Photo courtesy of Taylordw via Wikimedia Commons.
Judith Heumann is most well known for leading the 1977 Section 504 protest and sit-in.
Bryn Healy ’24
News Editor
Content warning: This article mentions the Holocaust and ableism.
On Mar. 5, Judith Heumann, known as the mother of the disability rights movement, died at the age of 75. According to NBC, she was dealing with complications from post-polio syndrome the week before her death.
Heumann was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1947 to Werner and Ilse Heumann, who both lost most of their families in the Holocaust, according to the National Women’s History Museum. The oldest of three children, Heumann got polio as a toddler. When she was due to attend school, she wasn’t allowed to because she was deemed a fire hazard due to her wheelchair, writes New Mobility. In her memoir, “Being Heumann,” Heumann acknowledged that her life would have gone very differently if she had had different parents. Unlike other parents at the time, many of whom put their disabled children into institutions, her parents fought for her independence and were able to finally get her into school in the 4th grade.
As a child, Heumann attended Camp Jened, the subject of the Academy Award-nominated documentary “Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution.” Heumann told The New York Times in 2020 that Camp Jened “was this playground. We were dating like you would if you didn’t have a disability, we were swimming, and playing baseball and arts and crafts, but we were also having time to gather our own voices.”
After graduating college, Heumann passed the oral and written exams to become a licensed teacher in New York but was denied by the New York City Board of Education as she was determined to be a fire hazard yet again in 1970, according to NPR. At the age of 23, Heumann sued the Board of Education for discrimination and won, becoming the first New York state teacher to use a wheelchair and garnering national news attention. “We’re not going to let a hypocritical society give us a token education and then bury us,” Heumann explained, according to NPR.
She is widely known for leading the Section 504 protest and sit-in in 1977. As explained by The New York Times, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act was the first federal law that would have protected the rights of disabled individuals, but the government kept pushing off its enforcement throughout the Nixon administration and the beginning of the Carter administration. When the Carter administration took over, activists feared that the appointed regulatory task force would change how the law would have been enacted, weakening it severely. Disabled activists said that they would have a sit-in at Heath, Education and Welfare offices across the country, and they did. The sit-in at San Francisco’s HEW office lasted 25 days, according to the National Museum of American History. Massive public attention was garnered toward the issue, and Section 504 was signed into law without any legislative changes. The New York Times writes that this sit-in is often considered the “longest nonviolent occupation of a federal building in American history.”
Her leadership, alongside other key disability rights advocates of the era, led to the writing and adoption of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, according to CBS.
Heumann created the Disabled in Action organization, helped lead the Center for Independent Living and co-founded the World Institute on Disability. She served as the first Director for the Department on Disability Services of Washington D.C., was on the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, was the Assistant Secretary of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services for the Clinton administration and was the first Special Advisor on International Disability Rights for the Obama administration.
She worked so that disabled individuals today can get accommodations in schools, public spaces and on transportation, and the reason disabled people are legally protected from discrimination. Heumann launched the disability rights revolution in the U.S. and then brought it to the international level with her roles in the federal government, writes NPR.
Tributes poured in for Heumann on March 5. Barack Obama wrote on Twitter that “Judy Heumann dedicated her life to the fight for civil rights — starting as a young organizer at Camp Jened and later helping lead the disability rights movement. Michelle and I were fortunate to work with Judy over the years, and are thinking of her family and friends.”
Oscar Award-winning Deaf actress Marlee Matlin remembered Heumann for being her hero and friend. “Judith Heumann was a fearless champion for the rights of people with disabilities in our nation and around the world and millions of people who have faced barriers owe her a debt of gratitude,” she tweeted.
Disability justice advocate and mentee of Heumann Anna Landre tweeted, “[Heumann] was larger than life. Her impact on the disability community is incalculable. It felt like she would be here forever. I already miss her. But I know she’ll live on, in every feisty disabled person that fights for our rights & our place.”