A Renowned Advocate for Disabled Americans Has Died

Alice Wong, a disability rights activist and author whose independence and writing inspired others, died Friday in a San Francisco hospital at age 51, per the AP. Wong—who was born with muscular dystrophy and used a powered wheelchair and an assistive breathing device—died of an infection, said Sandy Ho, a close friend. Ho called Wong a "luminary of the disability justice movement" who wanted to see a world where people with disabilities could have full autonomy over their lives and decisions.

Ho shared a statement that Wong wrote before her death in which she said she never imagined her trajectory would turn out as it did—to writing, activism, and more. "It was thanks to friendships and some great teachers who believed in me that I was able to fight my way out of miserable situations into a place where I finally felt comfortable in my skin," she wrote. "We need more stories about us and our culture."

Wong, the daughter of Hong Kong immigrants, wrote in her 2022 memoir Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life about the bullying and discrimination she endured growing up in Indiana. The one positive is that it drove her "to become more of an advocate and to use that individual anger to help other people," she wrote, per the New York Times. Among other achievements, she founded the Disability Visibility Project to catalog the stories of disabled Americans. Wong was also among the 2024 class of fellows of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, recipients of the "genius grant."