I contracted polio in 1946 at age 3. To my knowledge, I was the first wheelchair user at Goshen College. Crutch walking was barely possible at my level of paralysis. In the mid-1960s, long before laws required access in colleges, every dorm room was up a flight of stairs. For each ascent, as I lifted myself backward on my crutches, a dorm mate stood facing me, ready to push me onto the stairs if a crutch slipped — preferable to a forward plunge.

Looking back, I doubt the college would have let me enroll in those days if not for the probable behind-the-scenes influence of my father, then president of Hesston College. (Nevertheless, it was I, not my father, who muscled through the daily realities, 800 miles from home.) That exclusion and bureaucratic chill would not have come from a desire to harm but from prejudices and inability to picture a reality of inclusion.

I, too, was slow in coming to disability awareness. Other types of oppression had been pressed into my consciousness decades earlier. In the 1960s, racism penetrated my narrow White world as, with tears streaming down our cheeks, my peers and I stared at television images of Black people bitten by police dogs and pulverized with water from fire hoses as they sought their rights.

As for homophobia, the edges of my straight world melted when as a young woman I fell in love with another. My awareness of sexism grew with the wave of feminism in the 1970s.

But a parallel awareness of disability — the sharpest source of my childhood exclusion, terror, humiliation and erasure — was slowest to come, perhaps precisely because of the level of internal pain and the absence of ableism awareness in the broader world.

I find the following definition of ableism by Ashley Eisenmenger, a disability inclusion training specialist, to be helpful: “Ableism is the discrimination of and social prejudice against people with disabilities based on the belief that typical abilities are superior. At its heart, ableism is rooted in the assumption that disabled people require ‘fixing’ and defines people by their disability.”

An architect’s speech to a group of people with disabilities in the 1980s was a turning point for me. One statement stood out: “Your disability is not caused by your condition; it is caused by your environment.” My heart pounded with fear and possibility. A trellis for new growth started to take shape.

I discovered the small, radical magazines that foment movements, and I sought out disability advocates from across the country. A few hundred laborers in a ragtag yet well-organized national disability community called ADAPT (established in 1983; see adapt.org) worked on policy goals — and simultaneously engaged via street actions and arrests.

I have been arrested about a dozen times for civil disobedience. On the first day of a three-day jail term in Orlando, Fla., with some 70 other disability-justice seekers, an angry guard said, “You people are used to being babied, but now you’re going to see what rough looks like!”

By the third day, scorn had changed to respect, and she asked quietly, “How do you manage at home?”

We eventually won “A lift on every new bus!” We helped advance the Americans with Disabilities Act, the federal law of 1990. We then moved on to “Our homes, not nursing homes!,” a not-yet-successful campaign opposed by a nursing home lobby funded by private equity.

I took on leadership of a “Visit-ability” quest still in process: “A zero-step entrance on all new homes!” We call the program “Concrete Change.”

My deepest motivation is that a future disabled child will be welcomed with the same happiness as an abled baby. This will require leaps forward in state-paid help for families; opportunity to work when the child grows up; and the expectation that they will have loving, including romantic, relationships as they move into adulthood.

I suspect many White Anabaptists attempt to acknowledge our uneasiness regarding our racist thoughts, to educate ourselves on systemic racism, to notice racism in the media, to see it in the comments and actions of those near us, to listen to what Black leaders say before we try to help and to take actions to lessen racism.

My main hope in writing this article is that abled readers will use these exact processes to address ableism — not as a cudgel to make yourself or others suffer blame, but to say to yourself, despite dismay: Good for you for noticing. That work is necessary for people with disabilities to be free from shunning, erasure, injustice and danger, even untimely death.

Abled people thereby recognize that disabilities and chronic illnesses are not essentially personal misfortunes but — like racism, sexism, homophobia, classism — ableism can be changed.

I went through seven surgeries from ages 6 to 16, sometimes with shattering pain. But in my life, social exclusion has caused the most pain.

To lessen ableism, look bravely at your fears when interacting with people with disabilities. From experience, I have a pretty good idea what your troubling thoughts might be:
— “I could become disabled, and then my life would be unbearable.” (Well, it would be more bearable than in past decades — and still more bearable if we bring about further changes.)
— “My offer to help could be considered rude, then rejected.” (If you offer assistance non-condescendingly, most people with disabilities are glad, even if we decline — and an angry rejection would be about the person with disabilities, not you.)
— “If I offer to help with one thing, I might be asked for other things that I might not want or be able to do.” (A person who is confident they can set a limit in response to a request will often be more open to helping.)
— “If I offer to help, I may become identified as the sole, go-to helper and then become overwhelmed.” (A circle of care is key.)
— “I might say the wrong thing.” (Yes, making a cliché joke like “Want to race?” or, on first acquaintance, asking an intimate question about a person’s disability can be off-putting. But even saying the wrong thing can be better than silence. Ordinary conversation is good; invitations to go out together also are good.)

People with disabilities are often the helpers, the instigators, the inviters. And need I add that we have fun and enjoy life?

Still, there are inequities that make our lives difficult, even endangered. The key is compassion, which flows easily for some and can be learned by others within community.

My hope is that readers will see ableism and work for change.

Eleanor Smith of Decatur, Ga., spends time sitting among trees, dealing with old-age add-ons to disability and occasionally dipping back into disability/housing work (visitability.org).