(The following is adapted from my book-in-progress, “Never Stand Alone: Tales of the Ancestors,” a history of disability activism in the City of New York. It is a tribute to my parents, disability pioneers Julie and Mollie Shaw, who would have celebrated their centennial birthdays in 2024).
The epic year 1967 was drawing to a close. The cold weather had arrived, along with nighttime at 5:00 pm. It was the holiday season, and Thanksgiving in my house was one of our most beloved days. Of course it’s that for most Americans, but for me and my sister Jenina—twins, then nine years old—Thanksgiving wasn’t like other holidays. Because Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade ran just a block away. And because we always went there with Dad.
Thanksgiving ‘67 dawned with drizzle, but it stopped early enough that there was no risk of Dad’s crutches slipping, and soon we were downstairs on West 72nd Street, heading to the parade. Unlike the way we ran ahead and skipped around with Mom, we always stuck close to Dad as he ambulated, and within ten or fifteen minutes we’d crossed Columbus Avenue, headed up the block, and passed the Dakota. Dad let us wriggle our way to the front. We had a perfect view.
The march began with bands, and clowns and jugglers in silly hats. The blare of brass cadences, the flash of steps daringly undertaken by bare-legged dancers, the thrill of the enormous Bullwinkle, Underdog, and Sinclair dinosaur balloons. Dad somehow remaining standing on his crutches the entire time, pirates’ boats, the Brigadoon float, until Santa as always brought up the rear, signaling the parade’s end.
We made our way back home and went upstairs, chilled and damp and delighted. My sister and I settled in for television, capped by “Babes in Toyland.” Then, we headed into the living room. The air was heavy with the heat of cookery, the table as festively set as plastic dishes and repurposed shrimp glasses would allow. Our parents greeted us with shouting and hugs as if we’d been away somewhere, while the bright sounds of their latest discovery, a jazz singer named Beverly Kenney, floated from the console stereo they were so proud of.
Mom called us to the table, where we encountered the tangible results of her non-attendance at the parade. A splendiferous array of beautifully browned turkey and all the trimmings, especially my favorite, the wonderful jellied cranberry sauce. Mom even lit a pair of candles.
My parents, Julie and Mollie, had a great deal to be thankful for that night. For two people who had sought all their lives to be relevant, to know meaning and purpose despite their lifelong disabilities and near-poverty, the year 1967 had been fruitful beyond imagining.
Accomplishments included barrier-busting corrections to Lincoln Center, forming the new Architectural Barriers Committee, getting accessibility into the draft new Building Code, election to Democratic County Committee, an equal-rights proposal for the State Constitution, the campaign for a City disability agency, working (even if not always easily) with dozens of officials and other activists. They went up against City Hall, did the Barry Gray radio show, got an endorsement from Senator Bobby Kennedy—and most of all, they’d reached a glorious victory over the towaway edict, in which the City had abruptly invalidated parking permits (and prohibited parking) all over Midtown.
Beating the towaway had changed everything. After half a dozen years of tending their little political spark, the fire had finally and wildly flared. Something permanent, something lasting was under way, they were certain of it.
For Julius, this night seemed almost a reprise of the wonderful Christmas Party in 1946, at his local chapter of the Communist-tinged American Youth for Democracy, back in his remembered Bronx. He’d been President of that well-meaning little band, until the Red Scare had knocked it down. Twenty-one years later, once again he felt he’d crossed the waters—past the isolation of disability, cutting off from his comrades, the junkie years that had followed. Hale and hearty at age 43, a crutch- and wheelchair-using man with a secure job, surrounded by wife and children, and tilting not at windmills, but at real political change. Surely, he had reached the far shore of meaning, belonging, and action. And now came one of the few moments of release for Julius. For now, let the old wounds be forgotten. He could fly.
Snug in their home, Mollie felt a deep repose. Life with Julius was a crazy ride, but it was never dull. The two of them had certainly thrown the dice for this new political movement, whatever it was. Their children were at their side. Everything was here, everything she’d ever really wanted was right in front of her. Perhaps, for the severely epileptic, accidental youngest daughter of a shattered family, perhaps the old anxieties were finished, nothing more than antique furniture. And for that, she was extremely thankful indeed.
Dinner done and table cleared, over Nescafe coffee and frozen chocolate pie the eyes of Julie and Mollie locked deeply. He leaned over and they began a long, heart-skipping kiss. They sent the kids off to bed with permission to watch TV. And on this Thanksgiving night, cocooned in the tattering, racketing City, hovering in our second-story home, there came a quiet and beautiful evening for Mollie and Julie.
Monday the battle would begin afresh.
For more of Warren Shaw’s work in disability history, please go to www.DisabilityHistoryNYC.com