Unit 5: Civil Rights And People With Disabilities

Questions:

What are some ways that people with disabilities have participated in the struggle for civil rights?
What are several important civil rights issues for this community?

Key terms: Inclusive language, Section 504 Sit-In (1977), 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act

Materials:

Civil Rights and Disability Rights (The Smithsonian Institution)
https://everybody.si.edu/citizens/civil-rights-disability-rights

“Lives Worth Living” (PBS documentary)
https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/lives-worth-living/

“Crip Camp” (2020 documentary on Netflix, 107 mins)

“The Power of 504” (20 min YouTube video on 1977 disability rights demonstration)

“Y.O. Disabled And Proud” (2010, 20 min YouTube video)

“Why should disability history be taught in classrooms?” (Youth activists ask and answer)

Zinn Education Project, “Disability”
https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/?cond[0]=themes_str:Disability

Disability Justice (Sins Invalid, website)
https://www.sinsinvalid.org/blog/disability-justice-a-working-draft-by-patty-berne

“Disease is Not a Metaphor” (essay, Black Girl Dangerous)
https://www.bgdblog.org/2013/07/2013729disease-is-not-a-metaphor/

Fixed (documentary)
https://www.fixedthemovie.com/

Timeline of Milestones in Disability History (1700s through 2006), National Consortium on Leadership and Disability for Youth (NCLD)
http://www.ncld-youth.info/index.php?id=61

Inclusive Language
https://www.thinkinclusive.us/why-person-first-language-doesnt-always-put-the-person-first

The Willard Suitcases Project (online photographic exhibit of former inmates of a mental institution)
https://www.willardsuitcases.com/about

Artistic responses and representation:

“Disability Liberated—Altar and Performance,” 2015 video (2 hrs)
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/disabilityliberated