Harriet McBryde Johnson

Harriet McBryde Johnson went to schools for children with disabilities until age thirteen and to a cross-disability summer camp until age seventeen. She kept in contact with some of her friends from those times throughout her life. Having continued her education in regular schools, she became a lawyer in 1985. Her solo practice emphasizes benefits and civil rights claims for poor and working people with disabilities.

Ms. Johnson wrote for the New York Times Magazine and was a frequent contributor to the disability press. She was also the author of a memoir, Too Late to Die Young.

For more than twenty-five years, she has been active in the struggle for social justice, especially disability rights. She holds the world endurance record (fourteen years without interruption) for protesting the Jerry Lewis telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. She served the City of Charleston Democratic Party for eleven years, first as secretary and then as chair.
Harriet died in June 2008.