Fred Fay

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Fred Fay won the 1997 Henry B. Betts Award for outstanding achievement in civil rights for Americans with disabilities. Fay was recognized for "flat-out advocacy" over several decades. He helped lead the nationwide efforts by disability advocates to secure passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

Frederick Allan Fay, Ph.D., was born on September 12, 1944, and raised in Washington, DC. At age 16, he sustained a cervical spinal cord injury, and started using a manual wheelchair for mobility. At 17, he launched his disability advocacy career by co-founding "Opening Doors," a counseling and information center.

Fay almost single-handedly made the University of Illinois one of the nation's first wheelchair-accessible universities while he was a student there. A few years later, he was a founder of the Boston Center for Independent Living, the Massachusetts Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities, and of the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities. He was ACCD's first president, from 1974 to 1976.

Fay worked for many years at the Tufts New England Medical Center, until syringomyelia made it impossible for him to sit upright. For the past quarter century, Fred has worked from his home in Concord, Massachusetts. In the early years, he used a headset to speak and listen on the phone, plus a personal computer mounted on a stand near his motorized bed. Today, he has an electronic workstation suspended over the bed.

It was from there that Fay launched, and continues to support, the Justice for All forum that compiles and distributes disability rights information to his wide network of friends and allies.

One of the visionaries of the disability rights movement, Fay continues in 2006 to provide leadership to disability advocates. He is beloved in the movement for his irrepressible enthusiasm and optimism.