The National
Spinal Cord
Injury Association

Disability in the News Archive

Evan J. Kemp, Jr. Dies at Age 60

"The disability community lost a powerful figure on Thursday, August 12, when Evan J. Kemp, Jr., former chair of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and co-founder of Evan Kemp Associates, Inc., died at the George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C. He was 60.
Mr. Kemp had Kugelburg Weylander Syndrome, a rare progressive and degenerative form of muscular atrophy. Throughout his life, he was an active proponent for the rights of people with disabilities, "showing the parallels between race or gender-based discrimination and discrimination based on disability. In 1979, Mr. Kemp helped establish Invacare, Inc., a company that later became the largest manufacturer of wheelchairs in the world. From 1980 to 1987, he was working as the head of the Washington, D.C. based Disability Rights Center (DCR). After that, he was appointed commissioner and then chair of the EEOC. In this position, he helped draft the landmark Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990. After leaving the EEOC in 1993, Mr Kemp founded Evan Kemp Associates,Inc "to provide products and services that enhance the quality of life for America's 49 million consumers with disabilities and chronic health conditions."
Read full version of article at the Solutions@disability.com Web site.

Back to the Disabiliy in the News Archive