List of disability rights activists

A disability rights activist or disability rights advocate is someone who works towards the equality of people with disabilities. Such a person is generally considered a member of the disability rights movement and/or the independent living movement. Names on this list should be sourced and their notability should come at least partly from being disability rights activists.

• Javed Abidi - Director of the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) in India.^[1]
• Gabriela Brimmer - Had cerebral palsy, life chronicled in Gaby: A True Story.^[2]
• Jane Campbell, Baroness Campbell of Surbiton - Had Spinal muscular atrophy and was a commissioner of the Disability Rights Commission.^[3]
• Judi Chamberlin, was an American activist, leader, organizer, public speaker and educator in the psychiatric survivors movement. Her political activism followed her involuntary confinement in a psychiatric facility in the 1960s.^[4][5] She was the author of On Our Own: Patient-Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System, which is a foundational text in the Mad Pride movement.^[6]
• James I Charlton - Activist who feels disability is socially constructed.^[7]
• Claudia Cockburn - British activist for transportation accessibility.^[8]
• Tony Coelho, who is epileptic, is a former congressman from California who was the primary author and U.S. House sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act.^[9]
• Encarna Conde - President of the "Association of Andalucian Ataxia Groups" who did a pornographic film for partly activist reasons.^[10]
• Justin Whitlock Dart, Jr. - Co-founded the American Association of People with Disabilities and had post-polio syndrome.^[11]
• Theresa Ducharme - Founded the disabled-rights advocacy group People in Equal Participation Inc. in 1981, and was the organization's chair for many years thereafter.^[12]
• Edward Evans - Chairman of the Ministry of Health Health Advisory Committee on Handicapped Persons from 1949 to 1960.^[13]
• Fred Fay - US advocate for disability, paralyzed.^[14]
• Catherine Frazee - Co-director of Ryerson University's Institute for Disability Studies Research and Education.^[15]
• Julie Fernandez - Actress with Osteogenesis imperfecta who founded The Disability Foundation^[16] and active on presentation of the disabled.^[17][18]
• Judy Fryd - Founded group that became Mencap.^[19]
• Judith Heumann is wheelchair user who co-founded the World Institute on Disability, and served as its co-director from 1983 to 1993. She is now the Special Advisor for International Disability Rights at the U.S. Department of State.^[20]
• Laura Hershey - Protested MDA Labor Day Telethon, also a feminist and born with a form of muscular dystrophy.^[21]
• Davina Ingrams, 18th Baroness Darcy de Knayth - British Paralympian and Representative peer.^[22]
• Harriet McBryde Johnson - A New Mobility "Person of the Year", disability-rights attorney, and anti-euthanasia activist.^[23]
• Deborah Kaplan is the founder of the Disability Rights Centre and former Executive Director of the World Institute on Disability (1996–2004).^[24]
• Bonnie Sherr Klein - Directed Shameless: The ART of Disability.^[25][26]
• Paul K. Longmore was an American history professor and activist who was instrumental in the establishment of disability studies, and in changes to Social Security that granted people with disabilities more rights. ^[27]
• Ron McCallum - Member Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, has been on the National People with Disabilities and Carers Council, and Chair of Radio for the Print Handicapped of New South Wales Co-operative Ltd. Also the first totally blind person to have been appointed to a full professorship at an Australian university.^[28]
• Anne McDonald - Efforts for independence of the disabled and went to conferences on the matter.^[29]
• Kathryn McGee is an American activist who founded the National Association for Down Syndrome, and the National Down Syndrome Congress. Her daughter Tricia had Down Syndrome.^[30]
• Alf Morris - Introduced the Chronically Sick & Disabled Persons Act and first "Minister for the Disabled" in Britain or anywhere else.^[31]
• Ari Ne'eman - Co-creator of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network.^[32]
• Jean-Christophe Parisot - Founder of Collectif des Démocrates Handicapés.^[33]
• Richard Pimentel - Active in workplace rights for the disabled.^[34]
• Victor Pineda - The youngest government delegate to participate in the drafting of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.^[35]
• Alan Reich is a wheelchair user who founded the National Organization on Disability.^[36]
• Gilberto Rincón Gallardo - Mexican politician with shortened arms who worked on disability issues.^[37]
• Edward Roberts was the first quadriplegic to attend UC Berkeley. His fight for access at Berkeley spread into seeking access in the community and the development of the first Centre for Independent Living.^[38][39]
• Sandra Schnur - A Director of the New York City Half-fare Program for the Handicapped and wrote an early guide for disabled in the city, had quadriplegia.^[40][41]
• Max Starkloff (1937–2010) founded Paraquad, one of the first independent living centers in the United States, as well as the National Council on Independent Living, and the Starkloff Disability Institute. He was one of the key advocates who brought the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990.^[42][43][44]
• John Tyler parked his wheelchair in front of Metro buses in Seattle, Washington in the late 1970s and performed other actions to make sure that the proper wheelchair lifts, not the "folding camel" lifts, would be put onto the public transit buses. The original lifts could potentially dump people in wheelchairs, and also break down more easily. After his death from suicide on December 24, 1984, he was remembered at Center Park in Seattle, Washington, which was the first apartment building built in the United States specifically for people in wheelchairs.^[45]
• Chris Underhill - A founder of Thrive and Action on Disability and Development.^[46][47]
• Ron Whyte - Playwright who was on the President's Committee for the Employment of the Handicapped.^[48]
• Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah - Ghanaian cyclist with one leg who rode across Ghana to raise awareness and works to increase the number of wheelchairs in his country.^[49]

