|
|
| |
| |
Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Justin Dart Jr.
JUSTIN DART
Awarded by
President Ronald Reagan
June 23, 1987
A leading entrepreneur, Justin Dart has made vital contributions to America that will long be remembered. Considered a revolutionary by his trade, he was already head of the largest drug company in the world at the age of 35, and his sure hand would soon transform the business. Justin Dart became a leading force in politics and an adviser to the President, valued not only for his business acumen but his courageous championing of political and economic liberty. Justin Dart's life stands as eloquent testimony to the creative force of freedom.
Justin Dart Jr. is often referred to as the Martin Luther King of the disability movement In response to the announcement of the award, Dart sent the following statement to his "colleagues in justice."
President Clinton has announced that he will give me the Medal of Freedom. I accept this honor not for myself, but as a symbolic representative of the fundamental principles of democracy which I share with the President and with you. Most of all, I accept it as a fitting tribute to your sacrifices and dedication over the years for the rights and empowerment of people with and without disabilities. This medal belongs to each one of you. I am so proud to be one of you. I will fight at your side until the last breath.
Lead on. Lead on.
I LOVE YOU.
Justin Dart
Justin and Yoshiko Dart at the awards ceremony.
President Clinton presenting the Medal of Freedom to Justin Dart. Mrs. Clinton is standing in the background.
Disabilities activist Justin Dart Jr. dies
June 22, 2002 Posted: 2:00 PM EDT (1800 GMT)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Justin Dart Jr., an activist who for more than five decades worked in his wheelchair to champion the cause of people with disabilities, died in Washington Saturday at age 71.
Dart was regarded among the fathers of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the landmark 1990 civil rights law for the disabled, and in 1998 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Clinton.
"He was one of our country's greatest warriors in the fight for civil rights for people with disabilities," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts. "He was a friend of mine, and I will miss him very much."
Born in Chicago in 1930, Dart contracted polio in 1948 and used a wheelchair since then. He began working for the disabled from that time, when he was a student at the University of Houston, and went on to become chairman of the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities in the Reagan administration.
That appointment came after Dart quit as commissioner of the Education Department's rehabilitation agency after he complained in testimony to Congress about the government's "paternalistic attitudes about disability."
In 1990 he received the first pen used by former President Bush at the signing ceremony for the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Dart founded and was chief executive of Japan Tupperware Inc. His father, the late Justin Dart, was a California industrialist and close friend of President Reagan.
Dart is survived by his wife Yoshiko and five daughters. His niece, Mari Dart, said the family plans a private memorial service to be followed by a large celebration on July 26, the 12th anniversary of the ADA.
Justin W. Dart, Jr. (August 29, 1930 – June 22, 2002) “My experience has convinced me that 35-50 million Americans with disabilities will never achieve their legitimate goals completely until we can communicate into the consciousness, the law, and the daily life of this nation the self-evident truths that disability is a universally common characteristic of the normal human condition, and that people with disabilities have the same inalienable rights and the same inalienable responsibilities as other people. Establishing these rights will require not only massive campaigns of education and advocacy, but also strong leadership by government, including the enactment and enforcement of federal, state, and local legislation extending full civil rights coverage to all people with disabilities.” – Justin Dart, Jr. to the oversight hearing on the Rehabilitation Services Administration held by the Select Education Subcommittee of the House Committee on Education and Labor, March 16, 1988.
 Justin W. Dart, Jr., leader of the disability rights movement and a renowned human rights activist, died June 22, 2002 in his home in Washington, DC, at age 71. Dart had for the past several years struggled with the complications of post-polio syndrome and congestive heart failure. His wife, Yoshiko, and their extended family of foster children, and five daughters from his previous marriages survive him. Dart was born August 29, 1930 into a wealthy and prominent family. His grandfather was the founder of the Walgreen Drugstore chain, his father a successful business executive, his mother a matron of the American avant garde. Dart once described how he became “a super loser” as a way of establishing his own identity in this family of “super winners.” He attended seven high schools, not graduating from any of them. “People didn’t like me. I didn’t like myself.” Dart contracted polio in 1948 when he was 18. With doctors saying he had less than three days to live, he was admitted into the Seventh Day Adventist Medical University in Los Angeles. “For the first time in my life I was surrounded by people who were openly expressing love for each other, and for me, even though I was hostile to them. So I started smiling at people, and saying nice things to them. And they responded, treating me even better. It felt so good!” Polio left Dart a wheelchair user. “I count the good days in my life from the time I got polio. Those beautiful people not only saved my life, they made it worth saving." Dart went into business in 1956, building several successful companies in Mexico and Japan, including Japan Tupperware. Dart used his businesses to provide work for women and people with disabilities. It was during this time he met his third wife, Yoshiko. A defining moment in Dart’s life came during a visit to Vietnam in 1966, to investigate the status of rehabilitation in that war-torn country. Visiting a “rehabilitation center” for children with polio, Dart instead found squalid conditions where disabled children were left on concrete floors to starve. One child, a young girl dying there before him, took his hand and looked into his eyes. “That scene,” he would later write, “is burned forever in my soul. For the first time in my life I understood the reality of evil, and that I was a part of that reality.” The Darts returned to Japan, terminated their business interests, and, after a period of meditation, decided to dedicate themselves entirely to the cause of human and disability rights. Moving to Texas in 1974, they immersed themselves in local disability activism. From 1980 to 1985, Dart was a member, and then chair, of the Texas Governor’s Committee for Persons with Disabilities. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan appointed Dart to be the vice-chair of the National Council on Disability. The Darts embarked on a nationwide tour, at their own expense, meeting with activists in every state. Dart and others on the Council drafted a national policy that called for national civil rights legislation to end the centuries-old discrimination of people with disabilities. In 1986, Dart was appointed the head the Rehabilitation Services Administration under the Department of Education. He called for radical change in the way the $3 billion agency was being run and urged that people with disabilities be included in every aspect of program implementation and design. His tenure with the agency was short-lived, however, after he delivered what he called a “statement of conscience” in an open congressional hearing, saying the agency was “afflicted ... by profound problems in areas such as management, personnel, and resource utilization.” In 1988, he was appointed, along with parents’ advocate Elizabeth Boggs, to chair the Congressional Task Force on the Rights and Empowerment of Americans with Disabilities. The Darts again toured the country at their own expense, visiting every state, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the District of Columbia, holding public forums attended by more than 30,000 people. Dart touted the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as “the civil rights act of the future.” The ADA was signed into law on July 26, 1990. In 1989, Dart was appointed chair of the President’s Committee on the Employment of People with Disabilities, shifting its focus from its traditional stance of urging business to “hire the handicapped” to advocating for full civil rights for people with disabilities. After passage of the ADA, Dart threw his energy into the fight for universal health care. With its defeat, Dart was among the first to identify the coming backlash against disability rights. He resigned all his positions to be-come “a full-time citizen soldier in the trenches of justice.” With the conservative Republican victory in Congress in 1994, followed by calls to amend or even repeal the ADA and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (or IDEA), Dart, and disability rights advocates Becky Ogle and Frederick Fay, founded Justice for All (www.jfanow.org), now a service of the American Association of People with Disabilities (www.aapd-dc.org).
 Justin’s wish was that any service or commemoration be used by activists to celebrate the movement, and as an opportunity to recommit him or herself to “the revolution of empowerment.”
Accepting the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Clinton, 1998.
Justin Dart (far right) at the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act by President George Bush, 1990 Courtesy of Yoshiko Dart
|
|
|
|
|
|
Medal History
