“If we don’t acknowledge the truth, we cannot reconcile the hurt – or prevent its repeat. ”

March 1st is “Day of Mourning” and the purpose of the day is to honor the lives of people with disabilities who have lost their lives at the hands of caregivers, and to set an intention to take positive action in the lives of people with disabilities who are still alive and yet to be born. Join us in remembering.

In Cincinnati, we will travel to the cemetery of the former Longview State Hospital, now operated as Summit Behavioral Healthcare. Hundreds of patients from 1865-1967 are buried here, marked only with numbers, as shared in this 1931 video, Love & Outrage, of the cemetery dedication.

We are planning to gather at 10 a.m. for quiet reflection, readings, a prayer, and walking the gravesites. If you wish, bring flowers for the service.

 Locations:

Location: The former Longview Cemetery is near the grounds of Summit Behavioral Healthcare

If you go to Summit: Travel time from downtown Cincinnati is 15 minutes. We will meet at 7076 Glenmeadow Lane, Cincinnati, OH 45237 (street parking) and enter the cemetery together.

Images from Longview State Hospital Cemetery:

“Be Known & Named ”

— During our visits our group reads a prayer written and illustrated by Nancy Fuller and son, Steve

Images from Orient Cemetery:

Learn more:

1. Listen to our podcast, More, for our “Unnamed & Unknown Series” with Tim Vogt, Nancy Fuller, and Cassandra & Nestor Melnyk.

2. Watch From Numbers to Names,  to learn what others around the country are doing in their journey of healing and reconciliation.

3. During our visits, our group reads a prayer written and illustrated by Nancy Fuller and her son, Steve:

   May the God in me, honor the dignity & divine in you.  May your spirit soar and be KNOWN & NAMED forever more.

   Amen.

4. Check out the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) resource page.

5. Study Christmas in Purgatory, by Burton Blatt & Fred Kaplan, a writer and photographer who gained access to state institutions for men, women, and children with developmental disabilities in New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. The men went with a spy camera on a belt and took pictures of the deplorable and yet legally sanctioned abusive human living conditions.

6. Watch Willowbrook, a 1972 documentary by Geraldo Rivera; watch the 2022 retrospect: 50 Years Later

7. Apple Creek was a state mental institution southwest of Akron with 3,000 residents. Parents, staff and volunteers filed a law suit to improve conditions and produced a movie called Off the Cement Floor; watch Parts 1-3:

• Off the Cement Floor, Part 1

• Off the Cement Floor, Part 2

• Off the Cement Floor, Part 3