Disability Pride Month
The entire month of July is now celebrated as Disability Pride Month. This is a good idea as the LGBTQ community has certainly been successful organizing a grass roots effort to celebrate Pride in June.
Juneteenth just became a recognized holiday in the state of Minnesota. The disability community needs to move in that direction and advocate passing a law celebrating disability pride day.
Disability pride month is about celebrating our differences without using the label special needs. Although disability pride month is not a national holiday yet, it is being recognized and celebrated more and more every year. It began with the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act on July 26, 1990. But we should be careful not to limit it to just one day or one month.
We should celebrate all year long as we strive to meet its intended promise that is stated in its preamble as follows:
“When President Bush signed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act–the world’s first comprehensive civil rights law for people with disabilities–in front of 3,000 people on the White House lawn on July 26, 1990, the event represented an historical benchmark and a milestone in America’s commitment to full and equal opportunity for all of its citizens.
The President’s emphatic directive on that day–“Let the shameful walls of exclusion finally come tumbling down”–neatly encapsulated the simple yet long overdue message of the ADA: that 43 million Americans with disabilities are full-fledged citizens and as such are entitled to legal protections that ensure them equal opportunity and access to the mainstream of American life.”
When I think of the ADA, I remember the pictures and the videos of people with disabilities, crawling up the stairs of our nations capitol 33 years ago. They were just trying to participate in their own landmark legislation. Think about that for one second … they were just trying to participate in their own celebration to have access to equal rights in their own community.
And as we see other civil rights legislation weakened and overturned through our court system, we must not stop our pursuit of access to our own world.
Happy birthday, Americans with Disabilities Act!