I still remember the day I was five and my mother had taken me to register for kindergarten. My mother helped me put on a nice dress, pushed me to school, and pulled my wheelchair up the steps. But the principal refused to allow me to enter. “Judy is a fire hazard,” he said, explaining to my shocked mother how the school system saw wheelchairs as a dangerous obstruction. Children who used wheelchairs were not permitted to attend school. I would stay home.
