Edward Verne Roberts was an American activist.
Born: January 23, 1939, San Mateo, California, United States
Died: March 14, 1995, Berkeley, California, United States
Education: University of California, Berkeley
Awards: MacArthur Fellowship
He was the first student with severe disabilities to attend the University of California, Berkeley
He was a pioneering leader of the disability rights movement
Roberts contracted polio at the age of fourteen in 1953, two years before the Salk vaccine ended the epidemic.
He spent eighteen months in hospitals, and returned home paralyzed from the neck down except for two fingers on one hand and several toes.
He slept in an iron lung at night and often rested there during the day.
When out of the lung he survived by "frog breathing," a technique for swallowing air using facial and neck muscles.
Ed Roberts is often called the father of the Independent Living movement
In 2017, on his 78th birthday, Roberts was honored with a Google Doodle in recognition of his activism
Ed Roberts is highlighted in Joseph Shapiro's 1993 book, No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement.
Roberts died on March 14, 1995, at the age of 56 from cardiac arrest.
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