Alice Wong Sandy Ho/AP SAN FRANCISCO AP —

Alice Wong, a disability rights activist and author whose independence and writing inspired others, has died. She was 51.

Wong died of an infection Friday at a hospital in San Francisco, said Sandy Ho, a close friend who has been in touch with Wong’s family.

Ho called her friend a “luminary of the disability justice movement” who wanted a world in which people with disabilities, especially ones of marginalized demographics who were people of color, LGBTQ and immigrants, could live freely and have full autonomy over their lives and decisions.

The daughter of Hong Kong immigrants, Wong was born with muscular dystrophy. She used a powered wheelchair and an assistive breathing device.

Ho shared a statement on social media that Wong wrote

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