Disability rights have been a long effort in America, particularly in the last hundred years and while it has been the cumulative effort of thousands of people, few advocates have made such an impact as Judith “Judy” Heumann. As an internationally recognized leader, The Washington Post refers to her as the mother of disability rights, an epithet earned over a lifetime of advocacy.
Early beginnings
Born in 1947 to German Jewish immigrants, Heumann contracted polio in 1949 and began to use a wheelchair for mobility afterward. She grew up in Brooklyn and began her fight for disability rights young while seeking an education for herself. When she was five, the local public school would not allow her to attend, claiming she was a “fire hazard.” Throughout her childhood, her parents Werner and Ilse were strong supporters, working to ensure she received an education.
Every summer from ages nine to eighteen, Heumann attended Camp Jened, a camp for children with disabilities in Hunter, New York. Attending the camp gave Heumann a connection to others with disabilities and helped cultivate a community-based perspective. There, she met Freida Tankus and Bobbi Linn, who she’d later work with as disability rights advocates. Camp Jened and its campers, including Heumann, would later be featured in the 2020 documentary, Crip Camp.
In college, Heumann began her community advocacy while studying speech therapy at Long Island University, organizing protests and rallies calling for access to classrooms via ramps and the right to live in a dorm.
Legislation & advocacy
After graduating, Judy Heumann was denied a New York teaching license in 1970 because she was “physically and medically unsuited for teaching.” After suing the board of education, she became the first wheelchair user to teach in New York City. Because of the lawsuit, she received letters from countless other people with disabilities, sharing their own stories of discrimination and difficulty with employment. Because of this outpouring of support and sharing, Heumann founded the disability rights organization Disabled in Action (or, the DIA) with other activists, several of whom she’d met at Camp Jened.
When early versions of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 were vetoed by President Richard Nixon, Heumann and the DIA organized a sit-in protest, stopping traffic in Manhattan. The act was later signed by Nixon after revision in October 1973.
Moving to California, Heumann served as deputy director of the Berkeley Center of Independent Living, which was the first American grassroots center and helped launch the Independent Living Movement.
When the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) failed to provide regulations addressing Section 504 (which was to provide clarity to the Rehabilitation Act and actionable procedures and guidelines), activists offered a deadline in 1977 and, when the deadline passed, demonstrations occurred in ten cities, including one in the San Francisco HEW office, led by Heumann. The sit-in lasted 28 days with more than 150 participants; to date, it remains the longest sit-in of a federal building.
Continuing her work
In the decades since, Heumann has served countless roles in countless organizations, demonstrations, and administrations. She was the co-founder of the World Institute on Disability in 1983, the first Director for the Department of Disability Services, served the World Bank Group as their first Advisor on Disability, and many more. From 1993 to 2001, Heumann worked for the Clinton administration as the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services in the Department of Education and later became the Special Advisor on International Disability Rights for the U.S. State Department under President Obama from 2010 to 2017. She has been recognized by innumerable awards and six honorary doctorate degrees and is internationally known for her advocacy work.
She has made countless appearances everywhere from documentaries to delivering a TED Talk in 2017 and being interviewed by Trevor Noah on The Daily Show in 2020. Now at 73 years old, Judy Heumann’s work is far from done and she continues her work for the disabled community. Recently, she was prominently featured in the 2020 Academy Award-nominated documentary, Crip Camp and published her own memoir, “Being Heumann.” During the Covid-19 pandemic, she has spoken frequently about issues facing the disabled community that the pandemic has only amplified.
“We need to continue to work on expanding our movement, not just getting those of us with disabilities who identify as disabled people becoming more active, but we talk about 61 million people who are in the US, and at least one billion people who are disabled around the world,” Heumann recently said in an interview. “We are the largest, most diverse community in the US and around the world. We need to relish that, and we need to be able to ensure that the country and the world understand the breadth of who we are and why we’re important to the betterment of all humankind.”
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