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Frederick A. Fay, forceful activist for rights of the disabled, dies at 66
Posted by
JLoFriday, September 02, 2011
From
The Washington Post:
Frederick A. Fay, who was paralyzed in a backyard accident as a teenager in Bethesda, became one of the country’s most prominent advocates for the rights of the disabled and was among the first to draw a connection between disabilities and the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
He was 66 when he died Aug. 20 at his home in Concord, Mass. He had pulmonary failure, according to his brother. (At right, a family photo, Frederick A. Fay spent the final 30 years of his life flat on his back because a cyst in his spinal column would not allow him to sit upright.)
From the age of 17, when he founded a counseling group for people with spinal cord injuries, Dr. Fay was a leading organizer of coalitions to battle discrimination against the disabled.
Through the years, as his own disability left him permanently bedridden, he remained a forceful national voice in demanding that the disabled have full access to buildings, services and the chance for an independent life.
Dr. Fay was guided by the same principles that had toppled racial barriers during the nation’s civil rights struggles. He helped disabled Americans gain recognition as a minority group that had long suffered from discrimination.
“He is one of the first people to envision disability rights as a civil rights issue,” filmmaker Eric Neudel said in an interview. “He was thinking that way as early as 1963.”
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