My Career Voyage! Charting The Course

By Patty Edwards Shaver
MCV Career Development Facilitator

Teddy Pendergrass, legendary Rhythm and Blues (R&B) singer and advocate for the disabled, died Jan.13 of colon cancer. Pendergrass had been hospitalized for several months after undergoing colon cancer surgery in May 2009. He was 59.

Pendergrass’ music career started to take off in the 70s. He was lead singer with Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes before embarking on a solo career in 1976. He quickly became an international superstar and sex symbol with popular hit records: Turn off the Lights, Close the Door and TKO. Pendergrass became the first black male singer in history to record five consecutive multi-platinum albums. He had several Grammy nominations, numerous awards, movie appearances, TV specials, sold out national and international concerts and endorsements.

“I was on top of the world and felt utterly invincible,” Pendergrass wrote on his web site (www.teddypendergrassalliance.org), “until one tragic evening in March, 1982 when an automobile accident caused my life to change drastically. I became one of over 250,000 Americans suffering from a spinal cord injury (SCI).”

The accident left him paralyzed from the chest down. It would be six months of hospitalization and rehabilitation before Pendergrass could go home. “But none of it would get me where I wanted to go, which was back in society as a productive, self-supporting man,” he once said. “At a time it was assumed that returning to performing would be the last thing on my mind, I was dying for someone to show me how I could start on my way back.”

It was unknown if Pendergrass would sing again, because the injury affected the muscles that supported voice. When Pendergrass realized he could sing, he closed his eyes and thanked the Lord.

Pendergrass didn’t let his physical limitations stop him from returning to his career. By changing his aggressive singing style to mellow love ballads, he was able to return to singing by 1984 and recorded his first come-back CD, Love Language. Working it Back followed in 1985. That same year, he returned to the stage with a stirring appearance at Live Aid.

In 1998, Pendergrass had an autobiography published entitled Truly Blessed, named after his song.

It was 19 years since the accident when Pendergrass resumed performing concerts. He made his return on Memorial Day weekend in 2001, with two sold-out shows in Atlantic City, N.J.

A music career was not enough for Pendergrass; he wanted to do more.

From personal experience Pendergrass recognized that there was a strong need to encourage those with Spinal Cord Injury to reach their maximum educational and vocational potential and to assist them in becoming or returning to being productive members of society.

Pendergrass became an outspoken advocate for the disabled. He testified before the Senate Labor and Human Resources Subcommittee on the Handicapped about how assistive technology can transform lives.

In 2000, Pendergrass founded the Teddy Pendergrass Alliance (TPA), a national outreach organization that functions as a coordinating and referral service in partnership with local educational and vocational resources to people with SCI who seek education, training and employment. Additionally, the TPA aims to highlight the contributions and achievements of these individuals in an ongoing effort to change the negative perceptions, which currently exist for people living with SCI.

The Teddy Pendergrass Alliance (TPA) partnered with the National Spinal Cord Injury Association (NSCIA) (www.spinalcord.org) in Oct. 2006 in an effort to reach people with spinal cord injuries as soon as possible after their injury. Through a combined effort they offer a message hope and of practical support as these individuals return to an independent and productive life.

In November, The National Spinal Cord Injury Association (NSCIA) and the Teddy Pendergrass Alliance (TPA) had joined forces with other disability organizations in a shared effort to postpone implementation of a troublesome new Power Mobility Devices (PMD) Coverage Policy issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Slated to take effect November 15, 2006 the new policy would have limited or denied medically appropriate power mobility to Medicare beneficiaries with mobility disabilities such as spinal cord injury, ALS, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, and severe brain injury.

Teddy Pendergrass was inducted into the Spinal Cord Injury Hall of Fame in January, 2007, for being one of its most influential SCI activists.

On June 10, 2007, the Teddy Pendergrass Alliance produced a huge star-studded event called Teddy25, A Celebration of Life, Hope & Possibilities. Pendergrass recognized of all the individuals that motivated him, helped him survive, helped him to realize his potential and encouraged him to continue living a productive life. Teddy 25 was held at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, Penn., and proceeds were donated to the Teddy Pendergrass Alliance.

Pendergrass had supported many other organizations and projects that focus on empowering physically challenged people. The reason he did so, was because he saw how crucial this empowerment had been to him.

After the car accident in 1978, Pendergrass could have chosen to stay on his music career path, but the accident directed him to a new path also, a path that lead him on a crusade to open up educational and occupational opportunities to people with spinal cord injury. He said, “It is important that those of us with SCI, live and are given the right to live as individuals in the way that we choose. It is important that society recognize that people with SCI are people, not conditions or diseases.”

Pendergrass could have chosen to give up on life and focus on the negative aspects of his disability, but he chose not to. He summed it all up in his song and at the end of his book, “I am truly blessed. … Again and forever, I am truly blessed.”

Quotes from Truly Blessed (the book)

To feel and to be regarded by others as actively involved and productive is the best therapy in the world. I may be disabled, but I’m not unabled.

The lack of opportunity to do meaningful, fulfilling work is the problem, not the disability itself. We have the means to save the physically challenged from living their lives ‘warehoused’ out of the mainstream. Now, what we need is the will to put it to work.

We live in a world built by and for the able-bodied. It’s heartening to see all the federally mandated access ramps and physical accommodations for the physically challenged, but they can’t level the greatest barrier: the limitations society imposes out of ignorance. We all need to change the way we think about disability.