Judith Heumann

This is my story, yes, but I was one in a multitude, and I hope I will do justice to the many heroes, those who are alive and those no longer among us.

Even when we jumped rope or roller-skated, we figured it out. We’d put roller skates over my shoes and I would pretend to be skating in my chair, or I’d turn the rope for the jumpers, or play in some other way. I didn’t know anything different. Now I know that this was the way it was because we were kids, and kids are problem solvers. But it taught me, at a very early age, that most things are possible when you assume problems can be solved.

“Judy is a fire hazard,” he said, explaining to my shocked mother how the school system saw wheelchairs as a dangerous obstruction. Children who used wheelchairs were not permitted to attend school. I would stay home.

We were beginning to see our lack of access as a problem with society, rather than our individual problem. From our perspective, disability was something that could happen to anyone at any time, and frequently did, so it was right for society to design its infrastructure and systems around this fact of life.

Then, in a matter-of-fact voice, in the same exact tone that she’d asked me to breathe in and breathe out, the doctor asked me to show her how I went to the bathroom.

When I drove my wheelchair into the doctor’s office, I saw two strange men already sitting in the room. Dr. James told me she had invited two other doctors to join in my medical exam.

With no introductions or any pretense of small talk, the three examined me together, firing a barrage of the same kinds of invasive questions: about my polio diagnosis, my medical history, my paralysis, and telling me, again, to walk for them. I had decided not to bring my crutches and braces. When I told the doctors this, I watched as Dr. James wrote something down.

Upside down on the form, I read her note: “Insubordinate.”

Why was I constantly being forced to knock on doors where I wasn’t welcome?

Accidents, illnesses, genetic conditions, neurological disorders, and aging are facts of the human condition, just as much as race or sex.

I was so tired of being called a fire hazard I could vomit.

I drove my wheelchair into the courtroom flanked by my team of lawyers, with my parents and brothers trailing immediately behind. I positioned my chair in front of the judge’s bench; Roy and Elias sat next to me. The bench was empty. Roy had told me that our judge was the first black female judge ever to be appointed to federal court. I was thrilled and couldn’t wait to see her.