Justin Dart's Wheelchair

Disability activist Justin Dart used this wheelchair to attend the July 26, 1990, signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), an act he helped craft. Paralyzed by polio as a teenager, Dart left a successful business career to focus on civil rights for the disabled. To build support for the ADA and demonstrate the need for it, Dart criss-crossed the country, holding 63 public forums for persons with disabilities, advocates, and caregivers in all 50 states. Over 7,000 people attended, many sharing frank testimony about discrimination that Dart presented to the Senate hearings on the ADA. Dart was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in 1998. At the ceremony, President William Clinton said Dart had “opened the doors of opportunities to millions of our citizens by securing passage of one of the nation’s landmark civil rights laws.” Dart died in 2002 at the age of 71.

2011-01.01