29.
- ^ "Sister Marches". Women's March on Washington. Archived from the original on 2017-05-16. Retrieved 2025-05-29.
- ^ Mann, Benjamin W. (2018-02-28). "Survival, Disability Rights, and Solidarity: Advancing Cyberprotest Rhetoric through Disability March". Disability Studies Quarterly. 38 (1). doi:10.18061/dsq.v38i1.5917. ISSN 2159-8371.
- ^ Li, Hanlin; Bora, Disha; Salvi, Sagar; Brady, Erin (2018-04-21). "Slacktivists or Activists? Identity Work in the Virtual Disability March". Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI '18. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery: 1–13. doi:10.1145/3173574.3173799. ISBN 978-1-4503-5620-6.