Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Ady Barkan Is Dedicating His Last Years To ‘Save Our Democracy’

Ady Barkan is a progressive activist who recently released an advertisement endorsing Danny O’Connor, a Democrat running for Congress in Ohio’s 12th District, called “This dying father has a message for Ohio voters”, CNN reported.

Barkan’s PAC purchased $100,000 worth of airtime to broadcast it.

Barkan was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, an incurable neurodegenerative disease commonly known as ALS, in October 2016. But that has not stopped him from fighting the GOP’s 2017 tax bill or helping Democrats take back Congress.

“I was shocked when the Republicans in Congress proposed a tax bill that would take away my health care to fund tax cuts for billionaires,” he says in the ad. “Your family and my family are going to pay the price, so now I’m asking you to be a hero.”

Slowly, it is getting harder for Barkan to raise his right fist but he continues to do it more often because he wants “people to know that their future is in their hands and our democracy is what we make of it.”

Barkan is fighting for a future he won’t see but he says he is using the years he has left to fight for democracy and make the world a better place for his two year old son.

From his wheelchair in Minneapolis last month, Barkan addressed a crowd of hundreds: “I am willing to give my last breath to save our democracy,” he said. “And I’m here to ask you: What are you willing to give?”

Contact Aisha Tahir at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aishatahir

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.