|
Justin Dart,
An Obituary
June 22, 2002
By Fred Fay and Fred Pelka,
written at Justin Dart's request.
Source: Justice for All
Justin Dart, Jr., a leader of the international disability rights movement
and a renowned human rights activist, died last night at his home in
Washington D.C. Widely recognized as "the father of the Americans with
Disabilities Act" and "the godfather of the disability rights movement,"
Dart had for the past several years struggled 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 friends and colleagues, and millions of disability
and human rights 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
rights agenda by generously contributing to organizations, candidates, and
individuals, becoming what he called "a little PAC for empowerment."
In 1998 Dart received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's
highest civilian award. "Justin Dart," said President Clinton in 1996,
"in his own way has the most Olympian spirit I believe I have ever come
across."
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 thoughts and systems, that focuses the full power of
science and free-enterprise democracy on the systematic empowerment of every
person to live his or her God-given potential." Dart never hesitated
to emphasize the assistance he received
from those working with him, most especially his wife of more than thirty
years, Yoshiko Saji. "She is," he often said, "quite simply the most
magnificent human being I have ever met."
Time and again Dart stressed that his achievements were only possible with
the help of hundreds of activists, colleagues, and friends. "There is
nothing I have achieved, and no addiction I have overcome, without the love
and support of specific individuals who reached out to empower me...
There is nothing I have accomplished without reaching out to
empower others." Dart protested the fact that he and only three
other disability activists were on the podium when President Bush signed the
ADA, believing that "hundreds of others should have been there as well."
After receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Dart
sent out replicas of the award to hundreds of disability rights activists
across the country, writing that, "this award belongs to you."
Justin Dart, Jr., was born on August 29, 1930, into a wealthy and prominent
family. His grandfather was the founder of the Walgreen Drugstore chain, his
father a successful business executive, his mother a matron of the American
avant garde. Dart would later describe how he became "a super loser"
as a way of establishing his own identity in this family of "super winners."
He attended seven high schools, not graduating from any of them, and broke
Humphrey Bogart's all-time record for the number
of demerits earned by a student at elite Andover prep. "People didn't like
me. I didn't like myself."
Dart contracted polio in 1948. With doctors saying he had less than
three days to live, he was admitted into the Seventh Day Adventist Medical
University in Los Angeles. "For the first time in my life I was surrounded
by people who were openly expressing love for each other, and for me, even
though I was hostile to them. And so I started smiling at people, and
saying nice things to them. And they responded, treating me even
better. It felt so good!" Three days turned into forty years, but Dart
never forgot this lesson. Polio left Dart a wheelchair user, but he
never grieved about this. "I count the good days in my life from the
time I got polio. These beautiful people not only saved my life, they
made it worth saving."
Another turning point was Dart's discovery in 1949 of the philosophy of
Mohandas K. Gandhi. Dart defined Gandhi's message as, "Find your own
truth, and then live it." This theme too would stay with him for the
rest of his life.
Dart attended the University of Houston from 1951 to 1954,
earning his bachelor's and master's degrees in political science and
history. He wanted to be a teacher, but the university withheld his
teaching certificate because he was a wheelchair user. During his time
in college, Dart organized his first human rights group -- a pro-integration
student group at what was then a whites-only institution.
Dart went into business in 1956, building several
successful companies in Mexico and Japan. He started Japan Tupperware
with three employees in 1963, and by 1965 it had expanded to some 25,000.
Dart used his businesses to provide work for women and people with
disabilities. In Japan, for example, he took severely disabled people
out of
institutions, gave them paying jobs within his company, and organized some
of them into Japan's first wheelchair basketball team. It was during
this time he met his wife, Yoshiko.
The final turning point in Dart's life came during a visit to Vietnam in
1966, to investigate the status of
rehabilitation in that war-torn country. Visiting a
"rehabilitation center" for children with polio, Dart
instead found squalid conditions where disabled children were left on
concrete floors to starve. One child, a young girl dying there before
him, took his hand and looked into his eyes. "That scene," he would
later write, "is burned forever in my soul. For the first time in my
life I understood the reality of evil, and that I was a part of that
reality."
The Darts returned to Japan, but terminated their business interests.
After a period of meditation in a dilapidated farmhouse, the two decided to
dedicate themselves entirely to the cause of human and disability rights.
They moved to Texas in 1974, and immersed themselves in local
disability activism. From 1980 to 1985, Dart was a member, and
then chair, of the Texas Governor's Committee for Persons with Disabilities.
His work in Texas became a pattern for what was to
follow: extensive meetings with the grassroots, followed by a call for the
radical empowerment of people with disabilities, followed by tireless
advocacy until victory was won.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan appointed Dart to be the vice-chair of the
National Council on Disability. The Darts embarked on a nationwide
tour, at their own expense, meeting with activists in every state.
Dart and others on the Council drafted a national policy that called for
national civil rights legislation to end the centuries old discrimination of
people with disabilities -- what would eventually
become the Americans with Disabilities Act of
1990.
