(soft piano music)
(background crowd chatter)
- We have to prove to them
we can do the same thing they can, thank you.
(audience clapping)
- Well, I just wanted to say
that everybody should speak
for their self.
- [Narrator] Linda Gheer was a founding member
of the international self advocacy group,
People First.
- People first was to help people get out of,
on their own, and not live in a group home
or a nursing home anymore.
(group chatter)
- I remember Linda as one of the leaders
of a bunch of young adults.
She was an adolescent,
so she was a bit feisty.
- We don't want to have anybody tell us what to do,
and when to do it, like what time you should
go to bed, and what time you get up.
Of course, me,
I'm not too good about getting up.
(both laughing)
- [Narrator] In the 1970's,
Linda was one of nearly 3000 residents
at Fairview Training Center.
An Oregon State run institution
for the intellectual and developmentally disabled.
- We're people just like you are,
and everybody else, so they should give us
the same consideration.
- [Narrator] A handful of residents
banded together to create an organization
run for and by people with disabilities.
- We may have some outside help
with advisors and what not,
but we want the main just of the convention
be run by us.
- [Narrator] They held their first convention
at Otter Crest in 1974.
Over 500 people attended.
It is generally considered the beginning
of the developmental disability self advocacy movement.
- I think it's cruel, I think it's terribly cruel
that we are spoken this way, labeled this way.
To me, if you gotta label something,
label words, label jars, label streets,
but don't label persons.
You put them down in a hole.
And I'd like to see personally,
for a goal for People First,
to get rid of mentally retarded,
mentally disabled, mentally everything.
(audience clapping)
- [Woman] Will a convention of the People First Round Two
please come to order?
- Oregon was the first state in the nation
to have a People First movement.
- We want representatives on State DD Councils,
developmentally disability.
Do we want this?
(audience cheering)
We want representatives on present committee
on mental retardation.
Do we?
(audience cheering)
- And that basically said,
you don't need to call me mentally retarded,
you don't need to call me other names,
I am a person first.
(country music)
- Within the first five to 10 years,
you had over a thousand people saying
they were part of People First
in one state or another,
and then by 1985, it was an international movement.
- [Narrator] Some of the founding members
remain active after more than 40 years
of advocacy.
- They were fun old days.
Good old days.
People First, we sort of helped each other
do things, camping, going on day trip,
go get other people involved with People First.
- And then I decided I wanted to be
a President of People First of Oregon,
and I got elected, and I did.
People First banner I made.
That's a good job.
- I think that was good for me.
And so I could talk to people,
and tell them about what we did.
- [Narrator] Today, there are People First
organizations in over 40 countries.
Working to improve the lives of their members
and all people with disabilities.
- People need to be listened to.
And like I said, some of these people
didn't get to be listened to.
- Just treat us like people.
Like human beings 'cause that what we are,
human beings.
(soft piano music)
- [Announcer] Support for Move to Include
comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
a private corporation funded by the American people.