Sam Dardick did not let the polio that forced him into a wheelchair as a paraplegic as a teen divert him not only from reaching his educational and professional goals, but also from channeling his own experiences into advocating for people with disabilities. Mr. Dardick, who was credited with helping to secure passage of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, and who worked locally to push for wheelchair-accessibility with the late Max Starkloff, founder of the Paraquad Society, died Tuesday, May 31, of kidney failure at a hospital in Sacramento, Calif., where he had lived. He was 77 and had battled pancreatic disease for five years, according to family members.

Mr. Dardick, a former Nevada County supervisor in northern California, was born in St. Louis in 1933. In 1944, during the midst of a nationwide polio epidemic, he was stricken with the disease at the age of 13. He was hospitalized and became a paraplegic. Undaunted, Mr. Dardick continued his educational and athletic activities and later became an All-American Wheelchair Basketball star with the St. Louis Rolling Rams, playing alongside his classmate, the late Jimmy Greenblatt. The team was immensely popular in the 1940s and ‘50s both locally and nationally. In addition, he had a passion for tennis.

Mr. Dardick attended University City High School, where he was elected class president. After graduation, he earned a bachelor of science degree in architecture from Washington University. In 1960 he received a master’s degree in city and regional planning from the University of California-Berkeley.

Mr. Dardick returned to St. Louis where he met and married Geeta (Carol) Kalish Berger with whom he had three children. He practiced architecture and city planning. As University City planner, he developed the concept of the Delmar Loop, now listed as one of the Top 10 “happening” streets in the United States. He also taught city planning at Washington University and St. Louis University in the early 1970s, and worked as an urban planner for the Model Cities Program. He and his wife spent three years traveling across Europe to India in a Volkswagon van with their children.

On their return to the U.S, the Dardick family moved onto 50 undeveloped acres in rural Nevada County, Calif., as part of the “back to the land” movement of the 1970s and ‘80s. The couple cleared the land at Sai Lake, built the family’s double-A frame cabin, raised animals, gardened organically and sought self-sufficiency.

In the mid-1980s, Mr. Dardick founded FREED, the Foundation for Resources for the Equality and Employment of the Disabled, the first independent living center in northern California, which still serves thousands of people with disabilities in the Sierra Nevada foothills. An ardent activist, Mr. Dardick fought for disability rights in both Sacramento and Washington, D.C., where he took part in the struggle to secure passage of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, which requires all public places to be wheelchair accessible.

A decade later, his activism and advocacy helped him to be twice elected to the Nevada County Board of Supervisors.

Funeral services for Mr. Dardick were held at the Home of Good Peace Cemetery in Sacramento. Following the service, according to his brother, several mourners left their wheelchairs to crawl over to the grave to throw handfuls of dirt into the grave in the Jewish mitzvah of burial.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Dardick is survived by two sons, Caleb Dardick of Berkely, Calif. and Josh Dardick of Lincoln, Calif.; a daughter, Samantha Mier of Richmond Va.; a brother, Stepehen Dardick of Creve Coeur, and five grandchildren.

Donations in Mr. Dardick’s memory are welcome at FREED Center for Independent Living, 117 New Mohawk Road, Suite A, Nevada City, Calif., 95959.