Arthur Honeyman, also known as Art Honeyman, was an American poet, author, and disability rights activist. His book Sam and his Cart was adapted into a movie in 1981. Honeyman is one of the main characters in the 2007 film Music Within.
Early life
Honeyman was born to Elizabeth and Charles Honeyman, and was raised with three siblings in Sharon, Massachusetts. Because he had cerebral palsy Honeyman was not allowed to attend a public school. His parents kept requesting education for their son, and beginning in 1947 he was provided with a tutor for homeschooling. From 1952 until his high school graduation in 1959, Honeyman attended Massachusetts Hospital School, a school for disabled students. His mother developed schizophrenia and was committed to a care facility. Honeyman's father moved with his children to Reno, Nevada, and then to Portland, Oregon.
Career
Wheelchair user Honeyman worked in house-to-house selling from age 19 for four years. People behaved rudely, complained, or even called the police. He had difficulties being accepted by a college as an undergraduate. In the 1960s, Honeyman experienced communal living in an urban commune and as a co-owner of a communal farm in Oregon. He participated in anti-Vietnam War and civil rights activism. He also burned his draft card, and was arrested three times as protester against the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant in Rainier, Oregon. As a protest action against the lack of wheelchair access on busses, he pushed his wheelchair from Portland to Salem. Honeyman achieved a Bachelor of Science degree in History in 1965, and a Master's degree in Literature from Portland State University in 1974. At the university, Honeyman met disability rights advocate Richard Pimentel, who often describes a situation in a pancake house where Honeyman was denied services as a key moment for his own activism. Honeyman's positive attitude inspired Pimentel. At age 20, Honeyman had begun writing. Beginning in 1974, he published multiple poems and essays. His first book was the children's story Sam and his Cart, published in 1977: Sam drives in a wheelchair-like cart and sells light bulbs from door to door for living. He is confronted with tragic reactions by others. From 1975 to 1978 Art Honeyman worked as a teaching aide at Adams High School, from 1979 as a research analyst for the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, serving on the Commission for the Handicapped board in 1983 and 1984. He became director of Oregon's Handicap Research Project. Art Honeyman campaigned for a school board seat in Portland, and twice on a "Spastic Power" platform for the Oregon Legislative Assembly. A variety of publications followed until 2005. Honeyman also wrote manuscripts of his autobiography from about 2005 to 2008. They remain unfinished. He died in December 2008.
Film adaptations
The movie Sam and his Cart, based on Honeyman's first book, was published in 1981. The film won an American Film Festival Award. In 2007, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released the full-length motion pictureMusic Within of Richard Pimentel's life story including his friendship with Arthur Honeyman, starring Michael Sheen as Art.
