Justin Dart was born into a family of wealth. At age 18, he contracted polio right before entering college. He persisted in completing his education, earning degrees in both history and education. Unfortunately, the University of Houston would not give him a teaching certificate because of his disability.
While Dart was a successful entrepreneur, he discontinued his business career to advocate for the rights of people with disabilities. He and his wife went on a nationwide campaign to help organize activists for disabled persons’ rights. He funded the campaign out of his own resources. The campaign was often a challenge because of the lack of accommodations for persons with disabilities.
Working in and out of government, Dart was able to get Congress to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990. Once the ADA was passed, there were attempts to weaken the legislation. Dart continued to fight for the rights of people with disabilities, even after suffering from serious heart ailments brought on by the polio he had as a teen.
Dart was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Clinton. He is known today as the Father of the ADA.
As he was dying, he wrote a challenge to all of us. “Listen to the heart of this old soldier. Our lives, our children’s lives, the quality of the lives of billions in future generations hangs in the balance. I cry out to you from the depths of my being. Humanity needs you. Lead! Lead! Lead the revolution of empowerment. Lead on!”
As our society has evolved into a divergence of haves and have nots, Dart portrayed the best of us. Born into a family of great wealth, he decided to devote his wealth, social standing, and personal life to the needs of others. While he had a disability, he could have been cared for by the best treatment available. Instead, he put himself in situations which were very uncomfortable to him to lift up those who didn’t have his resources.
While few of us will have Dart’s financial resources, we can still Lead On for those who don’t have the resources we do have. All of us have causes we care about. Many of us volunteer our time and resources to these causes. But do we Lead On? Do we energize others to support the causes we believe in? Do we become cranky when we see wrongs? Do we advocate for righting these wrongs? Few of us have the national platform that Dart had, but all of us can Lead On at a local level. At the very least, we can become Lead On role models to others in our family and to our associates.
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“The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.”
– John F. Kennedy