Being Heumann : an unrepentant memoir of a disability rights activist
(Book)

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Heumann co-founded the World Institute on Disability with Ed Roberts and Joan Leon in 1983, serving as co-director until 1993. Assistant Secretary of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services at the US Department of Education. served as the World Bank Group's first Advisor on Disability and Development. Director of the Department of Disability Services for the District of Columbia. Special Advisor on Disability Rights for the US State Department.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 217-218).

One of the most influential disability rights activists in US history tells her personal story of fighting for the right to receive an education, have a job, and just be human. A story of fighting to belong in a world that wasn't built for all of us and of one woman's activism 'from the streets of Brooklyn and San Francisco to inside the halls of Washington 'Being Heumann recounts Judy Heumann's lifelong battle to achieve respect, acceptance, and inclusion in society. Paralyzed from polio at eighteen months, Judy's struggle for equality began early in life. From fighting to attend grade school after being described as a 'fire hazard; to later winning a lawsuit against the New York City school system for denying her a teacher's license because of her paralysis, Judy's actions set a precedent that fundamentally improved rights for disabled people. As a young woman, Judy rolled her wheelchair through the doors of the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in San Francisco as a leader of the Section 504 Sit-In, the longest takeover of a governmental building in US history. Working with a community of over 150 disabled activists and allies, Judy successfully pressured the Carter administration to implement protections for disabled peoples; rights, sparking a national movement and leading to the creation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Candid, intimate, and irreverent, Judy Heumann's memoir about resistance to exclusion invites readers to imagine and make real a world in which we all belong.