The beloved elder of the New York City Disability Rights Movement, Carr Massi’s career began in the mid-1960s with a stint at Courage, Inc., a disability self-help organization. From there, she joined Disabled In Action (DIA), twice serving as President.
In the early 1970s, Massi co-founded the Metropolitan Chapter of the National Paraplegia Foundation and was deeply involved in that body’s 1978 conversion into the Center for Independence of the Disabled, New York (CIDNY), the first Independent Living Center in New York State. She was President of the Board of Directors of the Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled (BCID), and worked at the Rusk Institute and in the Occupational Therapy Program at New York University.
One of Massi’s most fondly remembered positions was serving as Program Coordinator of a mentor-mentee project for young adults with disabilities, at the 53rd St. YMCA. Started by disability rights activist Harilyn Rousso, Massi ran the program for six years during the 1990s—the early years of the Americans with Disabilities Act. As she put it, “I knew no other disabled person when I was growing up,” so it was deeply satisfying to “give the younger girls some of what I had to learn alone.”
Over more than half a century of activism, Massi has developed an unparalleled collection of movement literature and ephemera, and she played a critical role in the first (and so far only) museum exhibit on the history of disability and disability activism in New York City—“Gaining Access”—which ran at the Brooklyn Historical Society in the summer and fall of 2015 (it was curated by Yours Truly).
Now 94 years old, Massi has never lost her anger as she continues to lead the charge for disability rights. And she has probably attended more street actions and worked with more people than just about anyone else in the movement, all in service of a more accessible, inclusive world.
Read all 35 stories of the New York-based leaders profiled in our ADA 35 edition.