Lost In a Desert World: The Autobiography Of Roland Johnson

Forty or fifty years ago, when a child was born with a developmental disability - mental retardation, in Roland Johnson's case - the doctor would invariably counsel the parents to put their son or daughter away and forget about them.

Roland Johnson's mother and father did not take this advice. But in the 1950s in Philadelphia they had no one to help them - no counselors, no psychologists, no therapists, no teachers. And when the problems that Roland's disability presented began to overwhelm them, they had no choice but to resign themselves to that original advice.

Roland Johnson spent half his childhood at Pennhurst State School outside Philadelphia, where he saw fellow residents abused and where he himself was abused. But somehow he was able to keep his spirit alive. When he won his freedom as a young adult, he spent several years putting his life together. Then, as president of Speaking For Ourselves, he became an internationally known speaker and leader in the self-advocacy movement.

Roland Johnson was a man of great courage and vision and determination. He had what can be called an alternate kind of intelligence - one not based on the ability to manipulate data. In Roland Johnson's world understanding - one person for another - is the way of the future, the only route to true freedom.

Though virtually unknown in his lifetime outside the self-advocacy movement, he was a pioneer: his life traced a path no one had trod before - he escaped the hell his disability had consigned him to and went on to speak out and organize on behalf of his brothers and sisters.

Karl Williams is now working on another as-told-to autobiography, "Hello, Stranger: The Barbara Moran Story." Barb Moran is a graphic artist who has autism.

His own autobiography, "Mounting To Heaven," will be published in 2000.

He won a place on the 1998 Grammy ballot in the Best Contemporary Folk category with his CD "Respect: Songs Of the Self-Advocacy Movement," recorded with members of the national self-advocacy group SABE. His songs have been recorded on Rounder and on Flying Fish Records. His current CD is "From One Millennium To Another," and includes the song "To the New Century."