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“If you compare it to other groups, like the suffragettes or trade unionists, how disabled people gained their civil rights has really been a hidden history,” says Chris Burgess, curator of exhibitions and collections at the People’s History Museum in Manchester.
But that’s all about to change. The disability charity Scope has collaborated with the museum to collect and preserve archives that chart the fight by disabled people for their rights as citizens – from iconic images of activism, posters, banners, campaign badges, t-shirts to personal memoirs. The People’s History Museum is showcasing the DDA archives alongside original artwork, stories and poems by disabled artists and activists from across the country in a special exhibition.
Burgess says it aims to tell the story of a campaign movement that’s been largely ignored up to now. “If it is covered, it’s often not about people demanding change, it’s about ‘welfare’ or rights being ‘given out’,” he says.