Disability Rights Activist Judith Heumann, Part 2; Unknown

welcome back to keep your prisons and came out entire visiting with judith heumann she's the co author along with kristen joyner of being human an unrepentant memoir of a disability rights activist her story has just been auctioned for a movie it would be the second film featuring judith heumann story she was one of the main subjects in the oscar nominated documentary crook camp released in twenty twenty in my conversation with judith heumann originally aired on keep your presents on october eighteenth twenty twenty to jump forward in your story i few years to when you are i you've left your family you've headed to berkeley and to graduate school and how is your story in the fight for a section five o for tickets to april nineteen seventy seven and the fight for the first federal civil rights protection for people of disabilities how did that demonstration turned into fit in an occupation the federal building and their offices of the department of health

education and welfare that would last twenty six berry's yeah i'm wondering which elected a section in the book that i'd like to reach that will give people a flavor absolutely ok so i am and stay with saying think awaited picture this is i will in a plaid their health education and welfare building was in a class that so i we had a license to have a demonstration and we had a rally at a demonstration outside the building and we had also had a committee that was a sellers' the committee is safe i go for as i recall and this committee had gone and met with people within the health education welfare building cause we want to have a meeting with the regional director whose name was joe montana sen reed and jo mother nana was a smallish man with a head of grey curly hair when we entered the room

he stood up and awkwardly emotions as deceptive seeming that oppresses that many of us already were saying what they do for you he was clearly shot at the size of the crowd we're here to ask about the status of the enabling regulations that section four of the rehabilitation act i spoke quietly mother nana lean back and easley in his chair with a guarded work is light colored suit was tied across the shoulders a white polka dot tie resting on his chest behind me war demonstrators packed themselves into the office the room a hushed with attention one is section five or forty asked i paused surprised what was he serious sections bible for tidal five and it is there at rehabilitation act preventing discrimination against people with disabilities in

institutions and programs receiving money from the federal government at delhi is just bounce world is finalizing the enabling regulations for it do you know anything at all about what's happening with these regulations in washington whole life going down the hall to the rest of the protesters i'm sorry i don't know anything about section five well for what that what is happening with these regulations maldonado get set turning red several way to make those had appeared in his forehead can we please speak with the staff and your team will work and five before i asked mother not a little displeased i'm telling you we don't have any information for you i understand i said but we'd like to speak with his staff please from a mother that i looked like he was going to refuse they walked that came back a moment later with two h

daily employees and that regulation in early blank banks played again it's aspirational slipped into my boys joe quinn stood behind me and jeopardy and sign language the entire floor a west end but it was true madame other narrow staff had any clue what i was talking about hat if you're a consumer body this might just be a job to mouth and out of that is job affected people every single person in his office and millions more feeding that understand that within i see cause i rub it maldonado with question after question asking why they were wandering down the regulations what changes are being proposed why the department was involving the community and the change when will the regulations coming out mother nana looked like he was trying

to disappear under his desk i refused to fill sites and i leaned over my heart pounded now do it now it's that alec state another man as i final four is critical for our lives basically imminently authoritatively behind me i felt the grab hold its breath when matt levy and julie ganesh answers the words came from some wells being within me that sense of absolute certainty spread throughout my battery you don't understand you don't care the crowd chanted behind me my other than a look at us rapping look at us and saw a room full of people he could dismiss the stairs down they get up and walk out of the office he and look at each other i leaned over to katy and whispered had i do i always wanted to get katie staats feeling mamet emotions as strongly as i did in these moments it almost delicate outer body

experience like i wasn't entirely sure whether it happened you made mincemeat an attempt at where i later learned that while we were with maldonado three female lead she barely employees had been walking around offering protection and the levee cookies and punch they prepare for i'm eating like we were i'm some kind of seal chip evidently they had abdicated didn't human reading from being human an unrepentant know more of a disability rights activist co written with kristen joyner you know if you read the part of your book where you're part of the delegation that's gone to washington dc and after several frustrating days huge storm that department of health environment and how the education and welfare yeah so i mean as quickly set the scene the machinists union had volunteered and they had a couple people that come with us

