In Fierce Loving Memory of Justin Marcus Cooper
Image Description: Rows of images of Justin, a black man who uses a power wheelchair, with (1) Kennedy’s cat (2) Kennedy at an outdoor event (3) behind a camera with support people outside (4) dressed as a superhero with Kennedy and Kieran (5) tabling at a fair with Kennedy and Kieran and (6) dressed as a super hero with 4 others dressed as super heroes.
By Kennedy Dawson Healy
Sometimes in life you have an obligation to go to funerals of old relatives with bad behavior and politics. You have to dig to remember nice things about them. You sit in a circle of cousins and talk about the good candy they had at their house, or a funny story that was more about circumstance than their actual humor. When people like Justin Cooper die, it's the opposite feeling. His community has been flooded with devastation precisely because he was so good. You’d have to dig to find anything bad to say about Justin. Anything you’d find sounds like a bullshit answer he could have given at a job interview to the question “what are your weaknesses?” He was too nice, he gave way too much and took too little, he was stubborn in receiving care but not in giving it, he was idealistic about the world he wanted to create. When people inevitably die, we are taught to prop them up in eulogy. Our society finds ways to do this with even the most evil men in government. It's what you’re supposed to do. This eulogy is not of that category. Everything I am writing about this man, and his work, and the way he made people feel is honest and genuine and the truth.
I met Justin Cooper as a young person in disability movement work while interning at Access Living. He was a member of the Young Professionals Council there. We could never pinpoint the exact moment we met. But I remember one day the office was buzzing because he was coming to the building. After hearing this multiple times, I said “who is Justin?” Everyone responded with the tone of “who are you not to know who Justin Cooper is?” He had this effect on a space. I saw it until the very end when I visited him in his rehab facility and all the staff responded to my using of his full name with “oh, JC - he's in this room.” When he took a turn for the worse, I’d never seen a hospital waiting room fill to that size with such speed.
He was smart and funny and so charming. I am getting messages from people who barely knew him telling me so. My news feeds are full of memories and photos and people professing they had a crush on him. A lot of what I am going to say here has been said and I am going to say it again. Justin came from a family of activists and knew how to meet people where they were at and bring anyone into movement work. His sweetness was abolitionist praxis. A practice he is still teaching us. He knew tearing down big systems and building new ones is done one relationship at a time. Many people have written in recent days that he was their first contact with the disability community. Many have detailed a hard time when he was there for them. Everyone is reminding me that his laugh and giant smile and energy were infectious.
Justin loved art and creating things. His photography and film work shared perspectives on disability and accessibility with the world. He loved music, sports, a good steak, anime, his play station, and WWE. He loved his mom more than anything. And his community. He served in so many roles and projects for disability rights and justice work I won’t be able to list them all. But here is an attempt:
Young Professionals Council at Access Living
Advance Your Leadership Power at Access Living
Chicago Disability Pride Parade Planning Committee
Chicago Disability Activism Collective
Illinois Partners for Human Service Board
His own media company, Cooper Industries
Junior Artist In Residence for the Disability Culture Activism Lab
3Arts/Bodies of Work Residency Fellow
The best part of my endeavor with Crip Crap has been the work I did with Justin. I’m so grateful to have had a small but mighty podcast with him. I knew I needed Justin’s sharp perspective and buttery voice. I was shocked that he did not hesitate to agree to my risky plan of an unfunded project with the word crap in the title. We got close through our love for and belief in our work and crip community. The days he’d come over to record were the best. We’d make tea and eat snacks and he’d take photos of my cat to post alongside the episode graphics when they’d drop. He could get along with any guest I’d book. He had incredible insight and a familiarity with people that made everyone feel seen and close to him.
We also did two five-day film challenges together that Justin directed. The first was about a disabled superhero getting only ableist news coverage. The second year (where we overextended ourselves even more) was a pretty bad and silly reality TV puppet show. He’d come to table with me at events and we once shot an ad trying to guilt non-disabled people into giving us money by asking (doomy medical commercial style) if they suffer from able guilt. It was my bad idea that barely worked that Justin, again, went along with. We didn’t have enough money for our regular care needs, let alone someone to assist us with shooting a video. So my neighbor came down to set up a cheap tripod I had purchased which promptly fell minutes after he left. We laughed really hard as I tried to fix it and it continued to fall. Justin knew surviving ridiculous lives required laughter.
Our last times in person together were in his hospital and rehab hospital rooms. We got into a routine where I’d sneak into the cardiac ICU when he was staying there last and recline my wheelchair next to his bed and watch whatever he’d left on TV. He would wake up and try to entertain me and I’d scold him for scaring us with his most recent health drama and insist he rest and not worry about me. He would tell me it was nice to see a familiar face and then fall back asleep and then eventually wake up and tell me the intricacies of the Marvel movie ending on TV or that it was time for WWE or a basketball game. He’d let me bad mouth the institutions he was in as long as no nurses were within earshot. On one of his worse days in rehab I gave up trying to convince him of anything and we sat and looked out the window and talked about his life and liberation and god and the afterlife.
Our last work zoom call was with fancy documentary filmmakers who got the same grant as our podcast. There was an ice breaker asking what we had done on Memorial Day as the call was the day after. I answered honestly that I had gone to Sonic and watched Bridgerton with a friend. When it got to Justin’s turn (multiple people later) he said what he had been up to and then ended by joking “I guess Kennedy was at Sonic, but I didn’t get an invite.” I could feel the zoom room fall in love with him.
When I say Justin Cooper was too good for this world, I am talking about both its badness and his goodness and the relationship and gap between these two realities. The ways he stayed soft and kind and hopeful in a harsh world. How he wanted to fill this gap by bringing the world to his level. To make it a livable place for disabled people of color and all people. And how the care and other racist and ableist systems we live under failed Justin terribly especially at the end of his life. In the end, Justin was stubborn and proud and private and resistant. I am grateful to have been a part of Justin’s life and for the ways he did let me in. I am also so angry at the ways he was discarded by systems. We live in times where grief is extremely political. Justin had a way of synthesizing emotions like anger. He knew exactly how to transform bitterness through the work. I plan, like Justin, to store my anger and grief about him within future-building work. I know the best way to honor him is by continuing his work toward a world that deserves and can keep people like Justin. The kind of world he envisioned and was actively creating. If he were here, he'd invite you to join us with grace, generosity, ease, joy, and a bit of humor.
Donations to Justin’s memorial fundraiser can be made here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/justin-marcus-coopers-memorial-costs
Learn more about Justin below:
https://chicagoreader.com/city-life/people-issue/justin-cooper/
