“He survived 13 years of neglect and abuse, including sexual assault, at the notorious Pennhurst State School and Hospital outside Philadelphia before emerging as a champion for the disabled.”

“Roland Johnson in 1963. By speaking up about the horrors he endured at a state-run hospital for the disabled, he was at the forefront of an emerging self-advocacy movement. Credit … via the Johnson family”

by Glenn Rifkin

“In 1958, when Roland Johnson was 12, his parents sent him to the Pennhurst State School and Hospital outside Philadelphia. There he would spend 13 tormented years living through the nightmare of institutionalization that was commonplace in mid-20th-century America.

“Terrified and confused, Roland, who had an intellectual disability, quickly discovered the inhumane realities of Pennhurst, including neglect, beatings and sexual assault. And as a Black child, he encountered the toxic racism roiling life both outside and within the institution’s walls.

“’After that long ride up there, it was just horrible,’ Johnson wrote of his arrival at Pennhurst in a posthumously published autobiography, ‘Lost in a Desert World’ (2002, with Karl Williams). He described himself as having been ‘lost and lonely,’ as if ‘in a desert world.'”

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Overlooked is a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times. This latest installment is part of a series exploring how the Americans With Disabilities Act has shaped modern life for disabled people. Share your stories or email us at ada@nytimes.com.