Judy Heumann, one of the most transformative disability rights leaders of our time, is very friendly. Just take a walk around her Washington, DC, block. You’ll see that she’s on a first-name basis with everyone, from the doorman to the bus drive
In 1977, she and others led 150 disabled people into the San Francisco Federal building and refused to leave until the Carter administration enacted the first civil rights legislation for disability. This protest, the Section 504 Sit-In, is recognized now as the longest takeover of a federal building in US history. It paved the way for the American Disabilities Act.
Is Judy Heumann a quadriplegic?
Judy Heumann, a renowned activist who helped secure legislation protecting the rights of disabled people, Heumann became a quadriplegic from polio at the age of one and grew up in 1950s Brooklyn, an era known for locking disabled people in institutions, segregating them into inferior special education programs and shunting them into sheltered workshops as a proxy for “employment.
