All students should learn these names too…

Judith&

Ed&

Alice&

Brad&

Stacey

These five names are part of a much larger movement of disabled people who organized, protested, wrote, and built community together. Learn their names, and keep learning more.

  • Judith (Judy) Heumann (1947 to 2023): Born in Philadelphia. Co-founded Disabled in Action and helped lead the 1977 Section 504 sit-in in San Francisco, which pushed the federal government to sign disability rights regulations.

  • Ed Roberts (1939 to 1995): Organized with fellow disabled students at UC Berkeley who called themselves the Rolling Quads. Their work grew into the Center for Independent Living, a model for centers run by and for disabled people nationwide.

  • Brad Lomax (1950 to 1984): Black Panther Party member, also born in Philadelphia. Helped lead the 504 sit-in and brought in Panther support that delivered food to protesters daily, building a bridge between civil rights and disability rights organizing.

  • Stacey Park Milbern (1987 to 2020): Korean-born, queer organizer who helped shape disability justice and founded the Disability Justice Culture Club in Oakland. As a young organizer in North Carolina, she worked to get disability history taught in high schools.

  • Alice Wong (1974 to 2025): Writer and organizer who founded the Disability Visibility Project, collecting oral histories of disabled people, and co-founded #CripTheVote.

Why learn with DEE

  • Disability history is everyone's history, and most students never hear these names.

  • Our free K-12 lessons and monthly Disability History and Culture Calendar place people like these inside the movements and communities they built, not as lone heroes.

  • Every milestone comes with what is still unfinished, so students see rights as something people keep protecting and expanding today.