Judith Heumann
Called a fire hazard at five, she sued for the right to teach and led a 26-day sit-in for disability rights
Judith Heumann contracted polio in Brooklyn in 1949, aged 18 months, and used a wheelchair for the rest of her life. When her mother tried to enrol her in the local school at five, the principal turned her away as a "fire hazard". She was taught at home for a few hours a week until, at nine, she was admitted to a class for disabled children in a school basement. Her parents, German Jewish immigrants, resisted advice to put her in an institution.
She qualified as a teacher, and in 1970 the New York Board of Education refused her a licence because it said she could not evacuate children in a fire. She sued, the newspapers took up the story, and the board gave in; she became the first wheelchair user to teach in the city's schools. She and friends then formed Disabled in Action, which blocked traffic on Madison Avenue.
In 1977 the federal government had still not issued the regulations to bring Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the first law banning discrimination against disabled people, into force. Heumann helped lead a sit-in at the federal building in San Francisco that lasted 26 days, with people sleeping on floors without attendants or accessible bathrooms. The regulations were signed.
She went on to co-found the World Institute on Disability, helped shape the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, served in the Clinton administration and the State Department, and advised the World Bank. She died in 2023.