Judy Heumann, a renowned advocate for disabled rights was killed at the age of 75.
Heumann was a world-renowned as a leader in his movement to protect disabled rights. His advocacy led to the enactment of important laws within the United States.
After having contracted polio as a child she became the first person with a wheelchair to become an educator within New York City.
She passed away on the streets of Washington DC on Saturday.
Heumann had been “widely regarded as ‘the mother’ of the disability rights movement” according to a statement posted on her website to announce her death.
She was at the forefront of large disability rights protests, and helped in the introduction of laws , and also founded international and national advocacy organizations the report added.
Heumann was also a part of his administrations, the Clinton in the Clinton and Obama administrations. He also was a veteran with more than 20 years of experience in non-profit organizations.
Barack Obama said he was “fortunate” to work with Heumann and made a tribute to her lifetime commitment to fighting for civil rights.
The American Association of People with Disabilities also offered a tribute to her and said that her leadership “advanced the rights and inherent dignity of people with disabilities”.
In 1947, she was born from Philadelphia but brought up within Brooklyn, New York, she contracted polio at the age of was just two years old, and lost the ability to walk.
She was not permitted to go to pre-school since her wheelchair was deemed to be a “fire-hazard”, and when she did eventually get into a school at the age of nine, she recalled being considered being a “second-class citizen”.
Her parents struggled for her rights as a young girl and she then went on to pursue a degree in the field of speech on Long Island University and earned a master’s degree in public health at The University of California, Berkeley.
She was successful in an action with the New York Board of Education and became the first educator in the state who used wheelchairs.
Her struggle for civil rights resulted in her organizing a sit-in for 24 days in an San Francisco federal building in 1977. The event led to the creation of the basis towards an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990.
“Disability only becomes a tragedy when society fails to provide the things we need to lead our lives – job opportunities or barrier-free buildings, for example,” she said to a reporter in 1987.
“It is not a tragedy to me that I’m living in a wheelchair.”
Heumann later served as a member of The Clinton Administration from 1993 until 2001, as an assistant secretary within the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services within the Department of Education, and was appointed special advisor on international disability rights in the Clinton administration by Barack Obama.
In addition to her long and arduous activism she also co-wrote her autobiography, Being Heumann along with the Young Adult version, Rolling Warrior as well as was included in the Oscar-nominated documentary Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution.
Heumann was survived by her husband Jorge Heumann, as well as two of her brothers Ricky as well as Joseph.
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