James C. Dickson papers (Ms.2007.021)

Biographical note

James Charles Dickson was born on January 4, 1946. Blind since the age of seven, Dickson has not let his disability prevent him from experiencing a full life. He graduated from Brown University in 1968 with an A.B. with honors in American Civilization. In 1987, Dickson was the first blind person to sail a boat alone from Rhode Island to Bermuda. Afterward, he was invited to discuss the trip with conservative commentator William F. Buckley, another avid sailor, on Buckley's television show, Crossfire. He has become, not an advocate for people, but an organizer, which he defines as someone who teaches people to do things for themselves.

For the National Organization on Disability, Dickson directed the VOTE!2000 campaign which exceeded its goal by registering and getting to the polls over two million voters with disabilities. He was involved in the writing of and lobbying for the passage of the so called "motor voter" law which makes it the government's responsibility to offer voter registration opportunities to citizens who are receiving services from the departments of motor vehicles and disability agencies in each state. He was co-founder of Project Vote!, a national, non-partisan voter registration and education organization that has been instrumental in registering more than three and a half million African-Americans. He has also organized and directed voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives in twenty-three states. He was the director of the FDR in a Wheelchair Campaign, which lobbied successfully to have a statue of Franklin Roosevelt in his wheelchair placed in the Roosevelt Memorial. With the support of the Sierra Club, Dickson helped mobilize support for the first Clean Air Act. Dickson played an important role in the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) election reform task force and continues to co-chair the LCCR's Help American Vote Act (HAVA) task force.

As Vice President for Governmental Affairs of the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), Dickson leads the AAPD Disability Vote Project, a coalition of more than thirty-five national disability related organizations that encourage people with disabilities to get out and vote by focusing on election reform, polling place accessibility, voter registration, get-out-the-vote drives, and education of the electorate and elected officials.