More to Come!

This project began as a book about how the disability rights movement originated and progressed, and my insider story of the making of the ADA. After a few decades of writing, and with the 30^th anniversary of the ADA rapidly approaching, I realized that a different medium and format would make my objective a reality sooner and more effectively.

Rap Video About Burgdorf’s Life & Career

I was delightfully surprised and amazed at what two young historians, Eleni Corson and Abigail Crowley, from Boise, Idaho, submitted as a Junior Group Performance entry for National History Day 2020–a rap video about my disability rights career set to the music of Hamilton: “The Obliteration of Discrimination through Legislation: Rapping the Story of Robert Burgdorf and the Americans with Disabilities Act.”

Acknowledgments

This website has been a blessing and a headache. It grew out of my compulsion to write a book on the history of the Disability Rights Movement and the origin and development of the ADA; and out of my failure to complete such a book. It was born out of the inspired idea of my wife, Andi Farbman, that maybe a website was a better way to tell my stories and share my experiences and insights. Going from that idea to this website has been incredibly rewarding and unbelievably complicated, difficult, and exhausting. I could never have made it to the point of launching this website without the astounding assistance and tenacious support of a remarkable band of generous, highly capable people. Click the link below to join me in thanking them.