The Advocado Press

at The Center for Accessible Living

Founded in 1981, the Advocado Press, Inc. has published books and periodicals devoted to disability rights and the disability experience for over 40 years. We are best-known for publishing The Disability Rag (later the Ragged Edge) magazine, a ground-breaking disability rights periodical, for over 25 years. We have also produced a number of books about the disability rights movement and the disability experience in America.

The Disability Rag, or simply The Rag, published a wide range of articles and opinion pieces from individuals with disabilities. It was considered one of the most important publications of the disability rights movement. As it became a national periodical of the disability movement, it addressed the disability community’s concerns about both personal and public issues. When ADAPT started a national activist effort to change public transit policy, The Rag provided continuing coverage of the activists and the issue. The coverage was collected and published as To Ride the Public’s Buses: The Fight that Built A Movement, the Advocado Press’ first “Disability Rag Reader.” The Rag served as a national forum as activists, leading thinkers and scholars of disability rights submitted articles and reacted to items and reader letters published in the magazine. It became an important outlet for creative expressions of disability culture, including essays, fiction, poetry and artwork reflecting the experience of disability.

The Center for Accessible Living is now the repository of the entire print inventory of the Advocado Press, Inc. It also provides technical and logistical support to the Press.

Advocado Press Board of Directors:

• Jan Day, Chair
• Arthur Campbell, Vice-Chair
• Melanie Piazza (as Executive Director of the Center for Accessible Living)
• Carrissa Johnson
• Austin Nugent