The ADA and Eunice Kennedy Shriver
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Commissioned as part of the First Prize, Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2006
Sunday, July 26th marks the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which provides legal protection against discrimination for millions of Americans with mental and physical disabilities. In the words of President George H.W. Bush, who signed the ADA into law in a ceremony before 3,000 people, the act marked a “bright new era of equality and freedom” across the United States. The ADA also heralded an important step towards public awareness, acceptance, and respect of people with disabilities.
A major advocate for people with disabilities was Eunice Shriver, whose portrait I remembered from countless elementary school field trips downtown (one of the perks of growing up in D.C.) My classmates and I referred to her painting as “the one that looks like a photo”: the image is so realistic, it glows. But I can’t remember ever learning about Eunice Shriver herself. My class would just pause in disbelief in front of her portrait before being told to hurry up and gather around Martin Luther King, Jr.
Eunice Shriver is perhaps best known for her organization of the Special Olympics, whose mission is to provide “athletic competition...for children and adults with intellectual disabilities,” who share “gifts, skills and friendship with their families, other Special Olympics athletes and the community.” She served as Executive Vice President of the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation, which under her leadership established countless institutes, grants, organizations, and community centers to benefit people with intellectual disabilities and their families and caregivers. Her legacy is carried on by millions of global participants in the Special Olympics.
Steve Eidelman, Executive Director of the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation, said of Shriver: “She was inspiring, impatient, respectful, impatient, passionate, creative, and did I mention impatient? She wanted to get so many things done for people with intellectual disabilities that, after each accomplishment, she would rest for a brief moment, then start in on the next mountain to climb.” As someone with “access to decision makers of both parties, as a longtime Washington presence,” Shriver “used that influence...to push for anything that would benefit people with intellectual disabilities and their families.” And she taught “persistence...the power of using your influence and passion for good.”
As a seventeen-year-old high school senior, I’m no stranger to well-meaning but daunting questions about my future: Where are you going to college? What will you study? What do you want to do? The interrogations come from friends, family, strangers, doctors inserting IVs before surgery (yes, really). They are unanswerable. So when I look at Eunice Shriver’s portrait now, I feel the same awe at its beauty that I did on those elementary school field trips, but I also feel something very reassuring about a person who has a life’s work, who has influenced so many people in tangible and lasting ways. Where I have speculation, she has a remarkable legacy.
In honor of the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, high school intern Sofia Laguarda researched works in the Portrait Gallery’s collection honoring advocates of those with disabilities.