In 1986, Dart was appointed to head the Rehabilitation Services
Administration, a $3 billion federal agency that oversees a vast array of
programs for disabled people. Dart called for radical changes, and for
including people with disabilities in every aspect of designing,
implementing, and monitoring rehabilitation
programs. Resisted by the bureaucracy, Dart dropped a bombshell when
he testified at a public hearing before Congress that the RSA was "a vast,
inflexible federal system which, like the society it represents, still
contains a significant portion of individuals who have not yet overcome
obsolete, paternalistic attitudes about disability." Dart was asked to
resign his position, but remained a supporter of both Presidents Reagan and
Bush.
In 1989, Dart was appointed chair of the President's
Committee on the Employment of People with Disabilities, shifting its focus
from its traditional stance of urging business to "hire the handicapped" to
advocating for full civil rights for people with disabilities.
Dart is best known for his work in passing the Americans with Disabilities
Act. In 1988, he was appointed, along with parents' advocate Elizabeth
Boggs, to chair the Congressional Task Force on the Rights and Empowerment
of Americans with Disabilities. The Darts again toured the
country at their own expense, visiting every state, Puerto Rico,
Guam, and the District of Columbia, holding public forums attended by more
than 30,000 people.
Everywhere he went, Dart touted the ADA as "the civil
rights act of the future." Dart also met extensively with members of
Congress and staff, as well as President Bush, Vice President Quayle, and
members of the Cabinet. At one point, seeing Dart at a White House
reception, President Bush introduced him as "the ADA man." The ADA was
signed into law on July 26, 1990, an anniversary that is celebrated each
year by "disability pride" events all across the country.
While taking pride in passage of the ADA, Dart was always quick to list all
the others who shared in the struggle: Robert Silverstein and Robert
Burgdorf, Patrisha Wright and Tony Coelho, Fred Fay and Judith Heumann,
among many others. And Dart never wavered in his commitment to
disability solidarity, insisting that all people with disabilities be
protected by the law and included in the coalition to pass it -- including
mentally ill "psychiatric survivors" and people with HIV/AIDS. Dart
called this his "politics of inclusion," a companion to his "politics of
principle, solidarity, and love."
After passage of the ADA, Dart threw his energy into the fight for universal
health care, again campaigning across the country, and often speaking from
the same podium as President and Mrs. Clinton. With the defeat of
universal health care, Dart was among the first to identify the coming
backlash against disability rights. He
resigned all his positions to become "a full-time citizen soldier in the
trenches of justice."
|
Photo by Ira Schwartz |
With the conservative Republican victory in Congress in
1994, followed by calls to amend or even repeal the ADA and the Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act (or IDEA), Dart, and disability rights
advocates Becky Ogle and Frederick Fay, founded Justice for All, what Dart
called "a SWAT team" to beat back these attacks. Again, Dart was
tireless -- traveling, speaking, testifying, holding conference calls,
presiding over meetings, calling the media on its distortions of the ADA,
and flooding the country with American flag stickers that said, "ADA, IDEA,
America Wins." Both laws were saved. Dart again placed the
credit with "the thousands of grassroots patriots" who wrote and e-mailed
and lobbied. But there can be no doubt that without Dart's leadership,
the outcome might have been entirely different.
In 1996, confronted by a Republican Party calling for "a retreat from Thomas
Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln democracy," Dart campaigned for the re-election
of President Clinton. This was a personally difficult "decision of
conscience." Dart had been a Republican for most of his life, and had
organized the disability constituency campaigns of both Ronald Reagan and
George Bush, campaigning against Clinton in 1992. But in a turnabout
that was reported in the New York Times and the
Washington Post, Dart went all out for Clinton, even speaking at the
Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The Darts yet again
undertook a whirlwind tour of the country, telling people to "get into
politics as if your life depended on it. It does." At his speech
the day after the election, President Clinton publicly thanked Dart for
personally campaigning in all fifty states, and
cited his efforts as "one reason we won some of those states."
Dart suffered a series of heart attacks in late 1997, which curtailed his
ability to travel. He continued, however, to lobby for the rights of
people with disabilities, and attended numerous events, rallies,
demonstrations and public hearings. Toward the end of his life, Dart
was hard at work on a political manifesto that would outline his vision of
"the revolution of empowerment." In its conclusion, he urged his
"Beloved colleagues in struggle, listen to the heart of this old soldier.
Our lives, our children's lives, the quality of the lives of billions in
future generations hangs in the balance. I cry out to you from the
depths of my being. Humanity needs you! Lead! Lead! Lead
the revolution of empowerment!"
Today, disabled people across the country and around the world will grieve
at the passing of Justin Dart, Jr. But we will celebrate his love and
his commitment to justice. Please join us at in expressing our
condolences to Yoshiko and her family during this difficult time. Keep
in mind, however, that it was Justin's wish that any service or
commemoration be used by activists to celebrate our movement, and as an
opportunity to recommit themselves to "the revolution of empowerment." |
Justin Dart urging Congress to pass the
ADA.
Washington, DC, March 1990
"To the critics who complain
that ADA has not achieved total
justice ...
I say what about
the Bill of Rights
and
the Ten Commandments?
