A new generation of disability rights activists carry on Judy Heumann's legacy

Judy Heumann is known as the mother of the disability rights movement — yet she is lesser known than many of the other civil rights activists of her time.Now, a new film seeks to change that.Being Heumann, the latest movie from Oscar-winning director Sian Heder, tells the story of the young woman from Brooklyn who led the movement to win the first civil rights protections in the country for people with disabilities.Before the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed in 1990, there was Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

It was a single sentence, written into the law, promising people with disabilities the right to fair employment and access to public life without facing discrimination.But for years, there were no rules or regulations making the federal government actually enforce those protections.Until the spring of 1977, when a band of activists with disabilities decided to do something about it.Led by Heumann and Kitty Cone, activists took over the former Department of Health, Education and Welfare building in San Francisco for nearly a month — widely considered the longest sit-in of a federal building in U.S.

history.People across disability groups — from wheelchair users to people with intellectual and health-related disabilities — camped out, demanding, and eventually winning the passage of rules that made Section 504 enforceable.The protests paved the way for federally funded institutions like schools, libraries, city buildings and other entities to be made accessible for disabled people."Judy always said, 'disability only becomes a tragedy for me when society fails to provide the things we need to lead our lives' — job opportunities or barrier-free buildings, for example," says former NPR correspondent Joe Shapiro, who covered disability and was a friend of Heumann's until she died in 2023.Regarding disability rights as basic civil rights was a novel concept at the time, but has remained core to the movement today.Shapiro says...