List of disability rights activists

A disability-rights activist or disability-rights advocate is someone who works towards the equality of people with disabilities. Such a person is generally considered a member of the disability-rights movement and/or the independent-living movement.

A

• Javed Abidi – Director of the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) in India
• Fatima al-Aqel – lost her sight in college. Al-Aqel opened the first school for blind women in Yemen in 1995.
• Jamala al-Baidhani – was paralyzed from complications due to meningitis. Created the Al-Tahadi Association for Disabled Females, the first group in Yemen devoted to helping girls with disabilities.

B

• Gabriela Brimmer – had cerebral palsy; life chronicled in the American-Mexican drama film Gaby: A True Story (1987), directed by Luis Mandoki
• Marca Bristo, cofounded the (American) National Council on Independent Living (NCIL) with Max Starkloff and Charlie Carr
• Lydia Brown – autism advocate and writer

C

• Jane Campbell, Baroness Campbell of Surbiton – had spinal muscular atrophy and was a commissioner of the British Disability Rights Commission
• Charlie Carr – cofounder of National Council on Independent Living, Boston Center for Independent Living and founder and CEO of The Northeast Independent Living Program in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Went on to become Commissioner of the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission under Gov. Deval Patrick. Long-time Massachusetts community activist and cross-disability coalition builder
• Liz Carr – British actress, stand-up comedian, broadcaster and international disability rights activist
• Judi Chamberlin – American activist, leader, organizer, public speaker and educator in the psychiatric survivors movement; her political activism followed her involuntary confinement in a psychiatric facility in the 1960s the author of On Our Own: Patient-Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System, which is a foundational text in the Mad Pride movement
• James I Charlton – Activist who feels disability is socially constructed and author of Nothing About Us Without Us.
• Claudia Cockburn – British activist for transportation accessibility
• Tony Coelho – Former congressman from California who lived with epilepsy; primary author and U.S. House sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act
• Rebecca Cokley – Executive Director of the National Council on Disability
• Diane Coleman – disability rights activist and president of Not Dead Yet

D

• Justin Whitlock Dart, Jr. – Co-founder of the American Association of People with Disabilities; had post-polio syndrome.
• Nyle DiMarco – Activist and Spokesperson for LEAD-K, 'Language Equality and Acquisition for Deaf Kids' campaign for American Sign Language and English in education setting.
• Rich Donovan – Economist and founder of the Return On Disability Index
• Stephan Drake – disability activist and staff advocate of Not Dead Yet.
• Theresa Ducharme – Founder of the disabled-rights advocacy group People in Equal Participation Inc. in 1981; the organization's chair for many years thereafter

E

• Dominick Evans - Filmmaker, activist, founder of #FilmDis. Media & Entertainment advocate for Center for Disability Rights in New York.
• Edward Evans – Chairman of the UK Ministry of Health Health Advisory Committee on Handicapped Persons from 1949 to 1960

F

• Fred Fay – American advocate for disabled persons.
• Julie Fernandez – Actress with osteogenesis imperfecta; founded The Disability Foundation; active on presentation of the disabled.
• Catherine Frazee – Co-director of Ryerson University's Institute for Disability Studies Research and Education
• Lex Frieden – Chairman of the National Council on Disability from 2002-2006; key developer of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
• Judy Fryd – founded group that became Mencap
• Vic Finkelstein – South African born activist and academic, pioneer of the social model of disability.

G

• Marilyn Golden – disability transportation activist, activist against assisted suicide

H

• Ari Heck - Brazilian Representer of the Disabled Server Core of Sintrajufe- Rio grande do sul.
• Laura Hershey – protested MDA Labor Day Telethon; a feminist born with a form of muscular dystrophy
• Judith Heumann – wheelchair user who co-founded the World Institute on Disability; served as its co-director from 1983 to 1993; became the Special Advisor for International Disability Rights at the U.S. Department of State
• Dr Paul Harpur - Guide dog user, Paralympian, lawyer and disability rights advocate and scholar.
• Jenny Hyslop - Scottish; secretary of her local branch of the Voluntary Association for Handicapped Persons; later worked for the Disablement Advisory Committee.

I

• Davina Ingrams, 18th Baroness Darcy de Knayth – British Paralympian and Representative peer

J

• Harriet McBryde Johnson – a New Mobility "Person of the Year"; a disability-rights attorney and anti-euthanasia activist.

