Although the disability rights movement is recognized by scholars as officially beginning in in the 1960s, advocacy for the rights of people with disabilities certainly started much earlier.

One of the most important developments of the disability rights movement was the growth of the independet living movement, which emerged in Berkeley, California in the 1960s through the efforts of Edward Roberts and other wheelchair-using individuals. This movement, a subset of the disability rights movement, postulates that people with disabilities are the best experts on their needs, and therefore they must take the initiative, individually and collectively, in designing and promoting better solutions and must organize themselves for political power.

In 1973, the US Rehabilitation Act became law; Sections 501, 503, and 504 prohibited discrimination in federal programs and services and all other programs or services receiving federal funds. Key language in the Rehabilitation Act, found in Section 504, states: "No otherwise qualified handicapped individual in the United States, shall, solely by reason of his handicap, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance." This was the first federal civil rights law guaranteeing equal opportunity for people with disabilities. For the Deaf Community, it mandated ASL interpreters for any deaf federal employee at staff meetings and events. It formed the basis of the more expansive Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment, mandates state and local governments to ensure public accommodations, access to commercial facilities and transportation, and telecommunications.