Judy Heumann Quotes

“For we are leaders of inclusiveness and community, of love, equity, and justice.”

“But I was beginning to learn something very important: when institutions don’t want to do something, to claim that something is a “safety” issue is an easy argument to fall back on. It sounds so benign and protective. How could caring about safety possibly be wrong or discriminatory?”

“Our anger was a fury sparked by profound injustices. Wrongs that deserved ire. And with that rage we ripped a hole in the status quo.”

“They were not medical problems to rehabilitate. We were not medical problems. I was never going to undo the damage polio had done to my nerve cells and walk again, nor was this my goal. The disabled veterans coming home from the Vietnam War were never going to grow their limbs back or heal their spinal cords and walk again. My friends with muscular dystrophy were never going to not have been born with muscular dystrophy. Accidents, illnesses, genetic conditions, neurological disorders, and aging are facts of the human condition, just as much as race or sex.”

“Right there was our catch-22: Because the country was so inaccessible, disabled people had a hard time getting out and doing things—which made us invisible. So we were easy to discount and ignore. Until institutions were forced to accommodate us we would remain locked out and invisible—and as long as we were locked out and invisible, no one would see our true force and would dismiss us.”

“Change never happens at the pace we think it should. It happens over years of people joining together, strategizing, sharing, and pulling all the levers they possibly can. Gradually, excruciatingly slowly, things start to happen, and then suddenly, seemingly out of the blue, something will tip.”

“When other people see you as a third-class citizen, the first thing you need is a belief in yourself and the knowledge that you have rights. The next thing you need is a group of friends to fight back with.”

“Part of the problem is that we tend to think that equality is about treating everyone the same, when it’s not. It’s about fairness. It’s about equity of access.”

“The truth is, the status quo loves to say no. It is the easiest thing in the world to say no, especially in the world of business and finance. But for the first time we were discussing civil rights, and no other civil rights issue has ever been questioned because of the cost.”

“They held us up at reception and wouldn’t let us in until we each swore that we would not start a sit-in in the White House. I couldn’t hide the hint of a smile I felt curling across my face.”

“I’m going to miss them,′ said a Federal Building guard; he had started learning sign language and hoped one day to become a sign language interpreter. ‘They were real nice people.”

“The next day the Los Angeles Times reported on the event and quoted Representative Patricia Schroeder: What we did for civil rights in the 1960s we forgot to do for people with disabilities.”

“I was confused and heart-wrenchingly sad to the point of numbness. I just couldn’t understand what I had to do to be seen as an ordinary person.”