K

• John B. Kelly – Boston based disability activist, writer, and staff advocate for Not Dead Yet.
• Bonnie Sherr Klein – directed the documentary film Shameless: The ART of Disability (2006)

L

• Paul K. Longmore – an American history professor and activist who was instrumental in the establishment of disability studies as an academic discipline, and in changes to Social Security that granted people with disabilities more rights.

M

• Robert Martin – activist for independent living for disabled people.
• Ron McCallum – member of Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; has been on the National People with Disabilities and Carers Council; Chair of Radio for the Print Handicapped of New South Wales Co-operative Ltd.; the first totally blind person to have been appointed to a full professorship at an Australian university.
• Anne McDonald – activist for independent living for disabled people.
• Kathryn McGee – an American activist who founded the National Association for Down Syndrome and the National Down Syndrome Congress. Her daughter Tricia had Down syndrome.
• Alf Morris – introduced the Chronically Sick & Disabled Persons Act and first "Minister for the Disabled" in Great Britain or anywhere else.

N

• Neema Namadamu - a Women's rights and disability rights activist in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
• Ari Ne'eman – co-creator of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network
• Yetnebersh Nigussie – blind lawyer and disability rights and anti-AIDS activist from Ethiopia. Founded the Ethiopian Center for Disability and Development (ECDD).

O

• Corbett O'Toole—disability rights activist and author in Berkeley, California. Established the National Disabled Women's Educational Equity Project.
• Mary Jane Owen—disability rights activist, philosopher, policy expert and writer who has lived and worked in Washington, D.C. since 1979.

P

• Jean-Christophe Parisot – Founder of Collectif des Démocrates Handicapés.
• Ajith C. S. Perera – Chief Executive Idiriya in Sri Lanka activist in favour of the social model of disability and Inclusive Society
• Richard Pimentel – activist for workplace rights for the disabled.
• Victor Pineda – an American activist and the youngest government delegate to participate in the drafting of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

R

• Alan Reich – a wheelchair user who founded the National Organization on Disability
• Gilberto Rincón Gallardo – Mexican politician with shortened arms who worked on disability issues
• Edward Roberts – the first quadriplegic to attend the University of California, Berkeley; his fight for access at Berkeley spread into seeking access in the community and the development of the first Centre for Independent Living.

S

• Peggy S. Salters – the first survivor of electroshock treatment in the United States to win a jury verdict and a large money judgment ($635,177) in compensation for extensive permanent amnesia and cognitive disability caused by the procedure
• Sandra Schnur – director of the New York City Half-fare Program for the Handicapped; wrote an early guide for disabled in the city; had quadriplegia
• Jim Sinclair – Coordinator and founder of Autism Network International, advisor to Syracuse University's Disability Cultural Center
• Eunice Kennedy Shriver – lifelong advocate for people with intellectual disabilities who founded Special Olympics International in 1968.
• Satendra Singh – a doctor with disability and founder of Enabling Unit.
• Robert Stack – Founder, President and CEO of Community Options.
• Max Starkloff (1937–2010) – founded Paraquad, one of the first independent living centers in the United States, as well as the National Council on Independent Living and the Starkloff Disability Institute; one of the key advocates who brought the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990.

T

• Maria Town – Associate Director for the Office of Public Engagement for the Obama administration.

U

• Chris Underhill – a founder of Thrive and Action on Disability and Development

V

• Lizzie Velásquez – author and public speaker on themes of self-esteem and bullying of young people with disabilities.

W

• Ron Whyte – playwright who was on the President's Committee for the Employment of the Handicapped
• Rev. Harold H. Wilke (1914–2003) – was a prominent UCC minister and founding member of the National Organization on Disability. He delivered the invocation at the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. Born without arms, Reverend Wilke signed the ADA with his foot.
• Alice Wong (disability rights activist)  – founded the Disability Visibility Project
• Patrisha Wright – known as "the General" for her work in coordinating the campaign to enact the Americans with Disabilities Act

Y

• Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah – Ghanaian cyclist with one leg who rode across Ghana to raise awareness and works to increase the number of wheelchairs in his country

Z

• Frieda Zames – a mathematics professor, writer and advocate for access to all aspects of public life, especially transportation. As an official of Disabled in Action, she campaigned for wheelchair access on New York City buses, ferries and taxis and buildings like the Empire State Building. With her sister, Zames wrote the book, The Disability Rights Movement: From Charity to Confrontation.