Elijah Armstrong is an epileptic from Jacksonville, Florida, who was forced to sue his high school in order to receive accommodations. This kickstarted his passion for disability activism, specifically in the realm of education. He got his bachelor’s degree from Penn State in Education and Public Policy, and his Masters’ from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Education Policy and Management. Elijah founded Equal Opportunities for Students in 2015, an organization to advance the rights of marginalized students in education. In 2021, Elijah won AAPD’s Paul G. Hearne Emerging Leader award, and used the funds to partner with The Coelho Center to start the Heumann-Armstrong Award, an award for students who have experienced and fought against ableism in education.

Elijah has a passion for organizing, community building, and political action. You can hear more about him through his writing on EducationPost, his Tedx Talk, or articles in the Penn State Education Magazine or Harvard Ed Magazine. He previously worked as a congressional fellow with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, is an advisory board member on the upcoming documentary “My Disability Roadmap”, and is soon releasing a research paper on LGBTQ Black people and social media with LGBT Tech.