LOST IN A DESERT WORLD: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ROLAND JOHNSON (as told to Karl Williams)

Working first with a tape recorder and then from transcribed tapes, Williams has succeeded in getting down in print the authentic voices of two important leaders in the self-advocacy movement.

Roland Johnson, born in Philadelphia and court-ordered to Pennhurst State School as a child, gives a chilling account of his harrowing journey through what he calls a "desert world" - and finally back to the world the rest of us live in. By the time of his accidental death in 1994 he'd become a respected speaker and an influential leader in the movement of the stature of Frederick Douglass or Marin Luther King, Jr.

Michael Long's childhood on his family's farm left him unsuspecting - but in the long run more than adequately prepared - for the shock of full inclusion in the California Public School system in the years before the Right To Education. His second grade teacher thought it best to explain to him that his disability precluded his ever marrying or holding down a job. But the more vital (and important) message he got from his family - that he could do anything he set his mind to - led him eventually to conquer his self-doubt and find his true calling. He now works for the state of California, is married, owns a home, and travels regularly across the country to speak.