Cone Was an Advocate for Equality and Disability Rights
Kitty Cone was a disability rights activist who had muscular dystrophy. She was heavily involved with the disability rights movement of the 1970s.
Cone is widely recognized as a key leader of the 26-day occupation of the San Francisco federal building in 1977, along with Judy Heumann, that spurred then U.S. Health Education and Welfare Secretary, Joseph Califano, to sign regulations implementing Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, the first U.S. disability civil rights law.
After the Section 504 regulations were signed, Cone focused on transportation. She pursued implementation of Section 504 by protesting at the San Francisco Transbay Terminal in 1978, organizing Disabled People’s Civil Rights Day in October 1979 in San Francisco, and lobbying in Washington against the Cleveland Amendment, which would have allowed local agencies to provide paratransit services instead of creating accessible public transportation systems.
In 1990, Cone began working at the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund’s lawyer referral service and eventually became DREDF’s developmental director.
Cone passed away on March 21, 2015, just weeks shy of her 71st birthday, of pancreatic cancer.