Harriet McBryde Johnson

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Harriet McBryde Johnson (July 8, 1957 - June 4, 2008) was an American author, attorney, and disability rights activist. She was disabled due to a neuromuscular disease and used a motorized wheelchair.

Johnson, who was born in eastern North Carolina, lived most of her life in Charleston, South Carolina.^[1]

In 2002 Harriet Johnson debated Peter Singer, challenging his belief that parents ought to be able to euthanize their disabled children. Johnson's account of her encounters with Singer and the pro-euthanasia movement was published in the New York Times Magazine in 2003.

She wrote Too Late to Die Young in 2005 and Accidents of Nature in 2006.

During her career as an attorney she specialized in helping people who couldn't work get Social Security benefits. She was also chairwoman of the Charleston County Democratic Party. She showed support for Congress during the Terri Schiavo case.^[2]

In 1990 she drew national attention for her opposition to the annual Jerry Lewis muscular dystrophy telethon. Lewis told the Chicago Tribune he had no intention of making peace with opponents such as Johnson. He likened the idea of meeting with them to entertaining Hezbollah or insurgents in Iraq. Johnson described the telethon as "the charity mentality" and decried its "pity-based tactics".

In 2003 Johnson was named Person of the Year by New Mobility.

Johnson died at home on June 4, 2008.^[3][4]

[edit] Published works

• Power Dressing (December 1998)

• A Celebration for the Day of the Dead (October 1999)
• “Overlooked in the Shadows (March 2005)

• Return to Cuba (May 1998)

• Unspeakable Conversations (February 2003)

• The Disability Gulag (November 2003)

• Stairway to Justice (May 2004)

• Not Dead at All: Why Congress was right to stick up for Terri Schiavo ( March 2005)

• Schiavo’s Disability Rights (March 2005)

• “Wheelchair Unbound (April 2006)

• Conventional Wisdom (September 2000)

• Too Young to Die: Nearly True Stories From a Life (2005)

• Accidents of Nature (2006)

• Alas for Tiny Tim, He Became a Christmas Cliché (December 2006)

• 13 Questions,” BBC Ouch! (May 2008)

[edit] References