We’ve Lost A Strong and Gentle Warrior Hero – Bob Liston

Within three weeks of Not Dead Yet’s beginning on April 27, 1996, National ADAPT held a series of protests for home and community based long term services. During a moment of down time, I sat with Bob Liston, Marsha Katz and several other ADAPT activists to plan for our first protest against “Dr. Death,” Jack Kevorkian. (For those who don’t know this, two thirds of his assisted suicide body count consisted of people with disabilities who were not terminally ill.)

Bob and Marsha lived in Michigan and helped in immeasurable ways to host both instate and out-of-state NDY activists. The first NDY protest was held on June 21, 1996, behind the lakeside cottage that Kevorkian was living in. NDY’s first national press coverage was an Associated Press photo which prominently featured Bob, looking strong and determined, the perfect image of our fight for equal protection of the law.

During the years that followed, with Bob and Marsha’s support, we returned to Michigan again and again to demand that the courts “Jail Jack,” until Kevorkian was finally convicted and imprisoned for the lethal injection euthanasia of Thomas Youk. We also confronted a bioethics conference held in Lansing, and a pro-assisted suicide conference held in Ann Arbor by the Hemlock Society, which later helped fund Kevorkian’s legal defense (and eventually morphed into “Compassion and Choices”). Bob and Marsha also helped defeat assisted suicide in the Michigan legislature.

A true “power couple,” Bob and Marsha helped with lodging and transportation arrangements, making signs and flyers, press work and the countless behind the scenes tasks involved in direct action for social justice. They never sought credit for their generosity of time, their insights and their kindness. Bob was a fierce advocate with a gentle and ever present sense of humor.

In time, Bob and Marsha moved to his home state of Montana, and years later in 2017, Bob joined the NDY Board. Here’s a biographical sketch about Bob that concentrates on the years in Montana, and below that, two of my favorite photos that people have posted these last two days:

Bob Liston was an original member of Not Dead Yet, and participated in multiple actions in Michigan against Jack Kevorkian, the Hemlock Society, an Ethics conference and the Michigan Legislature when it sought, and failed, to pass a law permitting assisted suicide.

Bob retired in 2016 from the Rural Institute at the University of Montana where he worked with CILs across the country as part of disability research, education and services. He was formerly the Executive Director of Montana Fair Housing, which received more complaints from persons with disabilities than any other protected class. Born and raised in Montana, at age 16 Bob sustained a spinal cord injury as the result of being an “invincible teenager” (auto accident.) He has used a wheelchair since 1971.

Bob has also been a small business owner, and worked for the Montana state government in several capacities, one as the staff person to Montana’s “Governor’s Committee on Employment of the Handicapped” in the early ’80’s. Bob has been involved with several Independent Living Centers in Montana as a peer, board member, board president and consultant. He also served two terms on the Montana Statewide Independent Living Council, and is a past board member and board president of the Montana Disability Rights Network, and board member and Vice Chair for the National Fair Housing Alliance.

Bob is also an active member of both ADAPT and NDY, and proudly “does what it takes” to make change for persons with disabilities.