Renowned activist called ‘mother of the disability rights movement’
Judy Heumann, a renowned activist who helped secure legislation protecting the rights of disabled people, has died at age 75.
News of her death Saturday in Washington, D.C., was posted on her website and social media accounts and confirmed by her youngest brother, Rick Heumann.
He said she had been in the hospital a week and had heart issues that may have been the result of something known as post-polio syndrome, related to a childhood infection that was so severe that she spent several months in an iron lung and lost her ability to walk at age 2.
She spent the rest of her life fighting, first to get access for herself and then for others, her brother recalled.
“It wasn’t about glory for my sister or anything like that at all. It was always about how could she make things better for other people,” he said, adding that the family drew solace from the tributes that poured in on Twitter from dignitaries and past presidents like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Ms. Heumann has been called the “mother of the disability rights movement” for her longtime advocacy on behalf of disabled people, her website says.
She lobbied for legislation that eventually led to the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Rehabilitation Act. She served as the assistant secretary of the U.S. Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services, beginning in 1993 in the Clinton administration, until 2001.
Ms. Heumann also was involved in passage of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was ratified in May 2008.
She helped found the Berkley Center for Independent Living, the Independent Living Movement and the World Institute on Disability and served on the boards of several related organizations including the American Association of People with Disabilities, the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, Humanity and Inclusion and the United States International Council on Disability, her website says.
Ms. Heumann, who was born in Philadelphia in 1947 and raised in New York City, was the co-author of her memoir, “Being Heumann,” and a version for young adults titled “Rolling Warrior.”
Her book recounts the struggle her parents, German-Jewish immigrants who got out before the Holocaust, experienced while trying to secure a place for their daughter in school. “Kids with disabilities were considered a hardship, economically and socially,” she wrote.
Rick Heumann said his mother, whom he described as a “bulldog,” initially had to homeschool his sister. The experience of fleeing Nazi Germany left the parents and their children with a passion.
“We truly believe,” he said, “that discrimination is wrong in any way, shape or form.”
Judy Heumann went on to graduate from high school and earn a bachelor’s degree from Long Island University and a master’s degree in public health from the University of California, Berkeley. It was groundbreaking at the time, which shows just how much has changed, said Maria Town, the president and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities.