{{Short description|American disability rights activist}} {{Infobox person | name = Kitty Cone | birth_date = {{Birth date|1944|4|7}} | birth_place = Champaign, Illinois | death_date = {{Death date and age|2015|3|21|1944|4|7}} | death_place = Berkeley, California | occupation = Activist | relatives = Hutchinson I. Cone (grandfather)<br>William Eleroy Curtis (great-grandfather)<ref name="molly">{{cite news |title=Molly Mattis Wed Yesterday to Capt. Cone |work=The Sunday Star |date=15 November 1942}}</ref><ref name="Lu 2021"/> | known_for = Activism for individuals with disabilities }} '''Kitty Cone''' (April 7, 1944 – March 21, 2015) was an American disability rights activist.<ref name="fof">{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.fofweb.com/History/MainPrintPage.asp?iPin=EADH0161&DataType=AmericanHistory&WinType=Free|title=Kitty Cone, Facts On File, Inc., 2009. American History Online; Facts on File information obtained from ''Encyclopedia of American Disability History''|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of American Disability History|access-date=2015-01-26|archive-date=2015-01-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150128132019/http://www.fofweb.com/History/MainPrintPage.asp?iPin=EADH0161&DataType=AmericanHistory&WinType=Free|url-status=dead}}</ref> She had muscular dystrophy.<ref name="cdlib.org">{{cite web|url=http://www.oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt1w1001mt&brand=oac4&doc.view=entire_text|title=Political Organizer for Disability Rights, 1970s-1990s, and Strategist for Section 504 Demonstrations, 1977|work=cdlib.org}}</ref> She moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1972, and began working as a community organizer for the disability rights movement in 1974.<ref name="RossRoss2012">{{cite book|author1=Joy D. Griffith|author2= Karen Gibson|author3=Joy D. Ross|title=Old Lesbians and Their Brief Moments of Fame|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Bmrbmw17D74C&pg=PT51|date=23 August 2012|publisher=Xlibris Corporation|isbn=978-1-4771-5650-6|pages=51–}}</ref>{{Self-published inline|certain=yes|date=January 2018}}
==Early life== Curtis Seldon Cone (Kitty) was born on April 7, 1944, in Champaign, Illinois.<ref name="Cone Illinois">{{cite web|last1=Cone|first1=Kitty|title=Kitty Richmond Cone|url=https://archives.library.illinois.edu/erec/University%20Archives/1303023/CD6_KittyCone_9-24-2009/ConeKitty%20Richmond--%209-24-09Archives.pdf|website=University of Illinois Archive|access-date=17 August 2017|archive-date=17 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170817204752/https://archives.library.illinois.edu/erec/University%20Archives/1303023/CD6_KittyCone_9-24-2009/ConeKitty%20Richmond--%209-24-09Archives.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> Their family moved to Florida once her father returned from World War II.<ref name="Cone Illinois"/> Her father was a lawyer during their time in Florida, but left the firm, joined the army once again, and the family moved to Georgia.<ref name="Cone Illinois"/>
Around age fifteen, she was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy.<ref name="Lu 2021" /><ref name="Cone Illinois"/> Once the family was in Georgia, Cone began receiving treatment for her disability, which at that time, was misdiagnosed.<ref name="Cone Illinois"/> A few years later, she moved with her family to Maryland, where she began receiving surgeries at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The surgeries and treatments had a worsening effect on Cone.
She moved with her mother back to Champaign during the time that her father was serving with the army in Japan. During her early teen years, Cone had walking casts to stretch out her tendons in her legs, but did not use crutches at the time.<ref name="Cone Illinois"/> Her diagnosis changed around this time from cerebral palsy to polio. After another couple surgeries, she began using a cane to walk. Where Cone attended school, at Holton Arms school in Washington, D.C., the school buildings were several stories high. Her cousins, who attended there as well, began carrying her up the stairs to attend classes.<ref name="Cone Illinois"/>
When Cone was in her mid-teens, her family moved to Kentucky. This was the first time she witnessed overt racism, attributing that to her school's segregation. It was in Kentucky that she got involved with civic activities.
