Crip Camp

This week's discussion centered on the documentary Crip Camp, which follows disability activists from their activist awakening at Camp Jened to their work in disability rights activism in the wider world. The documentary highlighted many tactics the activists used to move towards their goals, including protests and the Section 504 sit-in.

Prior to this week, my posts around the environmental justice movement centered on the movement's goal of creating awareness around issues that can be considered EJ issues. Watching the documentary expanded my focus to the many other ways that environmental justice activists use to enact change. While searching for my example link for this week, I came across the Warren County protests, which rebelled against the dumping of contaminated soil in a majority Black community in North Carolina. Like the activists in Crip Camp, the Warren County activists used a range of tactics to attempt to change the proposed dumping. Although their work was ultimately unsuccessful, the protests did a great deal to spread awareness of the issue and is largely though of as the first instance of environmental justice activism.

I saw a lot of parallels between the work in the documentary and the work in Warren County. Both movements were led by historically disenfranchised communities who were suffering because of a lack of acknowledgement. Both were instrumental in creating awareness of and momentum in their causes. And both worked within both the legislative arena and the realm of civil disobedience.