'Disabled People Are Human Like Everyone Else'

This story is taken from Steve Flairty’s 2008 book, “Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes. Marie Braun continues, five years later, to actively advocate for those with disabilities, both around the city of Covington, Kentucky and on a state level. She will soon be enrolling in Gateway Community College to pursue an associate arts degree while continuing her employment at the Salvation Army. 

Marie Braun 

Marie Braun learned long ago that life’s playing field is not always level.Born with quadriplegic cerebral palsy in rural Sebastion Branch, in Breathitt County, some 54 years ago, little Marie Louise Miller soon became a case for the child welfare system and was placed into the Old Frankfort State Hospital in Frankfort.

She had wished for something more fulfilling in her life than having her brothers push her around in a banana box at a very young age, but she got an institution in Frankfort instead, a place, Braun said recently, where “people put their children in this home because they thought that they were ‘retarded’ and could do nothing for themselves.”