ON THE COVER
Charlie Bean on the Eureka waterfront in 2016. Photo by Mark McKenna
The Advocate
Remembering Charlie Bean and his tireless work to bring access and independence to all By Thadeus Greenson thad@northcoastjournal.com
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alifornia has lost one of its fiercest and kindest advocates. Charles L. Bean Jr., who took a life-changing accident that left him quadriplegic as a young man and turned it into a relentless mission to make the world a more equitable, accessible place for all, using his soft, firm voice and kind smile to improve the lives of people with disabilities, died in his home the evening of July 16, with his wife, Carolyn Bean, by his side. He was 64. “The people he was advocating for saw themselves in him and vice-versa, and that’s a really beautiful thing,” says Cindy Calderon, who worked alongside Bean and came to consider him a dear friend. “He just had this way about him. He always
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liked people, was always kind and liked to laugh. And he just wanted things to work.” A Yurok Tribal member born Sept. 12, 1956, Bean grew up in the Hoopa area, getting his first job at the Hoopa grocery store at the age of 17 and graduating from Hoopa Valley High School in 1974. Shortly thereafter, he enlisted in the U.S. Army but his service was cut short in 1975 when a motorcycle accident severed his spinal cord. But Bean would soon become determined not to let his wheelchair define him or even slow him down. Humboldt County Public Works Director Tom Mattson chuckles, recalling how decades later he would regularly find himself yelling at Bean to slow down as he zoomed through one
NORTH COAST JOURNAL • Thursday, July 29, 2021 • northcoastjournal.com
of Old Town Eureka’s many alleyways in his motorized wheelchair, which bore a sticker on the back reading, “Does this wheelchair make my butt look big?” well beyond the posted speed limit of 15 mph. “Man, he could make that thing fly,” Mattson says. Shortly after the accident, Bean committed himself to his studies and received an associates degree in accounting from College of the Redwoods, which he turned into a career in finance and consulting with the United States Forest Service, as well as a 10-year stay in China, where he taught English and adopted his daughter Bien Hou. In his younger years, Bean would wheel his manual chair from his Eureka home over the Samoa Bridge
and along State Route 255 to visit the bars in Arcata. In 2016, he told the Journal that the “trip back sobered you right up.” Some years later, he and his brother Kenny wheeled from Blue Lake to Willow Creek to raise awareness of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Ultimately, making sure America lived up to the promise of the act would become an all-consuming mission for Bean, one he approached with passion, wit and — most of all — kindness. Mattson says he first met Bean shortly after being tapped to direct the public works department in 2007. The county was woefully behind in bringing its facilities, programs and services into compliance with ADA mandates — so much so it
