SACRAMENTO BEE ONLINE - JANUARY 11, 2001
Disabled cheer wheelchair statue at FDR Memorial
By Alex Parker, Scripps-McClatchy Western Service
WASHINGTON (January 11, 2001) - For Los Angeles native and disability rights activist Taylor Hines, Wednesday's unveiling of a statue depicting Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a wheelchair revealed more than mere illness.
"The unveiling shows that people with disabilities really can do anything they aspire to," said Hines, a staff member with the National Organization on Disability. "As a person with a disability, it's a tremendous inspiration to me."
The statue dedication by President Clinton concluded a five-year struggle by disability rights groups to explicitly depict the polio-stricken Roosevelt in his wheelchair. The private groups formed the Rendezvous with Destiny committee, which raised the $1.65 million needed to complete the memorial.
The late-morning dedication drew disabled lawmakers, Hollywood celebrities and, in one of his final presidential appearances, Bill Clinton. Democratic Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia, who lost both legs in Vietnam, attended along with the likes of actresses Lauren Bacall and Angelica Huston.
"This is a statue of freedom, of the power of every man and woman to transcend their circumstances, to laugh in the face of fate, to make the most of what God has given them," Clinton said.
The original five-acre FDR Memorial opened in 1997, without calling attention to Roosevelt's disability. Roosevelt himself, who lost his ability to walk early in his political career due to polio, famously tried to conceal his illness by discretely using braces, a loyal entourage and an amenable press corps.
Some felt a memorial should likewise not emphasize his disability. Following protests at the original dedication, Clinton and the Congress agreed that the memorial should be enriched with an additional statue - so long as it was funded privately.
"It would be a travesty not to include a depiction of FDR's disability, which he had throughout his 12 years in the White House," said Alan Reich, president of the National Organization on Disability. "We get letters every day from people who say to their disabled children, 'Look, President Roosevelt was in a wheelchair, and he became president, you can become a success in your life."
In stark contrast to the towering memorial figures of Jefferson and Lincoln, the Roosevelt statue is life-sized. It depicts him in the wheelchair that he constructed, sitting up and wearing his glasses. Sculptor Robert Graham - Huston's husband - stated the statue's intimacy was the most important feature in its design.
"I think it's appropriate that the statue is not larger than life, but life-sized," Clinton said. "It is a reminder to all that see it, to all that touch it, that we are free."
Behind the statue is a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt, etched in granite and supplemented in Braille, stating that Roosevelt's illness gave him qualities that he did not have before. That was a central theme of the presentation, that Roosevelt was a highly effective president not in spite of his disability, but because of it.
"FDR was a better president because of his disability," Reich said. "His main leadership qualities - compassion, courage, determination, patience - all came out of his disability experience," Reich said.
Roosevelt's grandson Jim said he loved the monument because "it shows where he would be today. Not where his head was in 1945, but where we as a people are today."
