Harriet McBryde Johnson

Harriet McBryde Johnson (July 8, 1957 – June 4, 2008 ) was an American author, attorney, and disability rights activist. She was disabled due to a neuromuscular disease and used a motorized wheelchair.

Biography Harriet McBryde Johnson was born in eastern North Carolina, July 8, 1957, in Laurinburg, one of five children by David and Ada Johnson. Her parents were college teachers. It also served as inspiration for The Thrill, a 2013 play by Judith Thompson partly based on Johnson's life.

She published a memoir, Too Late to Die Young: Nearly True Tales From a Life, in 2005 and a novel, Accidents of Nature, in 2006.

During Johnson's career as an attorney, she specialized in helping clients who could not work in receiving Social Security benefits. She was also chairwoman of the Charleston County Democratic Party. Regarding the attention her writings about the Terri Schiavo case received by the press, she commented: In 1990 she voiced her opposition to the annual Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Telethon.

Johnson died in her sleep at home on June 4, 2008.

Awards and honors In 2003 Johnson was named Person of the Year by New Mobility.

Published works Return to Cuba (May 1998) Power Dressing (December 1998) A Celebration for the Day of the Dead (October 1999) Conventional Wisdom (September 2000) Unspeakable Conversations, The New York Times, (February 16, 2003, also published in the book Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century by Alice Wong, 2020) The Disability Gulag, The New York Times, (November 2003) Stairway to Justice, The New York Times, (May 2004) Not Dead at All: Why Congress was right to stick up for Terri Schiavo Slate (magazine), (March 23, 2005) Schiavo's Disability Rights, NPR, (March 2005) "Overlooked in the Shadows, The Washington Post, (March 2005) Too Late to Die Young: Nearly True Stories From a Life (2005, ) Wheelchair Unbound, The New York Times, (April 2006) Accidents of Nature (2006) Alas for Tiny Tim, He Became a Christmas Cliché, The New York Times, (December 25, 2006) 13 Questions," BBC Ouch!, BBC, (May 2008)