Disability rights activist Alice Wong dies in hospital aged 51

Alice Wong, the acclaimed disability rights activist and author whose work profoundly inspired others, has died aged 51.

Wong passed away on Friday at a San Francisco hospital due to an infection, confirmed Sandy Ho, a close friend who had been in touch with her family.

Ho hailed her friend as a “luminary of the disability justice movement.”

She said Wong envisioned a world where disabled people, particularly those from marginalized demographics such as people of colour, LGBTQ individuals, and immigrants, could live freely with full autonomy.

The daughter of Hong Kong immigrants, Wong was diagnosed in childhood with a progressive neuromuscular disability.

She used a powered wheelchair and an assistive breathing device.

On social media, Ho shared a statement 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. We need more stories about us and our culture,” Wong wrote.

She advocated “getting people out of institutions and remaining in the community,” Ho said.

Wong’s works — including books she authored and edited and the Disability Visibility Project blog she started — shared her writing and voices and the perspectives of others, Ho said.

Wong was a funny person and a hilarious writer, not an easy skill, Ho said. Her memoir Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life is filled with humorous snippets but also humanizes disability, Ho said.

The legacy of Wong’s work is that people with disabilities “speak for themselves and that nobody speaks for us,” Ho said.

Wong was among the 2024 class of fellows of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, recipients of the “genius grant.”