Summary:
Crip Camp: A Disability
Revolution is an exuberant film by and about people who have been
marginalized on screen and in their lives. It opens with black and white
archival footage of Camp Jened, a quirky, free-spirited, counter-culture summer
camp for disabled teenagers in New York’s Catskilll Mountains. One camper called
it a utopia. The second and longer part of the film follows several former
campers into their adult lives. They become parents, spouses, professionals,
and disability rights activists at a crucial historic moment for disability
legislation. Both parts of the film propose that the liberty and solidarity
experienced at Jened emboldened several of the campers to seek opportunity and equality,
for themselves and others, in the world beyond their camp.
Located near Woodstock,
geographically and culturally, Jened offered a space free from the
discrimination the summer residents encountered elsewhere. Campers could engage
in uninhibited physical activities, uncensored storytelling, self-governance,
mutual caretaking, real friendships, irreverent insider humor, romance, and fun.
One powerful scene allows viewers to overhear campers with diverse disabilities
share common experiences: being disrespected or ignored at school, overly
protected at home, isolated everywhere. Another tracks the campers’ hilarity
and pride over an outbreak of “crabs.” One camper declares his counselor’s demonstration
of how to kiss, “Best physical therapy ever!”
While the film’s co-director, former
camper Jim Lebrecht, narrates the film, Judy Huemann is its political and moral
center. A wheelchair user, she rose from camper to counselor. Huemann was
revered around camp for successfully suing the New York City Department of
Education for the right to teach. She and several post-campers reunited in
Berkeley, California, where they became involved in the Independent Living
Movement. An astute leader, Heumann is represented as central to a remarkable 25-day
sit-in at the San Francisco Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW)
offices in 1977. She and her disabled colleagues risked their health and their
lives—they slept on the floor and improvised medical necessities—to convince HEW
to approve regulations essential for enforcing the anti-discrimination section
of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act. The scene of Heumann’s standoff with the HEW representative
is unforgettable. As are the deliveries of food, supplies, and solidarity that
the Black Panthers and other marginalized groups in San Francisco provided
daily. Other archival footage, including of Heumann and demonstrators stopping
traffic in New York City to demand accessible taxis and of protestors abandoning
their wheelchairs to pull themselves up the steps of the nation’s Capitol, are startling
images of the struggle to secure disability civil rights in the United States. Recently
filmed interviews with several of the former campers affirm that, despite the
work toward disability justice that remains, they live fuller, more vibrant
lives as a result of their experiences at Jened and the legislation they
insisted on.
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