An influential disability-rights activist recounts her lifelong battles for education, employment and societal inclusion, in a personal account that includes coverage of her role in advising the Carter administration to help create the Americans with Disabilities Act. (biography & autobiography). - (Baker & Taylor)
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year for Nonfiction
"...an essential and engaging look at recent disability history."— Buzzfeed
One of the most influential disability rights activists in US history tells her personal story of fighting for the right to receive an education, have a job, and just be human.
A story of fighting to belong in a world that wasn’t built for all of us and of one woman’s activism—from the streets of Brooklyn and San Francisco to inside the halls of Washington—Being Heumann recounts Judy Heumann’s lifelong battle to achieve respect, acceptance, and inclusion in society.
Paralyzed from polio at eighteen months, Judy’s struggle for equality began early in life. From fighting to attend grade school after being described as a “fire hazard” to later winning a lawsuit against the New York City school system for denying her a teacher’s license because of her paralysis, Judy’s actions set a precedent that fundamentally improved rights for disabled people.
As a young woman, Judy rolled 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, the longest takeover of a governmental building in US history. Working with a community of over 150 disabled activists and allies, Judy successfully pressured the Carter administration to implement protections for disabled peoples’ rights, sparking a national movement and leading to the creation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Candid, intimate, and irreverent, Judy Heumann’s memoir about resistance to exclusion invites readers to imagine and make real a world in which we all belong. - (Random House, Inc.)
Judith Heumann (1947–2023) was an internationally recognized leader in the Disability Rights Independent Living Movement. She served in the Clinton and Obama administrations, and she was the World Bank’s first adviser on disability and development. Heumann was the author of a memoir, Being Heumann, and her story was featured in the Netflix documentary Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (2020).
Kristen Joiner is a writer, activist, and producer. She is the co-author of Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist and the YA version of the book, Rolling Warrior: The Incredible, Sometimes Awkward, True Story of a Rebel Girl on Wheels Who Helped Spark a Revolution with Judy Heumann, Former Advisor to Presidents Clinton and Obama, star of the Oscar-nominated Crip Camp, and one of the most influential disability rights activists in US history. Being Heumann has been optioned by Apple TV for a feature film directed by Oscar-winner Sian Heder (C.O.D.A.). Kristen co-founded the youth filmmaking organization, Scenarios USA, and executive produced short films written by young people and directed by award-winning directors. She lives in New Zealand with her family. - (Random House, Inc.)
Booklist Reviews
The title says it all: disability-rights activist Heumann is human, though some may think her superhuman. One of the nearly 43,000 U.S. children affected by the 1949 polio epidemic, she is a paraplegic who has used a wheelchair since childhood. Fortunately, she grew up with remarkable parents, orphaned by the Holocaust, who refused to institutionalize her. Chillingly, she notes that Hitler's pilot project for what became mass genocide started with disabled children. But even in America, she faced many hurdles. In 1977, Heumann helped stage a historic sit-in over the failure to enforce section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which prohibits excluding anyone from a program that receives federal funds. The activists' pressure set the stage for the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, which is now in peril, Heumann notes, from a president who shut down the ADA pages on the White House website. Consider this book an inspiring call for inclusiveness, courage, equity, and justice as well as a reminder of people's power to change the world for the better. Copyright 2020 Booklist Reviews.
Kirkus Reviews
A driving force in the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act looks back on a long career of activism. "An Occupation Army of Cripples Has Taken Over the San Francisco Federal Building." So shouted a newspaper headline in the wake of one particularly vocal protest. According to disability rights activist Heumann, that was fine. "People weren't used to thinking of us as fighters—when they thought about us at all," she observes. Until the 1980s, disabled people were largely made invisible, with no easy means of access to the systems of transportation, employment, and other goods that the rest of the population often takes for granted. The author, who was paralyzed after a bout of childhood polio, might have been shunted off to an institution, as one doctor recommended, which was the usual practice in 1949. Instead, her parents, orphans of the Holocaust, resisted. The system did not make much allowance for her outside such an institution. At first, she was taught by a teacher who came to her home for two and a half hours a week, then sent to "Health Conservation 21," a New York school system program in which students were expected to remain "until we were twenty-one years old, at which point we were supposed to enter a sheltered workshop." Instead, Heumann distinguished herself academically and got involved in the drafting of legislation that would effectively add disability to the classes of protected citizens under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. To do so, she had to make the case that "discrimination against disabled people existed," something that many people did not wish to acknowledge. Then she had to find allies inside government on top of battling a host of foes, including conservative politicians and businesses "worried about what ADA would cost, in time and money." Heumann prevailed, and following passage of the ADA after years of agitation, she worked for the World Bank and was appointed a representative of the Obama administration to advance civil rights for disabled persons internationally. A welcome account of politics in action, and for the best of causes. Copyright Kirkus 2019 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.
Publishers Weekly Reviews
In this empowering debut, disability rights activist Heumann reveals her indomitable spirit as she battled prejudice and discrimination to gain equal opportunity. Recognizing that Americans with disabilities were "generally invisible in the daily life of society," Heumann, who was paralyzed by polio at 18 months in 1949, fought for inclusion in everyday activities, believing "it was the government's responsibility to ensure that everyone could participate equally in our society." Fighting to go to elementary school in Brooklyn after being called "a fire hazard," she first attended a segregated special education class before attending regular high school. Heumann attended Long Island University, where she led various student protests; after college, she won a lawsuit against the New York City Board of Education for denying her a teacher's license because of her condition. In 1977, she helped organize a 24-day sit-in at the San Francisco office of U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, which pressured the Carter administration to finally execute protections for disabled people, eventually leading to passage of the American with Disabilities Act ("since we'd been left out of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, we needed our own Civil Rights Act"). Thoughtful and illuminating, this inspiring story is a must-read for activists and civil rights supporters. (Feb.)
Copyright 2020 Publishers Weekly.
A Note from Judy
Prologue
PART ONE: BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, 1953
CHAPTER 1
The Butterfly
CHAPTER 2
Insubordinate
CHAPTER 3
To Fight or Not to Fight
CHAPTER 4
Fear of Flying
PART TWO: BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA, 1977
CHAPTER 5
Detained
CHAPTER 6
Occupation Army
CHAPTER 7
Soldiers in Combat
CHAPTER 8
The White House
PART THREE: BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA, 1981
CHAPTER 9
The Reckoning
CHAPTER 10
Chingona
CHAPTER 11
Humans
CHAPTER 12
Our Story
Acknowledgments
Notes