Site Preserves History of Fight for Rights for The Intellectually Disabled

In the 1950s, Eleanor Elkin adopted a baby boy, Richard, whom -- it soon became clear -- had intellectual disabilities. It was a much different era then and the adoption agency offered to take him back.
“But no, I said, you don't send babies back; you don't turn them in like cars. We had had him then probably about two weeks and by then he was my son … there was no doubt …and no way were they going to get him back,” Elkin recalled.
The story of Elkin, who is 95 and a leader in the Intellectual Disability Movement in Pennsylvania and across the country, is now documented and preserved through Visionary Voices, a new site that was recently launched by Temple’s Institute on Disabilities (IOD).