At first, they were met with resistance. The members of the Rolling Quads sought out other opportunities to create accessibility. They poured cement at curbs on Shattuck, creating makeshift ramps, and created a wheelchair repair program through the university’s Physically Disabled Students’ Program since wheelchairs were not made for street use at this time. Stories of the Rolling Quads taking jackhammers to destroy intersections became legend as curb cuts seemed to rapidly capture people's minds. Eric Dibner, an attendant to the leaders of the independent living movement, remembers how he was asked to pour concrete to make a bumpy but usable ramp for the Rolling Quads. Hale Zukas, a Rolling Quad and a co-founder for the Center for Independent Living, assisted in designing wheelchair ramps, as seen above. He reminisced on how primitive the ramp at Shattuck and Center St looked, and how the city of Berkeley asked him about future curb cut locations after the original implementation. In 1968, the Architectural Barriers Act was passed, which required that any building built with federal funding was required to be accessible for those with disabilities. It offered no way of supporting or enforcing the policies it implemented, but it was enough to give persons with disabilities more power when advocating for spaces that were often unavailable to their community.

In 1969, at the persistence of the Rolling Quads, Telegraph Avenue was reworked to include the first official and city-sanctioned curb cut west of the Mississippi. It rests at Telegraph and Blake Street, and by 1973, there were plans to create curb cuts through most of Southside Berkeley. Phil Draper, the Center for Independent Living's co-founder and executive direct. recounted how exciting it was to be able to access such a lively place. When describing Telegraph, he said, "it's accessible, it's electric, it's fascinating." Having spent the prior twelve years without an electric wheelchair and in a place without curb cuts, he was excited about the chance that he had to experience the wonders of Berkeley, and be connected to the city from the campus. Not only that, he was excited that he would not be experiencing this joy alone. He would could have the Rolling Quads or the Disabled Students' Union accompany him. Now, we live in a world dotted by curb cuts. They’re commonplace. We don’t often find ourselves questioning their existence or their history.

The Importance of the Curb Cut

That curb cut at Telegraph Avenue and Blake Street is a lot more than an aspect of design or an architectural feature. It set the precedent for universal design. While now it might seem like a cement slope joining a construction site to a liquor store, it is a reflection of the activism that took place at Berkeley and the moves made to include persons with disabilities on a scale larger than any one person, university, or wheelchair.

How does this sort of architectural design leave a lasting impact? As Berkeley students have done for decades, the Rolling Quads exemplified the tenet that no one experiences injustice alone. Berkeley students supported divestment in companies that were upholding apartheid, pointed out political injustices and a lack of free speech on their campus and college campuses everywhere, and advocated for a department of Ethnic Studies, one of the first of its kind. During Disability Rights Movement sit-ins, the Berkeley-affiliated protesters were supported by the Black Panthers, and one of the leaders of the Black Panthers was also a leader of the DRM.

Nothing About Us Without Us

“Nothing about us without us” is one of the most famous quotes from the movement. Truly, decisions impacting people should be made with those people’s input. The Rolling Quads, curb cuts, and universal design are critical to the way we view the world. When we think something is working for the advancement of just one person, it is often working for all. A curb cut makes it easier for those on bikes, gives a smoother transition from sidewalk to road for runners, helps people with limited mobility move with ease, prevents a parent pushing their sleeping child in a stroller from waking them when they suddenly drop from curb to road. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail so clearly outlines, “whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” The support of disabled students on and around Berkeley has made life better for all. A city can always benefit from the voices of its constituents, so long as it gives all of its constituents the opportunity to have a voice, and there is no better way to do this than by creating a space all have access to.

Berkeley: A Place for All, With Space for All

Now, curb cuts dot nearly every street in urbanized America. But it is the corner of Telegraph Avenue and Blake Street in Berkeley, California that gave way to this essential feature. This curb cut is indicative of the people here at UC Berkeley: people who push for what they need, and who create a better future for those who will come after them. It is the university at Berkeley that gave the Rolling Quads the support they needed, so long as the Rolling Quads had the conviction to demand it. It is the city of Berkeley that grabbed the opportunity to create a more equitable and accessible city, when the Rolling Quads took the initiative to ask for it. Berkeley, both as a city and an institution, is a place where people empower themselves, learn about their resources, demand change, and use that change to make things better. They can only do that if they are given a space that they have access to. To understand a place, we must understand what it means for a place to be accessible and the fight that occurred for that access.

Berkeley has a rich history as a place. It once housed Oppenheimer, gave rise to the Free Speech Movement, witnessed the counterculture, facilitated the development of new identities, and is an institution of higher learning. But access to that place didn’t come without a fight.

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