“I am not your inspiration, thank you very much”. Some stellar (and straight-talking) heroes from the disability rights movement

A great piece from the Guardian, doing the work in highlighting ten all-time heroes from the disability rights movement (alerted to us by Disability Rights UK. A few highlights excerpted below:

Stella Young

Her 2014 TED talk is embedded above. Young was a comedian, journalist and campaigner from Australia. She started as a teacher, then moved to educating more widely about disability. She helped the Australian government on their disability polices, gigged at comedy festivals, worked for the national broadcaster ABC. But her fame came from this provocative TED Talk, where she called out “inspiration porn” - fetishising disabled people’s struggles to make the non-disabled feel better. “I want to live in a world where we value genuine achievement for disabled people, and I want to live in a world where a kid in year 11 in a Melbourne high school is not one bit surprised that his new teacher is a wheelchair user.”

Barbara Lisicki

Lisicki is a British disability rights activist, comedian, and equality trainer. She is a founder of the Disabled People's Direct Action Network (DAN), an organization that engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience to raise awareness and to advocate for the rights of disabled people. She is a featured subject of the 2022 BBC docudrama Then Barbara Met Alan, and appeared in The Disabled Century on BBC2 in 1999. As the Guardian writes: “Thanks to pressure from Lisicki and DAN, and a brief illegal foray into the Palace of Westminster, parliamentary resistance was overcome and the landmark Disability Discrimination Act was finally passed in 1995. Lisicki remains an icon of the movement, while DAN itself was revived during the pandemic to protest against the government’s failure to protect disabled lives.”

Yetnebersh Nigussie

From the Guardian:

By LICHT FÜR DIE WELT (LIGHT FOR THE WORLD Austria) - Given personally, CC BY-SA 1.0,

Nigussie (born 24 January 1982) is an Ethiopian lawyer and disability rights activist. In 2017, she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "her inspiring work promoting the rights and inclusion of people with disabilities, allowing them to realise their full potential and changing mindsets in our societies." Her activism began at Addis Ababa University, around Aids and on women’s rights. She then founded the Ethiopian Center for Disability and Development, From 2016 Yetnebersh has operated with the international NGO Light for the World, pushing for inclusive education and treating preventable blindness.

BRAD LOMAX

[From Wikipedia:} After helping found the Washington chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1969, and organize the 1972 African Liberation Day demonstration on the National Mall, Lomax was motivated to join the disability rights movement after attempting to use public transportation in Oakland, California, after moving there in 1973. Since he used a wheelchair, boarding a bus required having his brother carry him from his wheelchair to a bus seat.

In 1975, Lomax reached out to Ed Roberts, director of the Berkeley Center for Independent Living (CIL) to propose another Center for Independent living East Oakland, in partnership with the Black Panthers.

In 1977, he participated in the 504 Sit-in at the San Francisco Federal Building, and encouraged the Black Panthers to provide meals and other supplies to the protestors. The protest was in response to the failure of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) to implement Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The HEW secretary, Joseph A. Califano Jr., signed the regulations on April 28, 1977, after Lomax and approximately two dozen other protesters traveled to Washington. [See also this New York Times piece].

More disability heroes from the Guardian article here.