Being Heumann

Former advisor to Presidents Clinton and Obama, star of the Oscar-nominated Crip Camp and one of the planet's most influential disability rights activists, 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 Heumann began her struggle for equality 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, to leading the section 504 sit-in that led to the creation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Judy's actions set a precedent that fundamentally improved rights for disabled people around the globe.

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.