When, at age 14, the polio virus paralyzed her body, Jacqueline de las Carreras traded her dream of becoming a classical dancer for an activism in the fight for the labor rights of people with disabilities. She was a pioneer who, in the 70s, spoke out about access to work, education, and housing while the world held a paternalistic and exclusionary view. “People rejected you, they avoided your gaze,” she says today at 87.