DISABILITY RIGHTS ADVOCATE AND AUTHOR ALICE WONG DIES AT 51.(PHOTO).

 Disability rights advocate and author Alice Wong dies at 51

Alice Wong, a pioneering disability rights advocate and author, has died at the age of 51. Wong passed away on Friday at the University of California, San Francisco hospital due to an infection. Her friend and fellow activist Sandy Ho described her as a “hysterical friend, writer, activist, and disability justice luminary whose influence was outsized,” highlighting the lasting impact of her Disability Visibility Project on American culture. Wong’s family remembered her as a “fierce luminary in disability justice, a brilliant writer, editor, and community organizer,” quoting her own words from her memoir Year of the Tiger about the power of connection and memory.

Born in 1974 in the Indianapolis suburbs to immigrant parents from Hong Kong, Wong was diagnosed at birth with muscular dystrophy, a condition that doctors said would prevent her from reaching adulthood. Despite these challenges, she earned a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis and a master’s from UCSF, where she worked for more than a decade while advancing disability advocacy. Wong founded the Disability Visibility Project in 2014, encouraging disabled people to share their stories through oral histories, social media, and other platforms. She also co-founded the #CripTheVote movement, served on the National Council on Disability under President Obama, and became the first person to attend a White House event via telepresence robot. Wong’s memoir and other writings celebrated living unapologetically as a disabled person, blending activism with personal passions like cooking, science fiction, and caring for her cats. Even in her later years, she embraced technology to communicate, calling herself a “disabled cyborg” after relying on digital text-to-speech devices following medical emergencies in 2022. Throughout her life, Wong worked tirelessly to amplify disabled voices and challenge systemic ableism, leaving a profound legacy in both literature and advocacy.