#judith heumann

[cottoncandytrafficcones]

Learning they're making a movie about proudly Jewish disability rights icon Judith Heumann: :)

Learning they're casting a goyische actress to play proudly Jewish disability rights activist Judith Heumann: :|

[writing2changetheworld]

Judith "Judy" Heumann

Judith contracted polio at 18 months old. As a result, she was a non-ambulatory wheelchair user the rest of her life.

When she was 5 years old, she was denied access to public school because they said she was a (quote unquote) "fire hazard". This changed after 3 to 4 years thanks to her mom fighting for her to be included. Judith was let in to a program for kids with disabilities (it was a segregated class in a basement made of disabled people aging from 9 to 21).

In 1970, after graduating Long Island University, she was denied her teaching license by the same school system that barred her from attending at 5. They believed she could not get herself or her students out of the building in case of a fire. She then sued the Board of Education for discrimination (the case was Heumann v. Board of Education of the City of New York). As a result of that case, she became the first wheelchair user to teach in New York City and taught elementary school for 3 years before leaving to officially work in disability advocacy.

In 1973 the Rehabilitation Act was signed. By 1977, Section 504 was still not being reinforced. Because of this, 300+ disabled people, led by Judy Heumann, occupied the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare for 24 days in what is now referred to as the 504 sit-in. The sit-in only ended after Joseph Califano (Secretary of the HEW) agreed to sign regulations for Section 504 after news of the sit-in aired across the country.

Judy also worked with Bill Clinton and Barak Obama when they were each president.

During the Clinton administration (1993 to 2001) Judy served as Assistant Secretary of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services at the United States Department of Education.

In 2010 to 2017, during the Obama administration, Judy served as the Special Advisor on International Disability Rights for the U.S. State Department.

She is forever known as the Mother of the Disability Rights Movement.

(This also is nowhere near all about Judy or what she did.)

[martyrbat]

being heumann: an unrepentant memoir of a disability rights activist – judith heumann

[TEXT: I think what people miss sometimes, when they’re thinking about disabled people, is our vulnerability. The boy whom the grandmother wanted to kill was a baby and so of course completely dependent on his mother and father for survival. But that vulnerability doesn’t end with infancy or childhood. Our continued need for help as disabled adults makes us vulnerable. Over eighty percent of women with disabilities will be sexually abused in our lifetimes, which is about four times the rate among nondisabled women. What is even worse is that people don’t believe us when it happens—they use our inability to speak or our developmental disabilities as reasons not to believe us.

Despite this reality, however, our issues weren’t on the agenda of human rights activism at that time. There was an international movement, which I was a part of, and the United Nations was making an effort to call attention to our situation. But any mention of disability was virtually absent in the major international treaties, funding was limited, and data across the world documenting numbers and disability issues was scarce to nonexistent. We were off the radar for any major foundation, and most graduate programs on international human rights didn’t even cover people with disabilities. We were some of the most vulnerable people on the planet, some of the poorest of the poor, and we were still invisible. Even to activists.]

[libraryben]

How to Be Disabled in a Pandemic

A chronicle of ableism and disability activism in New York City during the COVID-19 pandemicHow to Be Disabled in a Pandemic documents the p

Open Access

How to Be Disabled in a Pandemic documents the pivotal experiences of disabled people living in an early epicenter of COVID-19: New York City. Among those hardest hit by the pandemic, disability communities across the five boroughs have been disproportionately impacted by city and national policies, work and housing conditions, stigma, racism, and violence—as much as by the virus itself. Disabled and chronically-ill activists have protested plans for medical rationing and refuted the eugenic logic of mainstream politicians and journalists who “reassure” audiences that only older people and those with disabilities continue to die from COVID-19. At the same time, as exemplified by the viral hashtag #DisabledPeopleToldYou, disability expertise has become widely recognized in practices such as accessible remote work and education, quarantine, and distributed networks of support and mutual aid. This edited volume charts the legacies of this “mass disabling event” for uncertain viral futures, exploring the dialectic between disproportionate risk and the creativity of a disability justice response.

How to Be Disabled in a Pandemic includes contributions by wide-ranging disability scholars, writers, and activists whose research and lived experiences chronicle the pandemic’s impacts in prisons, migrant detention centers, Chinatown senior centers, hospitals in Queens and the Bronx, subways, schools, housing shelters, social media, and other locations of public and private life. By focusing on New York City over the course of three years, the book reveals key themes of the pandemic, including hierarchies of disability "vulnerability," the deployment of disability as a tool of population management, and innovative crip pandemic cultural production. How to Be Disabled in a Pandemic honors those lost, as well as those who survived, by calling for just policies and caring infrastructures, not only in times of crisis but for the long haul.

[thoughtfulfangirling]

When someone ignores you, it's an intentional display of power. They're essentially acting like you don't exist, and they do it because they can. They believe that nothing will happen to them; ignoring silenced people. It intentionally avoids resolution or compromise. It ignites your worst fears of unworthiness because it makes you feel that you deserve to be ignored. Inevitably, being ignored puts you in the position of having to choose between making a fuss or accepting the silent treatment. If you stand up to the ignorer and get in their face, you break the norms of polite behavior and end up feeling worse, diminished, demeaned.

— Being Huemann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist by Judith Huemann

[marauders4evr]

"[Judy Heumann] was the giant who opened the door. … She made the path, not only for herself, but for every person that came after her. … We will continue to rise, to roll, to speak out, to organize for change."

- Rabbi Holtzblatt's beautiful words at Judy Heumann's Memorial Service, which was live-streamed (more info about the stream: x)

[neroushalvaus]

Trevor Noah interviewing Judith “Badass” Heumann

x

[autisticadvocacy]

Judith Heumann, ‘Mother of the Disability Rights Movement,’ Has Died

She fought for historic legislation such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.

"Known as the 'mother of the disability rights movement,' Heumann became an internationally recognized leader for her instrumental work pushing for historic legislation…"