References

1. ^ Demand made for legal recognition of sign language, Hindustan Times, December 4, 2010
2. ^ Film: 'Gaby,' Story of Determination, New York Times, October 30, 1987
3. ^ The Guardian
4. ^ Hevesi, Denis (30 January 2010). "Judi Chamberlin, 65, Advocate for Mental Health Patients". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/us/31chamberlin.html. Retrieved 1 March 2011. 
5. ^ Madness Radio (8 February 2006). "Interview: Judi Chamberlin interviewed by Will Hall and Cheryl Alexander" (Flash Player). http://www.madnessradio.net/madness-radio-judi-chamberlin-psychiatric-survivor-movement. Retrieved 3 March 2011. 
6. ^ Lawrence, J.M. (20 January 2010). "Judi Chamberlin, writings took on mental health care". The Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/yourtown/arlington/articles/2010/01/20/judi_chamberlin_writings_took_on_mental_health_care/?page=full. Retrieved 4 March 2011. 
7. ^ [url=http://books.google.com/books?id=181TLdx1S5IC&pg=PA8&lpg=PA8&dq=James+Charlton+(activist)&source=bl&ots=A2GYRa84cC&sig=GH65MrUR28fuJeEOdzzl70kH1iw&hl=en&ei=SUu6TKvdA8WOjAf1n7CDBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CDAQ6AEwBzgK#v=onepage&q=James%20Charlton%20(activist)&f=false title=Disability and the media: prescriptions for change]
8. ^ Obituary: Claudia Flanders. The Independent.
9. ^ Meet Tony Coelho | Partnership to Improve Patient Care
10. ^ The Guardian
11. ^ Switzer, Jacqueline Vaughn. Disabled Rights: American Disability Policy and the Fight for Equality. Georgetown University Press, 2003.
12. ^ "Disabled want their say at appeal", Winnipeg Free Press, 3 January 1995. The organization had forty members in 1995.
13. ^ Stenton, Michael; Lees, Stephens (1981). Who's Who of British Members of Parliament: Volume IV, 1945–1979. Brighton: The Harvester Press. p. 111. ISBN 0-85527-335-6.
14. ^ Marquard, Bryan (2011-09-09). "Dr. Fred Fay; helped change society’s views on disability". Boston Globe.
15. ^ http://www.cnw.ca/fr/releases/archive/October2007/04/c8571.html Employees with disabilities are expert learners
16. ^ TDF page on Julie Fernandez
17. ^ The Daily Telegraph
18. ^ BBC
19. ^ Obit at The Daily Telegraph
20. ^ Heumann, Judith E
21. ^ Laura Hershey, 48, championed disability rights, By John Ingold, The Denver Post
22. ^ Daily Telegraph obituary
23. ^ Unspeakable Conversations by Harriet McBryde Johnson, The New York Times
24. ^ Conference Participants — World Institute on Disability
25. ^ Klein, Bonnie Sherr (2006). "SHAMELESS: The ART of Disability". Collections. National Film Board of Canada. http://www.onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/collection/film/?id=51620. Retrieved 30 November 2009. 
26. ^ Woolley, Pieta (May 18, 2006). "Shameless disability". Georgia Straight (Vancouver). http://www.straight.com/article/shameless-disability-0. Retrieved 30 November 2009. 
27. ^ Nelson, Valerie J. (August 15, 2010). "Paul K. Longmore dies at 64; leading disability scholar and activist". Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/15/local/la-me-paul-longmore-20100816. 
28. ^ Senior Australian of the Year
29. ^ Sydney Morning Herald obituary
30. ^ A History of Kathryn McGee and the founding of MDC and NDSC
31. ^ BBC
32. ^ Newsweek via "The Daily Beast."
33. ^ BBC
34. ^ New York Post Profile
35. ^ OHCHR
36. ^ Resource Links
37. ^ Washington Post obituary
38. ^ Ed Roberts, disability-rights leader and Cal alum, gets his own state day
39. ^ Partners in Making Your Case: Changing the System
40. ^ Disabled Women: A Conference on Discrimination; 'To Effect Change' Other Barriers Mentioned Veterans Get Priority by JUDY KLEMESRUD in the May 25, 1979 issue of the New York Times
41. ^ Guides to Good Health; Survey of New Publications of Interest To Handicapped Persons and Others by HOWARD A. RUSK, M. D in the October 19, 1958 issue of The New York Times
42. ^ Max Starkloff, Pioneer In Independent Living For Disabled, Dies At 73 : Shots - Health Blog : NPR
43. ^ Max Starkloff dies; Paraquad founder crusaded for disabled
44. ^ Louis, St. (December 27, 2010). "Paraquad founder Starkloff dies at 73". http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news/2010/12/27/paraquad-founder-starkloff-dies-at-73.html. 
45. ^ Disability Rights
46. ^ Coventry Evening Telegraph
47. ^ "Plants as therapy are more popular". The New York Times. 10 September 1981. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9902EFD91639F933A2575AC0A967948260&sec=health&spon=. Retrieved 2008-09-10. 
48. ^ The New York Times obituary for Ron Whyte
49. ^ ABC