Judy Heumann made it her mission in life to give people with disabilities a voice in the mainstream. An author, activist and Obama administration appointee, Heumann died last Saturday, Mar. 4, at age 75. A cause of death was not immediately given for the longtime resident of Washington, D.C.
Heumann — whose role in the 2020 Oscar-nominated documentary “Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution” introduced her to audiences outside the disability community — spoke in early 2022 at a virtual program presented by the Baltimore Jewish Abilities Alliance.
“There are certain things that we can do within the Jewish community besides having programs that are working on helping disabled people get jobs,” Heumann said during that event. “Everybody who is in a management position, where part of their responsibility is hiring employees, really needs to look at what’s going on within their companies. In the last couple of years, I’ve been speaking with many companies, and there are more companies looking at disability from a diversity perspective, which is great. But I think what you find is as these companies are moving forward and they’re hiring some more disabled people, there are people within the companies who are beginning to self-disclose about their invisible disabilities. They’re also beginning to speak out more about what the companies are not doing.”
A former resident of Baltimore and central Florida, Ritt was active in the Soviet Jewry movement of the 1970s and 1980s.
For more than four decades, Goldman played a vital role in the supervision of elections in the city.
The 16-year-old sophomore succumbed to injuries sustained in a car crash last week in Cockeysville.
A committed philanthropist and community leader, Russel was president of R&H Motors.