Disability Network Northern Michigan

12/20/2025

12/19/2025

Because of the weather, our Traverse City office is closed today, Friday, December 19th. Staff is available by phone or virtually. Stay safe!

12/19/2025

Blue Origin will make history when it sends the first person who uses a wheelchair past the Kármán line, an internationally recognized boundary of space that's 62 miles above Earth, on its next mission.

Read more: https://abcnews.visitlink.me/JMRBO1

12/19/2025

Today would have been Judy Heumann’s 78th birthday. She was a champion of the disability rights movement. Need a holiday read? Pick up her book Being Heumann.

Judy Heumann -- the renowned activist known as the “mother of the disability rights movement" -- was born on this day in 1947. Heumann, who used a wheelchair for mobility after surviving polio at the age of 18 months, helped lead the fight to establish the world's first comprehensive civil rights law protecting the rights of people with disabilities: the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). As she once observed, “when other people see you as a third-class citizen, the first thing you need is a belief in yourself and the knowledge that you have rights. The next thing you need is a group of friends to fight back with.”

Pictured here as TIME's Women of the Year for 1977, Heumann was at the center of multiple battles for civil rights for people with disabilities, most famously the 504 Sit-In. Organized by Heumann, Kitty Cone, and Mary Jane Owen, over 150 other activists occupied the San Francisco Office of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare for 25 days in 1977 demanding the implementation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, one of the first federal disability rights laws. The 504 Sit-In remains the longest sit-in ever at a U.S. federal building.

Equally importantly, Heumann helped change the narrative about disability, showing that the true burden of disabilities is how others respond to it: "Disability only becomes a tragedy when society fails to provide the things we need to lead our lives — job opportunities or barrier-free buildings, for example," she once said. "It is not a tragedy to me that I'm living in a wheelchair."

In the days before the ADA, Heumann was refused admission to public school because she was a "fire hazard" and offered two hours a week of in-home instruction instead. In 1970, she took the New York Department of Education to court after they refused to give her a teacher's license, citing their belief that she would not be able to evacuate her classroom in an emergency.

After the passage of the ADA in 1990, Heumann served as the U.S. assistant secretary of education, and took her advocacy global, traveling to more than 30 countries as they passed their own disability rights legislation. Until her last days, she kept up her fight for equality, noting how much progress still needs to be made. "Change never happens at the pace we think it should," she once wrote. "Gradually, excruciatingly slowly, things start to happen, and then suddenly, seemingly out of the blue, something will tip."

Her incredible story is told in a captivating picture book biography "Fighting for YES! The Story of Disability Rights Activist Judith Heumann" for ages 6 to 9 at https://www.amightygirl.com/fighting-for-yes

Judith Heumann was also the author of a powerful memoir for adult readers, "Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist" at https://www.amightygirl.com/being-heumann

Her memoir was adapted into a young readers edition, "Rolling Warrior: The Incredible, Sometimes Awkward, True Story of a Girl on Wheels Who Helped Spark a Revolution" for ages 10 and up at https://www.amightygirl.com/rolling-warrior

For more books for children and teens starring Mighty Girls with disabilities of all varieties, visit our blog post "Many Ways To Be Mighty: 35 Books Starring Mighty Girls with Disabilities" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=12992

12/18/2025

Disability Network Office will be closed Wednesday December 24th and reopen on Monday January 5th.

12/18/2025

“He always knew he was a little different, but he let his light shine regardless of what others said. Be more like Rudolph. “ ( Image of a young reindeer with a red nose)

12/17/2025

Our office will be closed Wednesday, December 24th for staff to enjoy the holidays. We will reopen Monday January 5th.

12/17/2025

Ladies , please join us today for our weekly Women's Group.In-office from 10-11 or virtually (Zoom) from 11-12. 🩷

12/16/2025

Dateability is designed for peope with disabilities and those who have chronic illness to meet others looking for friendships.

A unique app is changing the dating game for disabled and chronically ill people

12/15/2025

This week's calendar of events.
https://www.disabilitynetwork.org/event-calendar

12/15/2025

This weeks activities!

12/13/2025

It seems like a never ending chore up here in the Northland but so very import for the mobility of all of our neighbors. (Image is a snow pile in an accessible parking sport. Repost from Disability Network Michigan. )

Please remember to clear ALL spaces in parking lots, including the reserved spaces for those who use mobility devices.