By Lucy Wood
Following the Passing of Judy Heumann, Lucy wanted to pen a special tribute to one of her heroes
The disability community woke up in shock on March 4 2023, as they learnt that American Disability Rights Activist Judy Heumann had passed away aged 75.
As a Disabled Person living in England, I was so sad to hear she’d left us. Shamefully before I watched Crip Camp, I hadn’t understood just how much she did to fight for the rights of disabled people in America and around the world.
In April 1977, Judy and so and other disabled people began the 504 Sit-in, a disability rights protest.
People with disabilities and the disability community occupied federal buildings in the United States to push the issuance of long-delayed regulations regarding Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Before the 1990 enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act was the most significant disability rights legislation in the United States.
Numerous protests were planned by Judy, Ktty Cone and Mary Jane Owen, with the most successful being in San Francisco. It lasted until May 4, 1977, a total of 25 days, with more than 150 people refusing to leave. It is the most prolonged sit-in at a federal building to date. Close to 120 disability activists and protesters occupied the HEW building.
Organizing an occupation that involved people with disabilities presented particular challenges that helped spur the decision to occupy. The physical nature of their disabilities, and given the Federal Building’s inaccessibility, it was challenging to move many people with disabilities in and out of the building. This meant planning for a longer occupation in advance but without alerting too many participants to prevent law enforcement from barring entrance to the building. It worked in the occupiers’ favour that there had never been such a large protest involving so many disabled people before. A prevailing view held that people with disabilities were pathetic, deserving of pity, and therefore incapable of such political actions. This same perspective made officials reluctant to risk the public relations embarrassment that would result from arresting participants. Go, Judy!
Protesters found living inside the building for 26 days both difficult and life-changing. Because of the need to keep the occupation secret initially, most arrived with only a toothbrush and necessary medications. Some people with disabilities had medical conditions that required special attention. Eating and taking medications at set hours and being turned regularly at night to avoid getting bedsores. Because many had entered the building without their usual caretakers, they turned to their fellow occupiers to assist them in the tasks of daily living. Blind people became attendants to quadriplegics, who read printed information to blind people. This created strong bonds among the protesters and educated them about disabilities other than their own.
Crip Camp, the documentary that taught me all about Judy, left me with a sense of fire in my belly to add my voice and become an advocate. Judy said, ‘She wanted to see feisty Disabled people change the world,’ That is something I think about as we develop lABLEd Podcast.
She was at the top of my list of people to interview on the Podcast, something that now will never happen.
Thank you for everything, Judy. I wish I could have met you. From now on, I will do everything and think, ‘What Would Judy Do.’
Our thoughts go out to her friends, family and the global disability community, who will all miss her dearly.
As a tribute to Judy, we’d like you to consider putting Crp Camop on your watchlist, you can watch Crip Camp – A Disability Revolution, on Netflix
labledpodcast.co.uk 