Stacey Park Milbern was a Korean-American disability justice activist.
22 Facts About Stacey Milbern
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Stacey Milbern helped create the Disability Justice movement and advocated for fair treatment of disabled people.
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Stacey Milbern was mixed-race, her father being White American and her mother being Korean.
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Stacey Milbern grew up in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in a military family, as her father was in the United States Army.
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Stacey Milbern began serving in disability rights leadership roles at 16 years old, including as Community Outreach Director for the National Youth Leadership Network.
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Stacey Milbern later was a founder of the North Carolina Youth Leadership Forum and Disabled Young People's Collective to empower youth with disabilities to engage in advocacy and leadership.
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Stacey Milbern was appointed by the Governor of North Carolina to the North Carolina Commission for the Blind from 2006 to 2008 and to the Statewide Independent Living Council from 2004 to 2010.
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Stacey Milbern was instrumental in the writing and passing of the 2007 North Carolina law establishing October as "Disability History and Awareness Month" and requiring disability history curriculum to be taught in all schools.
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In 2005, Stacey Milbern helped to establish the disability justice movement through conversations with other disabled queer women of color activists.
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Stacey Milbern moved to the San Francisco Bay Area when she was 24, due to the area being "one of the most accessible places for people with physical disabilities".
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Stacey Milbern credited that nursing assistance for her ability to remain active in the community and avoid institutionalization in a nursing home.
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Stacey Milbern contrasted her independence and the care she was able to receive in California against her experiences in North Carolina, and defended the necessity of Medicaid programs funding home attendant and nursing services against reductions proposed during efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
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Stacey Milbern advocated for fair medical care for people with disabilities, including both access and biases in the system, speaking against unnecessary surgery.
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In 2014, Stacey Milbern was appointed by President Obama to the President's Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities.
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Stacey Milbern earned a master of business administration degree from Mills College in 2015.
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Stacey Milbern raised concerns for the well-being of the community and its most vulnerable members.
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Stacey Milbern warned that the pandemic's demands on health services threatened her community's access to dialysis and other life-saving treatments needed by some to survive.
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Stacey Milbern's group organized a mutual aid campaign, providing food and care support for disabled people in need.
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Stacey Milbern continued pandemic relief work despite her own growing health problems.
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Stacey Milbern died at Stanford hospital on her 33rd birthday, May 19,2020, due to surgical complications.
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Stacey Milbern was featured in the Google Doodle on May 19,2022, which would have been her 35th birthday.
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Stacey Milbern will be honored on a US quarter in 2025, as part of the final year of the American Women quarters program.