Publisher's Synopsis
A disability rights activist tells her personal story of fighting for the right to receive an education, have a job, and just be human. Paralyzed from polio at eighteen months, Judy began her struggle for equality early in life. From fighting to attend grade school to rolling 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, Judy has set a precedent that fundamentally improved rights for disabled people. As a young woman, working with a community of over 150 disabled activists and allies, Judy helped to successfully pressure the Carter administration to implement protections for disabled people's rights, sparking a national movement and leading to the creation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Candid, intimate, and irreverent, Being Heumann is a story of one woman's lifelong battle to make real a world in which we all belong.