Center for Independent Living - Berkeley

The Center for Independent Living, founded in 1972 in Berkeley, California, provides advocacy and services that increase awareness, collaboration, and opportunity among people with disabilities and the community at large. Our programs provide people with skills, knowledge, and resources that empower them to eliminate damaging and stereotypical notions of disability so that they can strive toward realizing their full human potential.

CIL emerged from the independent living movement of the 1960s as a powerful social catalyst on the University of California at Berkeley campus. There, Ed Roberts, Hale Zukas, and Jan McEwan Brown joined forces to lead a movement that made the full academic and social life of the university accessible to all. In 1972, these students and community members joined together to form The Center for Independent Living, Inc.