THE ISSUE

Jerry's Orphans vs. the MDA telethon

Mike was inspired to found Jerry's Orphans, along with his sister Cris and wife Anna, after he came upon an article written by Jerry Lewis for the Labor Day 1990 edition of Parade Magazine. Every year, Parade gives its Labor Day weekend cover to MDA and the telethon. This particular year, Jerry Lewis took it upon himself to write his own "first person account" of what it is like to be a person with Muscular Dystrophy, entitled If I Had Muscular Dystrophy. He said, "I decided after 41 years of battling this curse that cripples children of all ages, that I would put myself into that chair, that steel imprisonment that has long been deemed the dsytrophic child's plight."

From there Lewis goes on to reveal the "inner monologue" of this imagined boy. He writes:

"I know the courage it takes to get on the court with other cripples and play wheelchair basketball. I'd like to play basketball like normal, healthy, vital, energetic people. I just can't half-do anything. Either it's all the way or forget it. When I sit back and think a little more rationally, I realize my life is half, so I must learn to do things halfway. I just have to learn to try to be good at being half a person. I may be a full human being in my heart and soul, yet I am still half a person."

Mike couldn't believe what he was reading - half a person?? He immediately took the article home and showed it to his wife Anna and sister Cris, and they all decided it was time to do something. As former poster children for the MDA in Chicago, Cris and Mike felt that a protest would be particularly interesting coming from them - they were no longer Jerry's Kids but Jerry's Orphans. So they started staging protests in Chicago in 1991.

Other Jerry's Orphans sprouted up around the country and almost instantly there was a nationwide network of grassroots groups protesting the telethon. People organized protests against the "pity fest," as one activist called it, in New York, Charleston, Denver, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. There was also an explosion of media attention, with articles about Jerry's Orphans in everything from Vanity Fair to the National Enquirer.

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