Playlist Title: Celebrating Disability Pride & History

Calls to Action

Know the history of the disability right movement

• Watch Crip Camp, the award-winning documentary about the summer camp that helped create a disability revolution in the US, on Netflix or YouTube.   
• Read “We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation” by Eric Garcia, an autistic journalist who examines how the public’s perceptions about autism have been shaped over time, and describes the diversity of autistic people’s lived experiences.
• Educate yourself about disability history with articles from the The New York Times and The Heumann Perspective, and learn about the achievements of the late Judy Heumann, mother of the disability rights movement.
• Understand disability pride with these resources from VeryWellMind.com and The Valuable 500.

Learn about disability from disabled people

• Watch disabled people tell their stories and challenge stereotypical portrayals of disability in the media!

• Some great videos to start with are LISTEN: A short film made by and with nonspeaking autistic people, TEDx Talks by Stella Young and Ky Kennedy, and the Your Disabled Joy playlist on YouTube.
•  The Easterseals Disability Film Challenge features short films made by disabled filmmakers and actors that tell unique stories about disability.

• Follow disabled content creators – especially those with marginalized identities.

• Learn about the disabled and neurodivergent content creators who have been featured on the Beyond 6 Seconds podcast.
• Discover disabled content creators through social media hashtags like #DisabilityPride and #DisabilityPrideMonth.
• Share their content on social media in ways that give them full credit/attribution for their work.
• Support their work: purchase their books, buy from their businesses, follow their podcasts, subscribe to their newsletters, contribute to their crowdfunding sites, etc.

• Support non-profits led by disabled people, for disabled people, that advocate for accessibility, accommodations and autonomy, like CommunicationFIRST, Neuroclastic and Autistics Unmasked.

Understand the benefits of accessibility

• Learn about the “curb cut” effect and how designing for people with disabilities makes things better for everyone.  
• Read about how to create accessible social media and website content … and for podcasters, find out how to improve your podcast’s accessibility!
• Follow disabled accessibility experts like Juana Poareo, Lia Stoll and Meryl Evans for advice and guidance on accessibility.

Be an ally to people with disabilities

• Read these articles about How to Be a Disability Ally and 5 Ways to be a Better Ally.
• Learn what ableism is and how to challenge it.
• Understand the evolution of language used to describe disability and how to talk about disability respectfully.