Judy Heumann was the first person I called when I spoke about my first disability rights story in 1987. Judy, who contracted polio when she was 18 months old, gave me a quote that perfectly summed up this little-known Civil Rights movement.

“Disability only becomes a tragedy when society cannot provide what we need to live, like job opportunities or barrier-free buildings,” she said. “It’s not a tragedy for me that I live in a wheelchair.”

This idea seemed so unexpected and strange to me that the editors of one magazine decided not to publish my story.

It was still a radical assertion that disabled people do not consider themselves or their position to be pitiful. Or that they insisted that it wasn’t their health that held them back, but their social isolation—perhaps the attitude that they were less able to do a job, go to college, or have an affair; or a physical barrier, such as a pavement without a curb.

This reinvention of what it means to be disabled has really gained momentum over the years – the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act just three years later, in 1990, was a milestone – thanks to leaders like Heumann, who died suddenly on Saturday at the age of 75. at the age of 75 years. hospital in Washington, DC. Last weekend she was hospitalized with breathing problems.

Heumann was a leading civil rights activist in America, which remained little known until she gained attention in the last three years of her life. It all started with the publication of her autobiography. Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activistco-written with Kristen Joyner and released in February 2020, a few weeks before the pandemic.

Hoyman’s celebration began shortly after the release of the documentary. Crip Camp: Revolution for the Disabled. Filmmakers James Lebrecht and Nicole Newnam found a forgotten film about an upstate New York summer camp for children with disabilities and used it to intelligently explore issues of identity. Young people in wheelchairs and with various disabilities yearn to be part of a world that has rejected them, but also find community and pride in a place reserved exclusively for them. Huhmann, who has been attending Jened’s camp since she was 8 years old and was a counselor during the filming of the original film, is quickly becoming the star of the documentary – a smart and opinionated organizer.

When ADA celebrated its 30th anniversary in July 2020, I and many other journalists called Judy. For NPR, I asked Judy to share her wisdom with young activist Imani Barbarin, who was born just four months before the ADA became law. Judy, who worked to spread awareness of civil rights for the disabled until her death, noted the importance of the new directions of young activists like Barbarin, who do not see the ADA as a cornerstone of rights, but simply as a foundation for achieving equality.

Other events in 2020 helped raise awareness of Hoyman’s work and the rise of the disability Civil Rights Movement – the killing of George Floyd sparked a debate about diversity, fairness and inclusion, with people with disabilities insisting that they need to be included in the pandemic itself, one of the most big causes of new disability since the spread of polio.

In his youth, Human’s wheelchair was called a fire hazard.

In 1949, Judy, the daughter of a New York butcher and his wife, contracted polio. When she was 5 years old and it was time to go to kindergarten, her parents, Jewish immigrants from Germany, went to register her but were turned down by a nearby public school.

According to the director, if a girl in a wheelchair is allowed to go to school, it will create a fire hazard.

Her mother, Ilse Heumann, fought to end the isolating and erratic hours—only a few hours a week—of home schooling, and eventually Judy was allowed into the school building.

Years later, Heumann graduated from college, where she trained as a teacher. She was told that speech therapy was one of the few professions open to a young woman in a wheelchair.

But then again, it was recognized as a fire hazard. This time, in 1970, the New York City Board of Education ruled that a teacher in a wheelchair could not evacuate children during an emergency and denied her a teaching license.

Heumann, having learned from her mother’s defense, sued. She received support in the local press. “You can be a president, not a teacher, with polio,” one newspaper article wrote, noting the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt.

Of the story, Heumann told a reporter, “We will not allow a hypocritical society to give us a symbolic education and then bury us.” Other people with disabilities across the country saw the press reports and wrote her letters detailing their own stories of discrimination.

Heumann co-founded Disabled People in Action, a protest group modeled on the work of black civil rights activists, the women’s movement, and protesters against the Vietnam War.

Hoyman’s activity expanded in the 1970s.

In 1972, Heumann and a small group of DIA demonstrators blocked rush hour traffic on Madison Avenue near President Richard Nixon’s campaign headquarters. They wanted to draw attention to Nixon’s veto of the Rehabilitation Act of 1972, which expanded programs to assist people with disabilities.

Heumann moved to Berkeley, California, the center of a small but growing civil rights movement for the disabled. (When I started writing a book in 1990, No pity: people with disabilities create a new civil rights movementI made my first reporting trip to Berkeley to learn from Judy, Ed Roberts, and other leaders.)

In 1973, Nixon signed the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 into law, which added important language to prevent discrimination against people with disabilities. But the Nixon and Ford administrations did not write the rules needed to make this anti-discrimination language work.

When the new administration of Jimmy Carter seemed in doubt about whether to act, the disabled occupied the federal building in San Francisco. The protest, which lasted over 26 days in the spring of 1977, was one of the first actions of the growing civil rights movement for the disabled to gain national press attention.

Heumann, then aged 29, took over as the leader. When California congressmen called hearings in an occupied building and a federal official tried to calm the protesters, Heumann wouldn’t let him go. “We will no longer allow the government to oppress the disabled. We want the law to be respected. We no longer accept discussions of segregation,” she said in a voice trembling with emotion and indignation. “And I would appreciate it if you would stop shaking your head in agreement when I think you don’t understand what we’re talking about.”

The protesters forced the Carter administration to comply with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which stated that no public agency or even private business accepting federal funds could discriminate against anyone based on their disability.

Section 504 became a model for the ADA, which extended the principles of non-discrimination to all public accommodations, employment, transportation, communications, and access to state and local programs.

In her autobiography, Heumann wrote of her excitement at being present on the White House lawn when President George W. Bush signed the ADA on July 26, 1990. Although she was critical of the law, which she felt did not go far enough to help people like her who needed the help of aides to live at home.

Heumann led various disabled groups in California. In 1991, she met Jorge Pineda at a disability conference and they married the following year.

Heumann has focused her efforts on working in government and advancing the rights of people with disabilities around the world.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed Heumann—a woman who was once declared a fire hazard, too dangerous to be a student or teacher—as assistant secretary of education with responsibility for all of the nation’s federal education programs for students with disabilities.

Later in the Obama administration, she served as Special Assistant to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, responsible for spreading civil rights messages around the world.

The disabled civil rights revolution that Heumann had helped start in America was now becoming an export of democracy. Between 2000 and 2015, 181 countries adopted civil rights for persons with disabilities along the lines of the ADA (although many were laws with little force or follow-up). In her bulky power wheelchair, Heumann traveled to more than 30 countries to spread the gospel of the rights of people with disabilities.

For the 25th anniversary of the ADA in 2015, I followed Judy to a State Department conference in Washington DC that was attended by 50 disability rights advocates from 33 countries. They treated Judy like a rock star. They took selfies and brought her presents. They turned to her for advice on closing child abuse orphanages for disabled children and how to achieve equal rights for women with disabilities. “We are slowly changing the world,” Judy told them.

Heumann was cheerful and smiled easily, optimistic about the future. But she was also quick to accuse of discrimination.

Heumann appreciated the growing recognition of her work and how the demand for her time has grown since 2020. She was generous with this time and continued to mentor young activists around the world. She launched a podcast and traveled or appeared on Zoom during the pandemic to keep up with the growing demand for her speaking engagements.

“We boil to a boil,” she liked to talk about how her work for the disability civil rights movement is spreading into the mainstream and around the world.

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