Have they achieved
total justice?
The vision of justice is an eternal long march to the Promised
Land of
the good life for all."
- Justin Dart, Jr.
Disability Rights
Hero,
Justin Dart,
Jr.,
Completes His
Mission
June 22, 2002
Source: Justice for All
In an uncharacteristically quiet moment, Justin Dart, Jr., died this
morning with his wife and partner, Yoshiko Dart, at his side. Best known as
the father of the Americans with Disabilities Act and often called the
Martin Luther King of the disability civil rights movement, he thought of
himself in much more humble terms - simply as a soldier of justice. After
nearly 50 years of advocacy for the civil rights of oppressed people in
America and around the world, Mr. Dart spent his final days at home
completing his manifesto. His tenacious impatience and unwavering voice of
empowerment will continue in the hearts and minds of all who fight for
justice.
"Death is not a tragedy," wrote Mr. Dart before he died. "It is not an
evil from which we must escape. Death is as natural as birth. Like
childbirth, death is often a time of fear and pain, but also of profound
beauty, of celebration of the mystery and majesty which is life pushing its
horizons toward oneness with the truth of Mother Universe. The days of dying
carry a special responsibility. There is a great potential to communicate
values in a uniquely powerful way - the person who dies demonstrating for
civil rights.
"I call for solidarity among all who love justice, all who love life, to
create a revolution that will empower every single human being to govern his
or her life, to govern the society and to be fully productive of life
quality for self and for all."
Justin Dart, Jr. (right) at the signing of the
Americans With Disabilities Act
July 26, 1990
Justin and Yoshiko Dart
on Independence Day - July 4, 1999
America at the Cross Roads
From Justin
and Yoshiko Dart on Inauguration 2001 (Excerpt)
We must take up the passionate struggle for
the rights and empowerment of all that is our priceless heritage - from
Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln to FDR, King and Clinton.
The time has come to go beyond the grand words of campaigns and
inaugurations, and unite in everyday action to perform society's most
fundamental obligation: to enable all people to live their God given
potential.
The time has come to create a culture that focuses the full force of science
and free enterprise democracy on the
individualized empowerment of every person, with or without disabilities.
The time has come to provide each person with the individualized tools to
achieve full personal potential to govern self and all, to produce the best
life for self and for all, and to enjoy the security of a life of dignity.
Photo by
Tari Susan Hartman
Justin Dart (right) at ADA Anniversary March - New York City, 1993
"Get into
politics
as if your lives depended on it, because they do."
- Justin Dart, Jr.
"I AM WITH YOU.
I LOVE YOU. LEAD ON."
(Justin Dart's final written
message, June, 2002. Source: Justice for All)
Dearly Beloved:
Listen to the heart of this old soldier. As with all of us the time comes
when body and mind are battered and weary.
But I do not go quietly into the night. I do not give up struggling to be
a responsible contributor to the sacred continuum of human life. I do not
give up struggling to overcome my weakness, to conform my life - and that
part of my life called death - to the great values of the human dream.
Death is not a tragedy. It is not an evil from which we must escape.
Death is as natural as birth. Like childbirth, death is often a time of fear
and pain, but also of profound beauty, of celebration of the mystery and
majesty which is life pushing its horizons toward oneness with the truth of
mother universe. The days of dying carry a special responsibility. There is
a great potential to communicate values in a uniquely powerful way - the
person who dies demonstrating for civil rights.
Let my final actions thunder of love, solidarity, protest - of
empowerment.
I adamantly protest the richest culture in the history of the world, a
culture which has the obvious potential to create a golden age of science
and democracy dedicated to maximizing the quality of life of every person,
but which still squanders the majority of its human and physical capital on
modern versions of primitive symbols of power and prestige.
I adamantly protest the richest culture in the history of the world which
still incarcerates millions of humans with and without disabilities in
barbaric institutions, backrooms and worse, windowless cells of oppressive
perceptions, for the lack of the most elementary empowerment supports.
I call for solidarity among all who love justice, all who love life, to
create a revolution that will empower every single human being to govern his
or her life, to govern the society and to be fully productive of life
quality for self and for all.
I do so love all the patriots of this and every nation who have fought
and sacrificed to bring us to the threshold of this beautiful human dream. I
do so love America the beautiful and our wild, creative, beautiful people. I
do so love you, my beautiful colleagues in the disability and civil rights
movement.
My relationship with Yoshiko Dart includes, but also transcends, love as
the word is normally defined. She is my wife, my partner, my mentor, my
leader and my inspiration to believe that the human dream can live. She is
the greatest human being I ever known.
Yoshiko, beloved colleagues, I am the luckiest man in the world to have
been associated with you. Thanks to you, I die free. Thanks to you, I die in
the joy of struggle. Thanks to you, I die in the beautiful belief that the
revolution of empowerment will go on. I love you so much.
I'm with you always. Lead on!
Lead on!
- Justin Dart
"WE BELIEVE IN
YOU.
WE LOVE YOU.
TOGETHER
WE SHALL OVERCOME."
- Justin and Yoshiko Dart
Photo by Matt Mendelsohn |
