Disability rights pioneer Justin Dart to become giant hero puppet

From Matrix Theatre Company:

Matrix Theatre Company is creating a new Giant Hero Puppet to memorialize Justin Dart (pictured), the disability rights activist who advanced the cause of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA became law in July 1990, and the hero puppet will be ready to mark the act's 20th anniversary.

Matrix's newest creation will also be paraded during events planned for the U.S. Social Forum to be held June 22 - 26, 2010 in Detroit. The U.S. Social Forum is a movement-building process bringing people together to solve the global economic and ecological crises. Following its debut at the USSF, the puppet will be headed to Chicago to appear in the Seventh Annual Disability Pride Parade on July 24, 2010.

Matrix has begun raising the $7,500 needed to construct the work. The Justin Dart puppet will be made in "the Matrix way" of community collaboration. This is how Matrix created its roster of giant puppets including Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez and Ella Baker, and the way that Matrix creates its original theatre productions. The Justin Dart puppet presents a unique challenge for its designers: to make a larger-than-life functioning wheelchair to hold the puppet. Justin Dart (1930-2002) was stricken with polio at the age of 18, and used a wheelchair for the rest of his life. The completed puppet will require at least three people to operate it.

"If the giant Justin Dart puppet is used to communicate his cry for everyone to 'Lead the Revolution of Individual Empowerment' particularly to youth with disabilities, it would be awesome, and extremely meaningful and valuable," said Yoshiko Dart, Justin's wife, in 2008 when the project was proposed to her by Matrix.

"'Lead on! We love you,' Dart's famous quote is recognized still as both a call to action and a reminder that, in the struggle against oppression and the movement toward equity... [that] all things are possible and the resultant change will be powerful, positive and worth the effort," said Dan Wilkins, advocate for people with disabilities.

"The notion that any one person is the single cause of any significant social change - that Abraham Lincoln alone freed the slaves - is a devastating stereotype which robs individuals of responsibility and credit, and actually inhibits social change. You can be a revolution of one. In your living room, in your family, in your community," said Dart, when the 10th anniversary of the ADA was marked by the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

Fro fundraising, the Justin Dart Puppet Project cause is set up on Facebook. The entire creation process will be documented by Matrix. Check the website to follow events and for updates on the construction and fundraising efforts.