Justin Whitlock Dart, Jr. (1930-2002) was an American activist. Primarily known as an advocate for the disabled, he helped pass the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. He co-founded the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD).

Background

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Dart came from a wealthy Chicago family. His father, Justin Whitlock Dart, Sr., was an heir to the Walgreen's Drugstore chain.

Dart contracted polio in 1948 before entering the University of Houston, where he earned undergraduate degrees in history and education in 1954; however, the university refused to give him a teaching certificate because of his disability.

Activism

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During his time at the University of Houston, which was then segregated, Dart organized the first student group to oppose racism.

After graduating, Dart was a successful entrepreneur who founded three Japanese corporations, but in 1967 he gave up the corporate life to devote himself to the rights of people with disabilities, working in Texas and Washington, D.C. as a member of various state and federal disability commissions.

Dart refused to support President Reagan's efforts to revise the 1973 Rehabilitation Act. In 1993, he quit his position on the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, on which he had worked tirelessly since being nominated to the position by President George H. W. Bush in 1989. While on the Committee, he worked to help pass the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which Bush signed into law on July 26, with Dart among those on the dais.

After the ADA

Subsequently, Dart founded Justice for All with other activists to defend against congressional attempts to weaken the ADA, including those pushed for by Clint Eastwood. He also organized numerous ADA anniversary events.

Dart received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998. He died June 22, 2002 in Washington, D.C. at 71 of congestive heart failure related to complications of post-polio syndrome.

See also

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• List of disability rights activists

Reference

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• Switzer, Jacqueline Vaughn. Disabled Rights: American Disability Policy and the Fight for Equality. Georgetown University Press, 2003.

Disability rights | American activists | Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients | 1930 births | 2002 deaths