THEY DID OVERCOME (CRIP CAMP)

As Hollywood gets to grips with the portrayal of the struggle of women and African Americans for equality, the battle for the rights of those with disabilities has often been overlooked.

Yet 61 million people in the US live with a disability, with the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention reporting in 2018 a quarter of the adult population have a form of disability.

The most common disability, mobility affects one in seven adults in the US.

Research has also shown that the next largest group are those with a cognitive disability followed by independent living, hearing, vision and self-care.

The rights enjoyed by those with disabilities today were, like a lot of minorities, hard fought for and have been largely ignored.

Nicole Newnham and James LeBrecht's Netflix acquired documentary 'Crip Camp' rectifies that situation, focusing on a group of young people whose activism had its roots in a summer camp in the Catskills in upstate New York.

Camp Jened was a remarkable place where teenagers with a range of disabilities gathered each summer for four to eight weeks and got the chance to be themselves and behave likr teens.

They stayed in huts, cooked, played sport and music, smoked, found love and shared their experiences of what it was like living with arrange of disabilities in a society that really didn't want to know.

However Jened was to become a launch pad for the disability rights campaign, enabling campaigners like LeBrecht, Judi Heumann and Bobbi Linn to emerge.

LeBrecht, a sound engineer and filmmaker, was born in New York with spina bifida and went to Camp Jened at the age of 14.

Heumann contracted polio at the age of 18 months and thrived in Camp Jened, emerging as a leading advocate for the disabled community.

She would eventually serve as a Special Adviser for International Disability Rights in the US State Department under President Barack Obama, who along with his wife Michelle has executive produced the film.

Newnham and LeBrecht's documentary initially focuses on the empowerment felt by teens who went to Camp Jened.

Many of the kids who stayed there felt sidelined by society, as the education authorities schooled them separately from other children and shut them out of everyday buildings with little or no access to facilities.

They felt judged and inconvenient by society and wanted to escape the clutches of over protective, loving parents.

All they wanted was to behave like other teens.

Jened offered a sanctuary from society where they weren't judged.

A free spirited camp run by Larry Allison, it became influenced in the 1960s and 70s by the counterculture movement with one of the interviewees likening it to Woodstock.

Video footage featuring LeBrecht's 14 year old self interviewing other campers captures the joy, as they play baseball, sing and smoke.

Frank interviews also reveal in some cases, they lost their virginity there.

However as the film wears on, the group attending the camp become fired up by the sharing of their experiences in society, with Heumann in particular determined to carry forward the spirit of Jened into their daily lives.

The documentary changes gear as the group focus on advancing disability rights, with Heumann taking on the Board of Education in New York after they refused to give her a teaching license.

She sues them successfully for discrimination and a life of advocacy is born.

Heumann emerges as a charismatic, determined and smart strategist in the documentary, forming the rights group Disability In Action which takes on Richard Nixon's administration for vetoing parts of the Rehabilitation Act.

Disabled campaigners blocking the traffic in Manhattan in protest and embarrassing politicians.

Just before President Jimmy Carter's administration comes to power, they establish the Centre for Independent Living in Berkeley in California.

They outwit Carter's Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joseph Califano during a campaign to force him to sign Section 504 of the Act granting key civil rights to the disabled.

Each victory is hard fought for, with street protests, an occupation of a federal buildings and appearances in Congress all playing their part.

But the foundations were also laid through the sharing of experiences in Jened by those suffering from cerebral palsy, visual impairment, hearing difficulties, polio, spina bifida and other conditions.

Newnham and LeBrecht construct an inspirational tale about people who refuse to be dismissed or limited by their disability and demand to be treated like everyone else in society.

The campaign draws inspiration from the counterculture and Civil Rights movements but also forges connections with the feminist movement, the Black Panther Party and the LGBT community.

Interviews with Heumann, LeBrecht, the hilariously sweary and very frank husband and wife team of Neil and Denise Sherer Jacobsen help join the dots between the spirit forged in Camp Jened and the fight for equality that eventually inspired the Disability Act.

Disability rights campaigners Corbett O'Toole and Dennis Billups, a visually impaired man who played a key role in the occupation of a federal building by protesters in San Francisco to secure the implementation of Section 504, also illuminate the story of struggle.

However the inclusion of archive footage of Camp Jened's director Larry Allison, of LeBrecht achieving his ambition of being a sound engineer on a theatre in Berkeley, of Heumann emotionally talking about rights being more than just campaigning for the provision of public toilets for the disabled, of camp mate Stephen Hoffman performing a striptease to the 'Rocky Horror Picture Show's' 'Sweet Transvestite from Transylvania' that leave a huge impression.

All of these images drive home a message that those with disabilities should be seen for the people that they are and not as disabled people.

Their personal and professional aspirations, their sexual desires, their sense of humour and their sense of righteousness are no different to those without disabilities.

And their success as rights advocates should be celebrated as the US continues to build a more inclusive society.

'Crip Camp' ensures their story will not forgotten.

In a world often blighted by prejudice and oppression, its good humoured tale of rights advocacy and dogged determination is to be cherished.

('Crip Camp' received its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2020 and was made available for streaming on Netflix on March 25, 2020)