Judith Heumann, ‘mother’ of disability rights movement, dead at 75

Activist Judith Heumann, who worked for the rights of disabled people for over five decades, including under two presidential administrations, died Saturday at 75, her team confirmed.

Heumann required the use of a wheelchair from an early age due to polio. In 1970, she was denied a teaching license in New York City, with city officials arguing her wheelchair was a fire hazard.

She brought a discrimination lawsuit against the city that was eventually settled and she became the first wheelchair user to teach in the state.

In the 1970s, Heumann attended Camp Jened, a summer camp in upstate New York for disabled teens, many of whom would go on to lead the disability rights movement. The story was later chronicled in the 2020 documentary “Crip Camp,” produced by Barack and Michelle Obama.

A few years later in 1977, Heumann led a sit-in that sought to pressure then-Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joseph Califano to sign Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, establishing the first federal civil rights protections for disabled Americans.

The so-called 504 Sit-Ins took place at federal offices in several U.S. cities, including Boston, Seattle, Denver, Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia. The San Francisco demonstration, led by Heumann, remains the longest peaceful occupation of a federal building in American history, lasting 25 days. Califano relented and signed the regulation that April.

“I think what came out of it was not just the signing of the regulation but a stronger movement where people … recognized that we were a force to contend with and that if we really held strong on an issue where we could completely justify what we were doing and why we were doing it,” Heumann told The Hill in 2020. “It was important that we could maintain our resolve.”

Heumann would go on to serve as Assistant Secretary of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services for the duration of the Clinton administration, and was appointed the State Department’s Special Advisor on International Disability Rights by President Obama.

She co-authored both a 2020 memoir, “Being Heumann,” and a 2021 version for young readers, “Rolling Warrior.”

Heumann’s cause of death was not disclosed.

“She had many close friends that will miss her dearly,” her team wrote in the announcement on Saturday.