This weekend marks the 30th anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This landmark law has helped make public life more accessible by outfitting libraries with ramps and elevators and ensuring schools can provide sign-language interpreters to deaf students. The movement surrounding the ADA would introduce some ubiquitous elements of our public infrastructure, but many of the activists who were key players in lobbying for the law's passage met in an unlikely way: as campers at Camp Jened, or lovingly, "Crip Camp," a place of liberation for disabled kids and teenagers.
A new Netflix documentary called Crip Camp explores the history of the movement and its leaders, including Judy Heumann, a Jened camper turned lifelong disability rights activist. She served as Special Advisor for International Disability Rights for the Obama administration and wrote the book Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist. Judy and Brooke discuss how the egalitarian values of Camp Jened helped inspire the ADA, and how social and political change takes shape.
This is a segment from our July 24th, 2020 program, If You Build It....