Being unhappy in Kentucky, her parents applied to several boarding schools in Washington, D.C. She attended Mount Vernon Seminary.<ref name="Lu 2021">{{cite news |last1=Lu |first1=Wendy |title=Overlooked No More: Kitty Cone, Trailblazer of the Disability Rights Movement |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/26/obituaries/kitty-cone-overlooked.html |access-date=28 March 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=March 26, 2021}}</ref> She was successful in academics and very popular, but was expelled after one semester. Cone had various rules imposed only on her, and her failure to follow some of them led to her expulsion.<ref name="Lu 2021"/> Due to her disability and her father being in the military, Cone attended a total of thirteen schools.<ref name="Cone Illinois"/>
She attended the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.<ref name="Lu 2021" /> She began using a wheelchair on campus and had to learn how to do daily activities while using a wheelchair. She was active in cheerleading and Student Senate. While running for Student Senate, she was interviewed by Roger Ebert, who at the time, was editor of ''The Daily Illini''.<ref name="Cone Illinois"/> At the end of her first year of college, her mother died suddenly. She had cancer, but Cone did not know about it. It is said her mother was misdiagnosed with what was referred to as nerves.<ref name="Cone Illinois"/> She finished the semester, but returned home after the semester was over to help with her younger brother and stayed home through the fall semester of 1963. Her next year of school she got involved with the NAACP.<ref name="Cone Illinois"/> It was at this time that she was heavily involved with the Civil Rights Movement.<ref name="Cone Illinois"/>
She was becoming weaker about her second year of college and appealed to the Dean to move off campus into an apartment of her own, so she might experience living on her own before she was physically unable to do so.<ref name="Cone Illinois"/> She also noted the dormitory curfew imposed on women at the time was hard to make when she was so active in the community. The Dean had her consult with the head of her academic program. The head of her program said something about her getting weaker because of all the protests she participated in and then hinted that she only wanted to live on her own so she could have sexual relationships.<ref name="Cone Illinois"/>
During her time on campus, she and other students with disabilities were advised to not ask for or accept help from other students, so as to not appear weak or unfit for employment.<ref name="Cone Illinois"/> Cone left college six hours from her degree.<ref name="Cone Illinois"/>
==Activism== During her time at University of Illinois, Cone organized and participated in activism about the Vietnam war, civil rights, and poverty.<ref name="Celebrating Kitty"/>
In the spring of 1967, Cone moved to New York and continued her Anti-War efforts she started while at the University of Illinois.
After short stints in Chicago and Atlanta, Cone moved to Oakland, California in 1974 and connected with the Center for Independent Living.<ref name="Cone Illinois"/> She liked the work they were doing and approached Ed Roberts about working with the Center for Independent Living. Cone had experience in political organizing, so she was hired for the Community Affairs Department. For years, she worked in the Community Affairs Department doing health and welfare lobbying, organizing local, state, and national political efforts, and worked on architectural and transportation barriers to access. It was there that she organized a coalition and began getting ramps and curb cuts installed in Oakland.<ref name="Cone Illinois"/>
Cone organized and participated in the 504 Sit-in.<ref name="Lu 2021" /> Initially Joseph Califano, U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, refused to sign meaningful regulations for Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which was the first U.S. federal civil rights protection for people with disabilities.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://dredf.org/504site/histover.html|title=Short History of the 504 Sit in|work=dredf.org|access-date=2015-01-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160909052739/http://dredf.org/504site/histover.html|archive-date=2016-09-09|url-status=dead}}</ref> After an ultimatum and deadline, demonstrations took place in ten U.S. cities on April 5, 1977, including the beginning of the 504 Sit-in at the San Francisco Office of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. This sit-in, led by Judith Heumann and Cone,<ref name="Lu 2021" /> lasted until May 4, 1977, a total of 28 days, with more than 150 people refusing to leave.<ref name="Celebrating Kitty"/> It is the longest sit-in at a federal building to date. Joseph Califano signed the unaltered regulations on April 28, 1977.