In honor of national Make a Difference Day, I am sharing a valuable resource with you. Award-winning filmmaker, Eric Neudel, has produced another powerful film for the PBS program Independent Lens, one well worth your viewing.
Lives Worth Living captures the oral history of the Disability Rights Movement, something too rarely discussed, and a film long overdue. Far too often, media coverage of those with special needs is relegated to the simplistic, disability of the month, horror stories, or cute tales that are supposed to make us feel like big gains in true equality are being met.
Neudel tells the history of disability honestly, as it should be told, including in our history books, allowing diverse voices that have experienced the tremendous challenges and fought for real change to be center stage. The film ends with the fight for passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which was signed by President George H. W. Bush at the White House. on July 26th, 1990.
“Let the shameful walls of inclusion finally come down.”
View the film’s trailer and find additional links including a disability movement timeline and the chance to share your own stories of discrimination, here. It’s long past time we recognized and addressed the struggles and activism of those with special needs as the human rights movement that it is. There is power in our unified voice.
Please take time to check this film out, and share it with everyone you know. We can all make a difference.
Photo courtesy of Independent Lens.