Edward Roberts; Champion of Rights for Handicapped

Edward Roberts, 56, a quadriplegic who was regarded as “the Cesar Chavez for the handicapped,” has died. He was 56.

Roberts, who was director of the California Department of Rehabilitation from 1975 to 1982, died Tuesday of cardiac arrest at his home in Berkeley.

In official and unofficial posts, Roberts became a champion for equal rights and access for the handicapped as Chavez had been a leader in the fight for equality for farm workers.

President Clinton, who met Roberts two years ago to celebrate the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, said in a statement:

“As an international leader and educator in the independent living and disability rights movements, he fought throughout his life to enable all persons with disabilities to fully participate in mainstream society. Mr. Roberts was truly a pioneer. . . . His vision and ability to bring people together should be an example for all Americans.

Roberts was cited as one of nine heroes in a 1991 book entitled “Rescues: The Lives of Heroes” by Michael Lesy, who wrote:

“What a black man like Bob Moses had been in the civil rights movement or a woman like Betty Friedan had been for the feminists, Ed Roberts was for the disabled.”

When Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. named Roberts to the state office in 1975, The Times praised the appointment in an editorial calling him “the right person for the job.”

As director, Roberts supervised a staff of some 2,500 employees and an annual budget of $140 million. He set up models for the 28 independent living centers for the handicapped that are now funded by the state.

Roberts, crippled by polio at age 14, spent his life connected to either an iron lung or a respirator attached to his wheelchair. He was paralyzed from the neck down and had movement in only one finger.

Rehabilitation experts, thinking they were offering kindly advice, told the boy that without the use of his arms and legs he should not aspire to too much--that a college education or even the capability of moving around in a wheelchair were probably beyond his reach.

But the youth was undaunted. He talked his Burlingame High School principal into graduating him even though he was unable to complete physical education requirements. He went on to UC Berkeley where he earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree and taught political science.

Roberts first became an activist for the handicapped while enrolled in Berkeley. Living in a campus hospital, he led a movement to obtain regular off-campus housing and federal funds for disabled students. He co-founded the Center for Independent Living in Berkeley.

Roberts later created the World Institute on Disability, an influential policy and research center based in Oakland. He funded it partly with a $200,000 no-strings-attached grant he received from the MacArthur Foundation in 1984 for his pioneering work for disabled rights.

Roberts, whose marriage ended in divorce, is survived by a son, Lee, of Redding; his mother, Vona, of Berkeley, and two brothers, Mark of Eugene, Ore., and Ron of Hawaii.