Joseph A. Jordan Jr. was just two years removed from high school when he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1943. Two years later, while serving in France, his jeep overturned while crossing a minefield in the northern part of the country, leaving him permanently paralyzed from a spinal cord injury and sending him home to a country unprepared to receive him.
Jordan was one of many veterans who came back from World War II facing inaccessible homes, unusable public transportation, and a medical system with limited understanding of spinal cord injuries. Some were labeled 'dead-enders' or 'no-hopers' in hospital wards. Refusing to accept that fate, veterans organized just as they had in combat.
Founding in Van Nuys
In January 1946, 70 paraplegic veterans gathered in the Recreation Hall of the Red Cross at Birmingham General Hospital in Van Nuys, California, to form Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA), a nonprofit Veterans Service Organization supporting those with spinal cord injuries and diseases, including multiple sclerosis and ALS. Six months later, the group launched PN Magazine, also known as Paraplegia News, a publication still in production today.
Ten months after PVA's founding, its members organized the nation's first wheelchair basketball game at Birmingham Veterans Administration Hospital, defeating a team of doctors 16-6 before touring exhibition games nationwide. PVA now co-hosts the National Veterans Wheelchair Games with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Confronting Segregation in Richmond
In 1947, during PVA's first board meeting in Richmond, Virginia, a hotel refused to admit Jordan, who was Black, citing the state's segregation laws. PVA's first president, Gilford 'Gil' S. Moss, took the matter to the press and stood by Jordan until he was allowed to enter alongside the rest of the members. Moss later said, 'spinal cord injury knows no bias and neither does PVA.' Al Kovach, a U.S. Navy SEAL veteran, former PVA National President, and host of the 'Voices of PVA' podcast, reflected: 'You advocate for one person because one person matters. But you keep fighting because you know that one victory can change the lives of many.'
Building Toward Systemic Change
In the late 1940s, PVA members partnered with architects to design accessible homes, bringing models to Congress and testifying for change. Their efforts led to Public Law 702 in 1948, the first federal program offering specialty adapted housing grants to disabled veterans. In May 1970, a Life Magazine article exposing poor conditions for spinal cord injury patients at the Bronx VA Medical Center sparked public outrage, prompting PVA to establish a Field Advisory Committee. PVA became the only nonprofit permitted to conduct annual site visits at every VA SCI/D center in the country, a partnership that continues today.
Last year, PVA helped veterans file nearly 27,000 VA benefits claims, securing more than $279 million in new benefits. Its Clinical Practice Guidelines and Consumer Guides now reach more than 60 countries in four languages. PVA Chief Executive Officer Carl Blake said, 'We are regarded in the broader veterans community as the "subject matter experts" on a wide range of topics that veterans with catastrophic disabilities have earned and deserve,' adding that 'PVA is one of one because we use our status as a veterans' organization to make an impact on a much broader community, particularly the community of people with disabilities. Our impact stretches far beyond veterans benefits and healthcare to the greater disability community.'
PVA National President Robert Thomas, an Army veteran and wheelchair user, noted that 'accessibility and equal participation remain unfinished work more than three decades after the Americans with Disabilities Act became law.' Jordan, meanwhile, went on to become an accomplished lawyer and activist, extending PVA's mission into broader disability civil rights advocacy.
