Frederick Fay was just 16 when a backyard trapeze accident left him a quadriplegic. He refused to let the devastating injury slow him down. Within days of leaving the hospital, he had rigged a way to do his trigonometry homework while lying on his back. The next year, Fay founded a support group for people with spinal cord injuries. That turned out to be the beginning of Fay’s 50 years of activism on behalf of disabled Americans.
After graduating from the University of Illinois with a psychology degree, Fay did rehabilitation research at Tufts University, said The Washington Post. But his main job was battling discrimination. Fay was “one of the first people to envision disability rights as a civil-rights issue,” said filmmaker Eric Neudel. He became a national voice in demanding full access to buildings and a chance for an independent life for the disabled, counseling presidential candidates and promoting the Americans With Disabilities Act.
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