[Athen] FYI - Sad news of a great leader and pioneer

[Laurie Vasquez]

*Judy Heumann, Who Led the Fight for Disability Rights, Dies at 75*

She successfully battled to become a teacher and went on to help bring
about a revolution in the government’s treatment of the disabled.
[image: image.png]


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[image: Judy Heumann, in glasses, at a news conference with Ed Roberts, an
official from California.]

Judy Heumann in 1982, with Ed Roberts, director of the California State
Department of Rehabilitation. They called attention to the Reagan
administration’s cutbacks in funds for programs for the disabled.Credit...John
Duricka/Associated Press





New York Times

*By Alex Traub <https://www.nytimes.com/by/alex-traub>*

Published March 5, 2023Updated March 6, 2023, 3:56 p.m. ET

Judy Heumann, who spent decades attacking a political establishment
indifferent to the rights of disabled people and won one fight after
another, ultimately joining and reforming the very establishment she once
inveighed against, died on Saturday in Washington, D.C. She was 75.

An announcement
<https://judithheumann.com/the-world-mourns-the-passing-of-judy-heumann-disability-rights-activist/>
on
her personal website did not specify the cause.

A quadriplegic
<https://www.thecut.com/2020/09/how-i-get-it-done-disability-rights-activist-judy-heumann.html>
since
childhood, Ms. Heumann (pronounced human) began her career in activism
waging a one-woman battle to be allowed to work as a teacher in New York
City when discrimination against disabled people was not widely understood
as a problem.

She went on to become an official in the Clinton administration, a special
adviser in the Obama State Department and a fellow or board member at some
of the nation’s leading nonprofits. She was also featured in the
Oscar-nominated 2020 documentary “Crip Camp.”

Over time, she saw a revolution occur in the government’s involvement in
the lives of disabled people such as herself. And she, as much as anyone
else, helped bring about that revolution.

A pivotal moment came in San Francisco in 1977.

It had been four years since President Richard Nixon had signed the
Rehabilitation Act, one section of which, 504, was supposed to outlaw
discrimination against disabled people by any institution receiving federal
money.

“It was a very important provision because it would mean, for example, that
you could not discriminate against someone with a disability in preschool,
in elementary school, in high school, at universities, in hospitals, in
government,” Ms. Heumann told <https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-54794408> the
BBC in 2020. “And if in fact discrimination occurred, you would have a
remedy. You could go to court. You could file a complaint.”

Yet officials repeatedly delayed implementing the measure, and Joseph A.
Califano Jr., the secretary of health, education and welfare under
President Jimmy Carter, said he had wanted to overhaul the regulations
before authorizing them.

Activists responded that there would be national protests if Mr. Califano
did not sign off on the original form of the law by April 4.

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[image: image.png]

[image: Ms. Heumann, center, with Ed Roberts, left, and Joan Leon, the
founders of the World Institute on Disability in an undated photo.]

Ms. Heumann, center, with Ed Roberts, left, and Joan Leon, the founders of
the World Institute on Disability in an undated photo.Credit...The Heumann
Perspective



April 5 arrived. Protesters in cities throughout the nation occupied
federal offices. Ms. Heumann, then 29, organized the San Francisco
contingent. She appeared with more than 100 other people of varying
disabilities to demand action from Joseph Maldonado, the regional director
who reported to Mr. Califano from San Francisco.


“No one had briefed him; he didn’t know what 504 was,” Ms. Heumann told
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/us/504-sit-in-disability-rights.html> The
New York Times in 2020. “We were incredulous about the fact that nobody was
taking what we were doing seriously.”

The other protest actions soon ended. But the San Francisco sit-in
continued for almost a month. It has often been described as the longest
nonviolent occupation of a federal building in American history.

Many of the protesters did not bring necessary supplies, or even a change
of clothes. The government cut the building’s water and phone connections.

Fortunately, deaf protesters knew another way to communicate: sign
language. That is how they passed messages out of the building. Other
protesters knew a diverting form of amusement: wheelchair races.

The sit-in received support from San Francisco’s mayor, George Moscone, who
sent over mattresses, and from the Black Panther Party, which delivered
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/obituaries/brad-lomax-overlooked.html> ribs
and fried chicken.

Ms. Heumann later traveled to Washington and participated in a special
congressional hearing. “We will no longer allow the government to oppress
disabled individuals,” Ms. Heumann said <https://youtu.be/52XqupjXHIM>. “We
want the law enforced. We want no more segregation.”
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