Being Heumann

Judith Heumann is a lifelong political activist for disability rights in the United States and around the world. Judith was born in Brooklyn, New York and contracted polio when she was 18 months old. She has paralysis from the waist down as a result. She uses a wheelchair but has never let her disability hold her back. She considers her disability the reason she has had a rich life filled with community, achievement, and learning all there is to know.

As a child, Judith was aware of her disability but not of how it limited her or how the world viewed her. This began to change when her mother took her to kindergarten, and she was rejected from entering. Doubt was reinforced when Judith was eight and a boy asked her if she is sick, and Judith realized that the world views her as unable to fend for herself. These experiences, along with being discriminated against when she attempted to get her teaching license, inspired her to become an activist.

Judith inherits her persistence—she describes herself as “calmly unstoppable” (128)—and rejection of the status quo from her parents and from growing up during the