Stacey Park Milbern
A Korean-American activist who led the disability justice movement.
Stacey Park Milbern (1987–2020) was a Korean American, an activist who led the movement for the rights of people with disabilities. As can be seen from the name “Park,” she grew up in a family rooted in Korea, and as a person living with a disability, she broadened the life she experienced into a movement toward a wider justice.
The reverse of the coin depicts Stacey Milbern seated in a wheelchair, and beneath her name is inscribed the phrase “Disability Justice.” Her confident figure in the wheelchair, placed together with this short phrase, tells us at once what she raised her voice for.
“Disability justice” is the idea that people with disabilities too should be able to live with dignity as full members of society. Milbern did not view disability merely as a problem for an individual to overcome, but as a problem that society must change together. In particular, she emphasized forcefully that people in differing circumstances must join hands and move forward together.
On the path she made her way through, several layers of hardship were overlapped: the background of an immigrant family, disability, and the prejudice of the world that came with it. Milbern took all of it not as a wall blocking her, but as the starting point of a movement that embraces more people. For a not-short span of time she stood by the side of the marginalized and brought about change.
This quarter, depicting her seated in a wheelchair and looking ahead, conveys quietly but clearly the belief that everyone has the right to live with dignity.