Justin Dart, Jr. activist, dies at 71

WASHINGTON—Justin Dart, Jr. a leader of the international disability rights movement and a renowned human rights activist, died on June 21, 2002, at his home in Washington, D.C. Widely recognized as “the father of the Americans with Disabilities Act” (ADA) and “the godfather of the disability tights movement,” Dart had for the past several years dealt with the complications of post polio syndrome and congestive heart failure. He was seventy-one years old.
   He is survived by his wife Yoshiko, their extended family of foster children, his many fiends and colleagues, and millions of disability and human tights activists all over the world.
   Dart was a leader in the disability rights movement for three decades and an advocate for the rights of women, people of color, and gays and lesbians. The recipient of five presidential appointments, and numerous honors, including the Hubert Humphrey Award of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Dart was on the podium on the White House lawn when President George H. Bush signed the ADA into law in July 1990. Dart was also a highly successful entrepreneur, using his personal wealth to further his human tights agenda by generously contributing to organizations, candidates, and individuals, becoming what he called “a little PAC for empowerment.”
   Until the end, Dart remained dedicated to his vision of a “revolution of empowerment.” This would be, he said, “a revolution that confronts and eliminates obsolete thought and systems, that focuses the full power of science and free enterprise democracy on the systematic empowerment of every person to live to his or her God-given potential.

By Fred Fay and Fred Pelka,
 and reprinted from One in Five,
Index                              a quarterly news magazine published by Alpha One.