In New York, Marvin Wasserman was one of the most important disability rights leaders of his generation. His accomplishments include co-founding and leading the 504 Democratic Club and the Taxis For All Campaign, and reinvigorating the Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled.
To convey the impact of these achievements, let’s revisit the state of the City’s disability community when Wasserman’s career in disability rights began, around 1979. It was an era when the absence of curb cuts forced wheelchair users to travel in the street instead of on the sidewalk. Buses, subways and taxis were unusable. There were a number of disability rights groups—some of them quite potent, like Disabled In Action. But they didn’t cohere very well, and disability activism largely consisted of separate and distinct campaigns that took on one issue at a time.
Wasserman came to the City’s Disability Rights Movement with many years’ experience in mainstream political activism and Democratic party politics. He brought an appreciation of the need for an ongoing presence and dialogue with elected officials. This proved to be the seed for his most central accomplishment: a political club targeted to New Yorkers with disabilities—the 504 Democratic Club.
The new organization developed a practice of endorsing electoral candidates, educating them on disability issues, and lobbying officeholders. And it has become a force to be reckoned with.
Wasserman’s success with 504 Dems led to another major project—the Taxis For All Campaign. An outgrowth of the long fight for accessible busses and subway stations, today a third of New York City’s cabs are accessible to wheelchair users; e-hail cab service has been established; and Uber and Lyft have agreed to important accessibility accommodations.
In 2008 Wasserman was elected Executive Director of the Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled, or BCID. BCID had been experiencing difficulties. But over the course of Wasserman’s tenure, BCID recovered and expanded. He set BCID on a course towards the powerhouse organization it is today.
In these and in innumerable other projects, Wasserman fundamentally raised the organization and visibility of the City’s disability community, furthering the national mobilization and legal recognition that underlies the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Read all 35 stories of the New York-based leaders profiled in our ADA 35 edition.