<ref name="Timeline">{{cite web|url=http://isc.temple.edu/neighbor/ds/disabilityrightstimeline.htm |title=Disability History Timeline |year=2002 |work=Rehabilitation Research & Training Center on Independent Living Management |publisher=Temple University |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131220065328/http://isc.temple.edu/neighbor/ds/disabilityrightstimeline.htm |archive-date=2013-12-20 }}</ref><ref name="Berkeley">{{cite web|url=http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/drilm/resources/timeline.html|title=The Regents of the University of California. 2008. "The Disability Rights and Independent Living Movement." Berkeley, CA: The University of California Berkeley|access-date=6 October 2014|archive-date=25 December 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111225060906/http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/drilm/resources/timeline.html|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="disabilityhistory.org">{{cite web|url=http://www.disabilityhistory.org/people.html#heumann|title=Disability Social History Project, article title Famous (and not-so-famous) People with Disabilities|access-date=6 October 2014|archive-date=27 February 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180227074113/http://www.disabilityhistory.org/people.html#heumann|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.disabilityhistory.org/dwa/edge/curriculum/gov_contenta7.htm|title=EDGE - Curriculum - Biology|work=disabilityhistory.org|access-date=2015-02-04|archive-date=2015-01-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150123052011/http://www.disabilityhistory.org/dwa/edge/curriculum/gov_contenta7.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt1w1001mt&brand=oac4&doc.view=entire_text|title=Political Organizer for Disability Rights, 1970s-1990s, and Strategist for Section 504 Demonstrations, 1977|work=cdlib.org}}</ref><ref name="fof"/>
During the 504 Sit-in, Cone requested her FBI file and found she was on an FBI list. During her time at University of Illinois, she became Marxist.<ref name="Cone Illinois"/>
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.<ref name="fof"/> In 1984 she began working at the World Institute on Disability, where she researched international personal care assistance programs.<ref name="fof"/> She was among 500 attendees at a protest at the San Francisco City Hall September 27, 1987, while a public transit conference was being held at the Moscone Convention Center.<ref>{{Cite news|date=1987-09-28|title=Wheelchair Protesters Held in San Francisco|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|agency=Associated Press|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/28/us/wheelchair-protesters-held-in-san-francisco.html|access-date=2020-10-23|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> In 1990 she began working for the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF)'s lawyer referral service, and in 1993 she became its development director.<ref name="fof"/> She retired in 1999, but remained active with DREDF.<ref name="Cone Illinois"/><ref name="Celebrating Kitty">{{cite web|last1=Breslin|first1=Mary Lou|title=Celebrating Kitty Cone: 1944 – 2015|url=https://dredf.org/2015/03/25/celebrating-kitty-cone-1944-2015/|website=Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund|date=25 March 2015 |access-date=20 August 2017}}</ref>
==Personal life== Cone was unable to marry her partner, Kathy Martinez, due to legal restrictions on gay marriage.<ref name="Lu 2021" /> In 1981, she moved to Mexico with Martinez and adopted her son Jorge from Mexico.<ref name="Lu 2021" /><ref name="fof"/><ref name="cdlib.org"/><ref name="RossRoss2012"/><ref name="Cone Illinois"/><ref name="Celebrating Kitty"/> She was an alcoholic and stopped drinking in the 1970s.<ref name="Cone Illinois"/>
==Death== Cone died on March 21, 2015, of pancreatic cancer<ref name="Lu 2021" /> in Berkeley, California, two weeks shy of her 71st birthday.
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20160909052739/http://dredf.org/504site/histover.html Short History of the 504 Sit in, by Kitty Cone] *[https://californiarevealed.org/islandora/object/cavpp%3A21824 Video Interview of Kitty Cone about her Life] *[https://oac.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt1w1001mt/?brand=oac4 Oral Interview Transcript of Kitty Cone Interview]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cone, Kitty}} Category:American disability rights activists Category:American activists with disabilities Category:People with muscular dystrophy Category:American women human rights activists Category:Activists from the San Francisco Bay Area Category:LGBTQ American activists Category:LGBTQ people from San Francisco Category:LGBTQ people from Illinois Category:University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni Category:People from Champaign, Illinois Category:American lesbians Category:1944 births Category:2015 deaths Category:Place of birth missing