from san francisco to idc and they had rented update i knew oh man that was driving us around so yeah this mix of people on deaf blind physically disabled and that we were going to have a demonstration outside of health education and welfare building i sat in my wheelchair thinking it with getting warm in dc like my wife and i with sweaty they smell terrible and my hair with greasy i was angry i just couldn't believe castile was still ignoring us what the heck did we have to do this hat and now i looked around the church let's go try and meet with cal fire is that everyone who is awake ten of us learned in the tracks and job at

w a fan of that building with glass doors which will black basics tough looking guards with billy clubs we rolled up to the door we're back to enter when a guard intercepts that sign and he said you can't enter here and we did meet with secretary powell fido i told him calmly i was certain enough be confused there was no way that they could be black ink everyday citizens from entering the building at that time security is not exist in the way it does now sign and he repeated i can't let you in ways that isn't that ultimate irritation we have the right to meet secretary card fido and i speak with a manager sign and he repeated in the exact same town the third time i can't let you do that gradually economy they were refusing to allow it and that everyone asks they must've been under specific orders to watch out for people in

wheelchairs trying to get into the building i felt like i'd been slapped across the face my jar tight and how many times i didn't blacks from going somewhere tell they couldn't get in tell now night you but says plains schools restaurants theaters offices friends' houses flash through my mind i was sick of being blocked i didn't care if it was a guard a bus driver a pilot a principal manager or step it was all the same they were all the same i looked at that the glide theory in my eyes and in that gap then i drove my chair directly toward the belly ago i jump to the side and watched me frozen in totally fiscally and they smash into the door pianists followed me in their chairs over and over again we turned around smashed smash smash we slammed into the doors the guards came alive armed and in uniform they started holding our

chairs that's due to human reading from being human an unrepentant man more of a disability rights activists today section five of four became law in nineteen seventy two it took until nineteen ninety four congress to pass the americans with disability fact jump forward to nineteen ninety and talk about what happened between seventy two and ninety to make that happen so it in seventy three and ninety nine b act at that and saying we saw it development of the disability rights movement and it was becoming across disability rights movement which was very important with him point because i'm many different groups were fighting for the legislation that would address discrimination but it was essential that we were able to come together and argue with the congress and

educate the congress to recognize that we need it to be able to that only have a law that made it illegal to discriminate if people were getting funding from the federal government but that we also needed protection from the private sector because remember at that point the shopping malls are being built and movie theaters restaurants are all kinds of businesses that were non governmental organizations and it was that illegal to build things that weren't acceptable to discriminate in hiring a disabled person unless there was a specific law to state my cat and a number of states like california new york illinois and other refugees it's in fact we're passing pieces of legislation by i'm we needed to sell the congress that we needed a bill which would be more on the lines of the civil rights act of nineteen sixty

four on making it illegal to discriminate against disabled people in the public and private sectors and so really it took a lot of organized thing and in the nineteen eighties a man came on the scene his name is justin diet justin diets father i was friends with ronald reagan and justin had polio himself and they had been out of the country for a number of years he also actually had been the night texas a job as a teacher because of his polio but justin over time began to recognize what was going on the kind of discrimination that disabled people were facing it in the united states as well as in other countries and he i hope once appointed to a job by ray again in a federal agency and

he also became a member the national council on disability the national council on disability i was a very important why they governmental group at that time it still exist today either executive director was a gentleman named lex frieden i was a quadriplegic now it's in texas and it and justin and others i really began to i speak to disabled people in the united states to talk about what was it that we needed to do in order to be able to move beyond final four and other allies and so at a was being developed for about seven or eight years and it was that it was different bedside low for ways different than final four because it covered the private sector and it was different bedside well for its final four was pretty much asleep or it was put in the legislation they wear

hearings i am and so when there wasn't the same i am opposition and what we had to do i in the eighties until the law was finally signed in nineteen ninety was to be able to organize in the disability community around the united states i just and dart was one of the leaders like street and there also was a woman named pat right now who have been involved with the final four demonstrations and later went to work with a group called a disability rights education and defense fund see what's in washington and see that basically i was one of the brilliant people behind organizing the work and working with the senate and the house so it was like a huge effort out there were hearings that will help and this joint hearing them a senate house side there were all kinds of demonstrations that again you can see some of this very

