When I was growing up, people like me, who were disabled, were usually met with scorn, pity and exclusion. On March 4, Judith (Judy) Heumann, a founder of the disability rights movement, died at 75 in Washington, D.C.
For decades, Heumann, who contracted polio when she was 18 months old, was a leader of a civil rights movement that changed the lives of millions of folks like me.
Judy (so many of us, whether we knew or not, connected with her on a first-name basis), was known as the “mother” of the disability rights movement.
She was the Harvey Milk of our struggle. You might think: why should LGBTQ people care about the passing of a disability rights leader?