Carr Massi
In this image: Photo of white woman in her sixties, in a manual wheelchair, with blond curly hair and a pink blouse, displaying a tattoo bearing the ADAPT logo and stating “free our people”.
The beloved elder of the New York City Disability Rights Movement, Carr’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). She twice served as DIA President and, remarkably enough, she still remains a force there, after fifty years. In between, Carr has been involved with virtually every aspect of the New York City movement. She co-founded the Metropolitan Chapter of the National Paraplegia Foundation, and was deeply involved in that body’s conversion into the Center for Independence of the Disabled, New York (CIDNY). 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 Carr’s most fondly remembered positions was serving as Program Coordinator for The Networking Project, a mentor-mentee project for young adults with disabilities, which was founded by Harilyn Rousso and based at the 53rd street YMCA. Carr ran the program for six years during the 1990s.
Over more than half a century of activism, Carr 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 89 years old, Carr has never lost her anger. And she has probably attended more street actions and worked with more people than just about anyone else.
by Warren Shaw
