Disabled Protest Memorial to FDR

In wheelchairs, on crutches or with guide dogs, disabled people protested that the soon-to-be-dedicated Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial fails to depict the nation’s only severely handicapped president in his wheelchair. About 75 people assembled at the construction site between the Potomac River and the Tidal Basin, carrying placards that read “Don’t hide FDR’s source of strength” and signs that said “Truth” in letters and in Braille. They stapled to the wooden gate a reproduction of a rare photograph--only two are known to exist--of Roosevelt in a wheelchair.