visibly it and fill in that gap and so i would say you know that the eighty eight really was the next step of set of the world and development of our movement at the same time i am part of that growth and development really necessitated the ability to become knowledgeable sophisticated how to work with senators and congressmen app campus when quayle over it senator kennedy senator harkin many many other people who play very pivotal wells that would never have if they didn't get significantly about the legislation when they got anywhere patterson queller had epilepsy as senator kennedy and his history with a disability a son with a disability a brother who had it you're a significant that problem and i'm sarah parker whose brother was data so all of these people really

play major roles and at the reagan administration had appointed a couple of disabled people in one of the agencies who also were very about so it was that bad growth and now it's been there the story's disabled people were telling at the local level that they could tell you their congressional people and their senators demonstrating that like your father that this was going on all around the country and that now people were speaking up about it and that we were demanding that the congress do what needed to be done to protect the day what the sixty one million disabled people united states is doing because the state of kansas public radio i have to ask you about the role of senator bob dole but bill course glance and is still very very

critical black till has been i champion of disability rights ever since he assumed position at the federal level i mean and i actually had the privilege of receiving an award from the senate where i'm in nineteen ninety i don't eat at an award had been created in his name and i was the first recipient of that award and then in the center leader i'm began very strong advocate after he left the senate for something called a conventional rights of persons with disabilities and he valiantly fighting to try to get the senate to i recommend that the president at that time obama i'm rather of ratify the crp be and i have to say it was in my view a tremendous insult to him when the majority of members of his party

refused to support him an opening to recommend that the conventional rights a person with disabilities be ratified and it still you know to date and is working on that and down hopefully we well in the next few months to be able to look at the possibility of a senate that in fact will vote to recommend ratification of the crp be a letter that will be given to the credit of standard oil today i think you may have just answered my next question for me back when the americans with disabilities act passed in nineteen ninety and was signed into law was there a sense that we're done and i think they say well there was a sense of accomplishment in justified accomplishment but even just looking at atx out at a thin into discrimination

and it doesn't cover things like healthcare and it didn't think of her i had things like resources and services it doesn't cover anything i'll let the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities and i think one of the very what aspects one of the ad a website was implementation because like any law it could have a great law but if it is implemented it doesn't mean that much and so i think what was important both with final four and with a ba that after final four rigs are assigned and after the aba was signed into law in bulk occasions the federal government cut money foward to ll people to understand disabled people what the law did and didn't do and a lab the business community and transit agencies and others to understand what the

law would obligates them to do and not obligate them today so that was one thing getting reliable made which is still a work in progress and the aba is obviously a very important ally the united states but when you look at the unemployment rate for disabled people today the unemployment rate is like sixty seventy percent for disabled individuals and this is pre kobe and so you can tell that there are many issues that are still plaguing disabled people getting jobs but i really want to say that some of the other essential issues are not just disability insurance so things like the affordable care act i'm very important i'm people need quality health care and for many disabled people it also includes things like durable medical equipment batches braces canes

walkers hearing aids glasses i'm still which is not covered menu many cases but where we are today is implementation of the aba implementation of fighting for implementation of many other laws as well as needing new legislation legislation that will enable people to get the kinds of financial support that they need in order that they can go to work and not be adversely affected financially but that's another whole discussion and janis ian ok as you know that's a really great advocacy organizations that can really talk about some a very important work that the sale people have been doing in kansas for many many years now and the vision that people have for what yet is needed any legislation

you've served as the world bank's first adviser on disability and development you served in the obama administration as the special advisor on international disability rights what is their fight for disability rights look like in other countries with daily scene also in many countries add evolution and developmental disability rights movement in africa africa and latin america and asia there's an organization called it into national disability alliance i gather short it represents their teenage national id disability rights organizations and regional groups so there is definitely a worldwide movement now i you know as i've been saying in the united states our movement is still evolving and our movement is evolving bulk to be more representative crust disability and to

