Judith Heumann, an American activist who spent more than 50 years for the rights of people with disabilities, died on March 4th, 2023, at the age of 75. She was forced to use a wheelchair at a young age due to polio.
Judith Heumann Obituary
Werner and Ilse Heumann, German Jews who immigrated to the US in the 1930s, had Judith as their oldest child. In addition to losing her grandparents and great-grandparents in the war, she also had two younger siblings.
Heumann was wheelchair-dependent for most of her life after contracting polio at the age of just 18 months. Heumann experienced exclusion and discrimination from a young age, but she did not see her impairment as a tragedy; rather, she saw the tragedy as being society’s failure to give access and accommodations.
Heumann had to battle for inclusion in the school system on numerous occasions. Her neighborhood public school first turned her down because they thought her wheelchair might cause a fire.
Her mother banded together with other parents to get her to go to a special school for challenged kids after years of at-home education. Heumann was required by city ordinance to finish high school at home, but her mother was able to overturn this order. In 1961, Heumann finally started high school.
At the age of 9 through 18, Heumann attended Camp Jened, a summer camp in Hunter, New York, for kids with disabilities. Her time at the camp made her more conscious of the emotions that disabled people often share, such as excitement, rage, and frustration.
She made friends with Freida Tankus and Bobbi Linn at the camp, who would go on to become disability rights advocates. At Long Island University, where Heumann earned her degree in 1969, she organized protests and rallies with other students to seek access to dorms and classes.
Heumann continued on to the University of California, Berkeley, where he graduated in 1975 with a Master of Science in public health. She developed as an activist and rose to prominence as a significant figure in the disability rights movement. To advocate for accessibility and equal rights for individuals with disabilities, she staged sit-ins, protests, and rallies.
Her efforts and leadership resulted in the first federal civil rights protections for Americans with disabilities being signed into law in 1977. Greater inclusion and access for disabled persons in the US and around the world are thanks in large part to Heumann’s work.