Crip Camp (2020)

This is a fabulous documentary currently streaming on Netflix. The heart of the doc is about a progressive summer camp in New York state which catered exclusively to disabled teens. The camp was operative from the 1950s to the late 1970s. Spinning out from the camp we learn about the friendships made there and how these friendships are parlayed into deep political action. The friendships and the astonishing activism on display lead all the way to the campers-cum-activists working to help passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1991. There are interesting eddies of information in this doc: one counsellor, a black man from Alabama speaks movingly of bringing back what he learns at camp to his community; one of the director’s of the doc, who was for many years a camper, became the first head of sound for Berkeley Rep Theatre; the Black Panthers were key allies for those disability rights activists who took part in sustained civil disobedience — they fed the activists three meals a day for three weeks. I can’t recommend the doc highly enough. It was a hit at Sundance and it is one of the first projects to come out of the Obama’s Higher Ground production company. See the preview below.