We Remember...
Susan M. Daniels (Oct. 23rd, 1948 –
Oct. 20th, 2011). Daniels was a former official in the U.S. Social
Security Administration and a national and international advocate for the
rights of the disabled. She was 62. 
As deputy commissioner for disability and income security
programs in President Bill Clinton's administration, she led Social Security
disability reform initiatives that resulted in passage of the Ticket to Work
and Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999.
As an associate commissioner in the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, she started the federal Home of Your Own program to
assist people with disabilities in becoming homeowners, and she also supported
a national Home of Your Own technical assistance center to expand homeownership
opportunities for people with disabilities to other states. Home of Your Own
networks have since expanded to 27 states.
In 1997, in her role as Clinton administration disability
official, she and Judy Heumann, then assistant secretary for education,
organized the first International Leadership Forum for Women with Disabilities.
The forum quickly expanded into a conference of 600 disabled women and their
allies from 80 countries, sponsored by 25 U.S. government agencies. The forum
served as an impetus for subsequent regional and international meetings
concerning equalization of opportunities for women.
She spoke about disability policy at international
conferences and research forums in Africa, Europe and Asia, and she served as
president of the U.S. Council of International Rehabilitation and as
Rehabilitation International's deputy vice president for North America.
Daniels, who was born in New Orleans, La., contracted
polio at 6 months of age and spent much of her young life in rehabilitation
institutes and hospitals. Despite many obstacles, she attended a mainstream
high school and later graduated summa cum laude from Marquette University in
Milwaukee, Wis. She attained a master's degree in psychology from Mississippi
State University and a doctorate in psychology from the University of North
Carolina.
Her husband, John Watson, wrote of her passing: "No one
can take her place. Nobody will ever be her equal. All of us can only try
(must) to live our lives as she lived hers: giving love, dedicated service and
never-ending perseverance in striving for humanitarian goals."
--Compiled from various sources
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