The Corporation on Disabilities and Telecommunication (CDT) has selected the Bancroft Library Disability History program to receive its 2006 Arts and Culture Recognition Award.
This award recognizes the accomplishments of the joint Regional Oral History Office/Bancroft Library program to document and preserve the history of the struggle to win civil rights and support independence and cultural expression of people with disabilities. Since 1996, the ROHO/Bancroft team, working closely with disability community members who joined the ROHO staff as project interviewers, have collected more than 100 oral histories with leaders of the disability movement nationwide and a rich collection of personal papers and records of key organizations, all accessible through the project's Disability Rights and Independent Living Movement website.
As CDT states in their announcement, they "recognize the Bancroft Library Disability History Program as an outstanding contribution to building, honoring and preserving disability culture. The program is an extraordinary undertaking, with its extensive in-depth interviews of disabled individuals who have been at the forefront of the disability rights and culture movement through their work as activists and artists. CDT especially applauds the program's most recent focus: chronicling the lives and contributions of artists with disabilities whose talents and dedication are helping to transform stereotypes."