10 disability advocates from Minnesota fighting for equity

In celebration of Disability Pride Month in July, MPR News highlighted people throughout the month with disabilities who are working to make Minnesota more inclusive and accessible for everyone. Throughout the month you saw and heard from people sharing their life experiences in hopes of fostering understanding and connections within their communities and beyond. 

They appeared in “ChangeMakers,” our ongoing series that showcases Minnesotans from diverse, often underrepresented backgrounds who are making an impact.  

We aimed to capture a wide range of people with a diversity of experiences, from a Minneapolis school board member to a Paralympian.  

MPR News is committed to the mission of informing, including and inspiring all those who find our content. Our goal is to work every day toward improving our journalism and service to the public. We have taken care to use language preferred by the individuals we interviewed. 

Learn more about all 10 advocates below. Click on each name to see their full profile. 

Jules Edwards 

Jules Edwards is a Twin Cities-based Anishinaabe autistic author and disability justice advocate. After her kids were identified as being autistic, Edwards became a passionate advocate for people on the autism spectrum. She later learned she is autistic, too. 

Edwards’ journey in advocacy began from a place of necessity, she explained. Edwards saw Native people, while disproportionately experiencing disabilities, often had the least access to supportive resources. She became committed to making the world a better place for generations to come. 

Madison Rubenstein  

Madison Rubenstein is a painter and a visual artist from Bloomington. In their airy studio at the California Building in northeast Minneapolis, Rubenstein creates large-format paintings of twisting bodies, bold colors and swirling abstract shapes.  

Their artworks are based on a lifetime of chronic illness and disability, invisible conditions that they now know to be fibromyalgia, hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, PTSD and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, also known as POTS.  

Rubenstein often says they paint how it feels to inhabit their body, an ever-changing experience of limited mobility, chronic pain, mental fog, anxiety and other challenges. They also paint to imagine new futures for themselves and other disabled people, where all needs are met and they can not only survive but flourish. 

Andrew Start 

Twenty-one-year-old Andrew Start is a devoted Twins fan and honorary firefighter for the city of Plymouth. Between volunteering with the fire department, playing on his own baseball team and learning guitar, he has been training to advocate for himself and others with Down syndrome. 

The condition occurs in people born with a third copy of the 21st chromosome in their DNA. That’s why the United Nations designated March 21 World Down Syndrome Day to promote the rights of people with Down syndrome. 

Start has an advocacy page on Facebook titled “Start Thinking,” where this year he encouraged people to commemorate the day and join a worldwide awareness campaign by “wearing crazy socks.” 

Mai Thor  

Mai Thor is a Hmong woman and refugee from Laos who contracted polio at a young age and dedicates much of her time to being a disability justice advocate. 

Thor became a Bush fellow in 2021 and studied ableism, disability culture, history and law. Thor’s work focuses on disability justice and its intersections with social justice and racial justice movements. 

Growing up as a disabled woman in an immigrant community, Thor explains the ways in which she has faced ableism and stigma. She says her first-hand experiences emphasized the need for inclusivity and interdependence in social justice spaces and highlighted the importance of understanding and addressing the intersections of oppression and marginalization.   

Annika Grassl  

Annika Grassl got her start in disability advocacy work as a high school student, where she was denied the resources she needed as a student with cerebral palsy and low vision. She was able to transfer to a high school that was able to meet her needs, but she noticed that many more students with disabilities were not as lucky as her. That realization kickstarted her career. 

More than a decade later, Grassl is currently finishing up work as a communicator on health equity at the Minnesota Department of Health. Grassl believes in sharing her own stories and experiences to help others and better inform the public. 

Brittanie Hernandez-Wilson 

When Brittanie Hernandez-Wilson thinks about a better world, she thinks about dismantling ableism. 

“Ableism is the thread that binds,” she says. “It’s a shapeshifter, and every other form of oppression is influenced and strengthened by ableism.” 

Hernandez-Wilson is equity and justice director for The Arc Minnesota, an organization advocating for the rights of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. But much of her work also takes place outside the Capitol — training organizations, nonprofits and government agencies to think and act differently. 

Her passion for disability justice comes from a personal place. Hernandez-Wilson was born with Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenita, a joint and muscle condition. 

She wants to see more people across the disability spectrum alongside her leading this work. 

Joyner Emerick 

Young people bring Joyner Emerick hope for the future, which is why they serve on the Minneapolis Board of Education. When they were elected in 2023, Emerick became the city’s first openly transgender and openly autistic school board member and has used that platform to advocate for disabled students at both the local and state levels. 

Emerick has been a community organizer since they were a teen. Since then, the 42-year-old has learned from diverse disabled thought leaders and aims to hold space for those coming from different backgrounds. 

As an autistic person, Emerick believes they bring unique strengths to the school board by paying attention to details and data. 

Felix Brunelle 

Felix Brunelle, 7, was born missing 46 genes on his 10th chromosome, also known as 10Q26 Deletion Syndrome. It has resulted in multiple diagnoses and Felix has a team of 20 doctors, specialists and therapists, the majority of which work at Gillette Children’s Hospital and Clinics. 

He uses an Assistive Adaptive Communication (AAC) device on his iPad to help him communicate and both a manual and Power Wheelchair to help him move around freely. While Felix’s parents, Haley and Tim Brunelle, are teaching him how to be an advocate for himself, he’s still a 7-year-old kid.  

The Brunelles helped advocate for a change in Minnesota’s building code to require adult changing tables to be built in new building construction, which will go into effect in 2025. 

Chuck Aoki  

Minneapolis-native Chuck Aoki wanted to play for the Minnesota Twins as a kid, but his dreams quickly changed due to a rare genetic disorder he was diagnosed with at the age of six. Hereditary sensory autonomic neuropathy type II means Aoki has no sensation from his elbows down and knees down. At age 12, he became a wheelchair user. 

But that didn’t stop Aoki from staying active. He began participating in wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby. He made his wheelchair rugby Paralympic debut at the 2012 Paralympic Games helping Team USA win bronze.  

He’s been to every Paralympic games since, bringing home two more silver medals. 

In August, Aoki will once again be representing Team USA in wheelchair rugby at his fourth Paralympics. He is the first Team USA Paralympian to go to four games. 

John Lee Clark 

When John Lee Clark lost his vision in adolescence, his instinct was to touch everything around him. For DeafBlind people like him, he says, that’s the best way to learn about the world.  

But he was often told not to. Clark says our culture is touch-averse; we operate at a distance from each other and our surroundings. Now, Clark is part of a movement insisting on changing those norms. He advocates for Protactile, a set of practices and language based entirely on touch, designed by DeafBlind people.  

Developed in Seattle in 2007, Protactile language relies on touch-based signs given on a person’s arms, back, shoulders, and thighs. It fills gaps left by sign language: it allows one-on-one and group conversations between DeafBlind people without interpreters. Whereas sign language relies heavily on visual cues, like facial expressions, Protactile develops ways to communicate feelings and responses by touch. 

• John Lee Clark is pioneering an emerging language — and culture
• Four-time Paralympian Chuck Aoki strives to make athletes with disabilities more visible
• Felix Brunelle and his family are building a village