Bay Area disability rights advocates mourn Alice Wong, talk about her impact

"Wong was a mentee of pioneering independent living advocate Judy Heumann, who was an early leader at Pineda's organization, established in 1972 as the first independent living center in the country, organized and operated by persons with disabilities. Pineda said Wong, who often employed new technology in her work, acted as a bridge connecting the lessons from the first generation she'd learned from Heumann to the incoming third and fourth generations of the movement, largely through social media."

"Wong was born with spinal muscular atrophy and grew up in Indiana, one of three sisters born to parents who immigrated to the U.S. from Hong Kong. She attended Indiana University at Indianapolis, then went on to attend graduate school at the University of California San Francisco before working there as a researcher and advocating for greater accessibility and accommodations for people with disabilities."

Alice Wong was a San Francisco disability justice advocate and MacArthur Foundation Fellow who died Nov. 14 at age 51. She connected the Bay Area's 1960s disability rights movement to newer generations of activists. Wong trained under Judy Heumann and maintained ties to the independent living movement embodied by the Center for Independent Living in Berkeley. She founded the Disability Visibility Project in 2014 to make, share and amplify disability media and culture, encompassing oral histories, a podcast, a blog, art and social media. Wong was born with spinal muscular atrophy, studied at Indiana University Indianapolis and UCSF, worked as a researcher advocating for accessibility, edited two essay collections and wrote a memoir.

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