Crip Camp Week 5

This week’s documentary is actually the same movement that I’m focusing on for this class, so I found it very interesting. The 504 was undoubtedly a very important event for disabled rights, and served as the stepping stone for future protections and rights, such as the court case I mentioned for my historical event for Wednesday’s post. The ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990) made Olmstead v. L.C. possible, and continues to protect disabled people today.

The reality is that this movement only gained real momentum in the past century, and we still have lots of work to do, particularly relating to federal disability support and accessibility. As we saw in the documentary, even after the event of the sit-in, there were still many hurdles to jump, especially relating to the actually following of new laws. The camp we saw at the beginning was forced to shut down years after the people featured in the documentary left, and such camps and safe spaces for the disabled are few and far between today. I’m glad this documentary came out, since it reminds us of the hand work it took to reach the point we’re at now, and that disabled people have to struggle everyday to live in this society that hasn’t really been built for them.