The Rev. Harold H. Wilke, an armless United Church of Christ minister whose early advocacy for people with disabilities helped set the stage for a movement that ultimately won basic protections for them in areas ranging from employment to transportation, has died. He was 88.
A resident of Claremont, Wilke died of heart failure Tuesday at Pomona Valley Hospital after a period of declining health.
Wilke was an author, a social activist arrested in civil rights marches in the 1960s, and one of the first Americans with a severe disability to serve as a parish minister, according to the 1997 book "Disability Rights Movement" by Fred Pelka.
His work in disabled rights focused in recent years on making churches, temples and mosques accessible to the handicapped.
"He was recognized by disabled people across the country as a leader and innovator -- one of the first of the people to believe in disability rights as a movement," said Hugh Gallagher, a Capitol Hill staff member in the 1960s who drafted the first legislation on architectural access for the handicapped.
"We'd all been disabled for years, but in a medical context: We were sick people who never got well. The disability rights model," Gallagher said, "is that we are oppressed people who were denied our civil rights. Harold was instrumental in developing this concept, which is the key to the whole disability rights movement."
Wilke's role was recognized with his participation in the White House ceremony for the signing of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, which prohibited discrimination against the disabled in employment, public accommodations, transportation and telecommunications.
He delivered the invocation, believed to be the first for a bill signing, in which he spoke of "the breaking of the chains which have held back millions of Americans with disabilities."
Later, as President George H.W. Bush handed out the ceremonial pens, Wilke deftly removed a loafer and stuck out his foot to receive one, which he slipped into his shoe. Later, while seated next to First Lady Barbara Bush, he deposited it in his pocket with his toes. He was greeted with a roar of approval from the assembled guests.
Wilke, who was born without arms on a farm in Washington, Mo., found ways to deal with discrimination from an early age. He was barred from his local elementary school and walked several miles each day to another school.