ensure that racial diversity or sexual orientation i'm really at a more prominent positions in the movement likewise in other countries out movement right now they you know they're nowhere near where other movements it in part because disability rights organizations have not received a lot of it i mean write space groups as it will have difficulty getting funding but disability rights groups deftly have difficulty getting funding and while things are improving a little bit here in the us private philanthropy it because i was a senior fellow at the ford foundation darren walker is the president of ford foundation and two thousand and sixteen really started recognizing that he had not been looking at disability as an important part of the work at the ford foundation needed to do it was sincerely

looking at issues of equity and justice and so he has bled within the ford foundation a very strong adjustment so that disability i issues affecting disabled people from a rights based perspective are being addressed more effectively but he also had the vision to really want to be able to bring other foundations from around the united states together and what's been set up as the president's counsel which has about fifteen or sixteen major foundations on it that's co chaired by robert johnson foundation and the ford foundation so you know i think we have to recognize that movements need support and that you wind changing from a medical model in the case of disability to our rights they smile there's many changes that are needing to go i

disabled people feeling that we have a right to be able to go to school to get a job to live and be active and respected in our communities on and that we should no longer be hiding or disability and when people think of battle i disabled people i basically think about people or deaf or blinder i have down syndrome or physical disabilities but a significant number of disabled people at invisible disability depression anxiety bipolar lupus are not cancer significant back problems blah blah anything which limits want a more major life activities under five or four and eighty eight and can be considered by disability when looking at age discrimination so i'm movements are evolving kobe has had a very adverse effect on our communities and i want to say something about kobe and in that is

disability communities in kansas and around the united states and the world catches it played a very important role and that have really been fighting are people not living in nursing homes a living environments and in order for that to happen we need to have acceptable housing affordable housing and personal assistants money which will enable people who i climb that wealthy of which most disabled people art not wealthy and to be able to get financial support to live in the community that people were helping us can take it paid appropriate wages and my concern that covered beyond the disproportionate number of disabled people seniors we don't call them disable but they have disabilities or they would be living in nursing homes and people in alexander gettler big programs and people with what others are calling bad or less and

conditions diabetes hypertension except and many of those individuals being black and brown people are dying at disproportionate rates and i what i weigh that is that we're not going to look at how these situations could've been avoided and one of the ways they could have been and could still today ip addresses by getting people out of these segregated living environments which are not safe to them or the people who are working with them and we must pay attention to this so you know for me if it's gotta go beyond the disability rights movement not disabled people need to understand that disability that is defecting their family members their mothers their fathers and others but it will affect them in the future and it's important that people recognize that they need to

be looking at what we are saying because when i'm just saying what needs to happen for ourselves obviously it's very important we know when a wind up in these terrible places and none of them are good even if the best intentions are there so it really needs to be a move that just like people understand they need health insurance and people should not be uninsured people need to understand that it leads to include the ability to live in the community and inaccessible community i've been visiting with judith heumann she's a lifelong advocate for the rights of people with disabilities and co author with of being human an unrepentant memoir of a disability rights activist my last question for you judy is this why unrepentant that matter what i do and now sara gratz we need to respect ourselves we need to you know fight for our rights because they don't come otherwise and so i'm

unrepentant as we all need to be you know it's odd every life every individual life as a right to be able to make contributions that were interested in making and discrimination by as i'm lack of exposure able is it raises them up a phobia all of the exams the reason is that to be able to live i like equally and down and yeah i have no regrets and i hope to live my legs delay happen till i die i've been visiting with judith heumann she's a lifelong advocate for the rights of people with disabilities and co author with kristin joyner of being human an unrepentant memoir of a disability rights activist to do this has been such a pleasure visiting with you today thank you so much for talking with us thank you very much it's been

gray and western libya also a netflix cricket camp the movie crypt camp is the first of what looks like two movies featuring judith heumann the film rights have recently been absent for her book being human i'm kate mcintyre keep your prisons is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas phil did you miss my recent conversation with rebecca tossing on last week's keep your prisons book club she's the author of sitting pretty the view from my ordinary resilient disabled body wash for the video of that event on k pr his youtube channel you can find out more on the akp are present book club's facebook page