[man 1] I'm recording now. I want to shut it off, I got to press the trigger again. It should start rolling again. -[man 2] Yeah. -[man 3] All right. Would you like to see, um, handicapped people depicted as people? -Excuse me? -[chuckles] [narrator] Jim LeBrecht is a sound designer at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in California. He was born with a disability which has nothing to do with his job. But having the job makes it possible for him to lead an independent productive life. [woman] ...Tom? That's nice. Well, it's about his condition. [LeBrecht] I was born with spina bifida. They didn't think I was gonna live more than a couple of hours. Apparently, I had different plans. In the middle of first grade, I was allowed to enter public school on a trial basis. They were gonna see if it worked out. I mean, at the time, so many kids just like me were being sent to institutions. I remember that my dad used to say to me, "You know, Jimmy, you're gonna have to be really outgoing. You're gonna have to go up and introduce yourself to people, 'cause they're not gonna come up to you." My sister Lindsay was a Brownie, but they wouldn't let me into the Cub Scouts. The barriers were all over the place. I loved music. I loved life. I wanted to be part of the world, but I didn't see anyone like me in it. And then I hear from some people about this summer camp. It's a summer camp for, you know, "the handicapped," run by hippies. And somebody said, "You'll probably smoke dope with the counselors." [chuckles] And I'm like, "Sign me up!" ["For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield playing] [LeBrecht] The wild thing is that this camp changed the world, and nobody knows this story. There's something happening here But what it is ain't exactly clear There's a man with a gun over there Telling me I got to beware I think it's time we stop Children, what's that sound? Everybody look What's going down? There's battle lines being drawn Nobody's right if everybody's wrong Young people speaking their minds Are getting so much resistance From behind It's time we stop Hey, what's that sound? Everybody look What's going down? Stop Hey, what's that sound? Everybody look What's going down? We better stop Now, what's that sound? Everybody look What's going... We better stop Children, what's that sound? Everybody look... [LeBrecht] So, I remember the first time I went to Camp Jened. We take this bus trip from Manhattan up to the Catskills. It's about a three-hour drive. And you get into this really lovely kinda mountainous areas, and you could smell, like, the hot land and the pines, and you're hearing birds and stuff. And then we pull into the parking lot, and these people start swarming around the bus. The place has got a bunch of hippies, and some of them look pretty freaky. And it's like, wow. I'm not sure who's a camper and who's a counselor. ["Freedom (Motherless Child)" by Richie Havens playing] [Woodyard] I grew up in Mobile, Alabama. I saw a sign that said, "Summer jobs. Camps. New York." I didn't know anyone handicapped. I was feeling a little anxious about the kids. I had zero experience with disabled people. I knew as many disabled people as I knew sumo wrestlers. So I'm at the front of the bus, and I was not prepared for the visual of so many disabled people at one time. And I froze. I became paralyzed with fear. [chuckles] Then somebody behind me pushed me, because I was in the way, and that forward momentum carried me through the summer. Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom Sometimes I feel Like a motherless child [Ann Cupolo Freeman] I mean, when Woodstock was happening, I remember being at my grandmother's, listening on the transistor radio, and saying, "Wish I could go. Wish I could go. Wish I could go." And then, when I went to Jened, [laughs] it was like, there I was! I was in Woodstock. The music and the people... And just, you're like, "These people are crazy!" You know? I mean, in a good way. Come to Camp Jened and find yourself, you know? Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom Sometimes I feel like I'm almost gone A long way from my home, yeah Singin' freedom, freedom Freedom, freedom Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom Freedom, freedom [videographer] If you wanna stop and look at anything with the camera, you tell us. You can do that. [young LeBrecht] All right, there's... the adult part. [videographer] What's that yellow building there? [young LeBrecht] That's what I just said. The, uh... The adult part right there. [videographer] That's part of the adult camp. [young LeBrecht] Yeah. There's one of our gorgeous counselors. [counselor laughs] -[young LeBrecht] Say hello. -[counselor] Hi, how are you? [young LeBrecht laughs] Okay. Here is, uh, Girls 1. -[counselor] A place for fun and frolic. -[young LeBrecht chuckles] [counselor] There's one of the campers, Valerie Vivona. [Vivona] Jimmy! Is this necessary? I mean, is this important? Oh, my... [laughs] [young LeBrecht] Is that our director over there? [counselor] Yeah, that's Larry Allison. [campers laughing] [videographer] I understand you're the director here? Yeah, I'm the director of the camp, and... I, uh... I was just out here by the swimming pool, watching the kids swim. I decided to dig a few holes, 'cause the kids are kind of clumsy and I thought it'd be funny if they tripped. [counselor laughs] [young LeBrecht speaking] That's right. [Allison] Jened was an opportunity to try to do some different kinds of things. When the camp started back in the '50s, it was the, uh, traditional kind of camp program. As it evolved during the '60s and into the '70s, what we tried to do was provide the kind of environment where teenagers could be teenagers without all the stereotypes and the labels. And that was a byproduct of the times. You know, of social experimentation. We realized the problem did not exist with people with disabilities. The problem existed with people that didn't have disabilities. It was our problem. So it was important for us to change. Just to say, I like Camp Jened. And I love Larry Olson. [kisses] Olson? [Sophie] Allison. Good for you, Sophie. [laughing] [videographer] Let's go around the circle. What's your name? My name is Ellie Abrashkin. -[videographer] Where are you from? -I'm from Brooklyn, New York. Uh... Brooklyn. Hello, my name is Jean Malafronte. I, uh, got run over by a bus. [camper 1 speaking] -[camper 2 laughs] -I don't know exactly my handicap. And that's all. [Carl] My name is Carl. And if this is ever broadcast on television, my telephone number is area code 212... 0367, and I would love anyone who likes to talk to give me a telephone call. And I am blind and hard of hearing. I had too much oxygen in the incubator, and my hearing, because I had a fractured skull from falling out of a cab. And I will be glad if anyone will call me who hears this. [young LeBrecht] This is where I stay. -[young LeBrecht] Steve's a counselor. -[man] Wanna take a picture of this cat? [young LeBrecht] Smile, Steve. [young LeBrecht] Oops. Let's not bump into the campers. [campers argue in background] [videographer] Let's move around that way. [young LeBrecht speaking] [videographer] You don't have the light to roll up inside and see what it looks like? [young LeBrecht] Um, I don't know. [Hofmann speaking] [Tommy] Yeah! Yeah! [young LeBrecht] Hey, Tommy. Yeah! [young LeBrecht] This is Tommy Curran. [videographer] Hi, Tommy. Nobody uses those upper beds, right? -[young LeBrecht] What? -[videographer] The upper beds? -[young LeBrecht] The counselors do. -[videographer] The counselors do. -[young LeBrecht] Hey, JJ. -[JJ] What's happening? [young LeBrecht speaking] [JJ chuckles] [LeBrecht] That first night in the bunk, I was a little bit nervous. I had just had surgery. Up to that point, I was wearing diapers, 'cause I had no control over my bladder. I guess you could imagine what it was like being 15 and trying to hide the fact that you had to wear diapers. And there was that constant pressure of being found out. I had gotten this urinary tract diversion, so now I had this bag. It wasn't going too well. I was having a hard time keeping it on, and it was leaking and such. But at camp, everybody had something going on with their body. It just wasn't a big deal. Okay, uh, my first guest, what's your name? My name is Michael Tannenbaum. How old are you? -I was just 18. -[chuckles] Uh, what do you think is the most significant part about Camp Jened? Uh... The staff. How great they are. How good they relate to the campers. -Are you lying? -No, I'm not lying. It's just that I've been in other camps, and at no other camp have campers treated... Have counselors treated campers the way they do here. They're not like babysitters. [all laugh] -That was a good answer. -Thank you, John. [young Judy Heumann] It's not 100% sure, but since the new trip is gonna be coming up Thursday, what we're gonna try to do is get the cook to take off Wednesday, which means that we'll cook on Wednesday. Do you have any, um, suggestions? I was trying to see if we could make veal parmesan, but veal is too expensive. [man 1] How about just, like, chow mein? -'Cause bacon is just more expensive. -[woman] Chicken parmesan. What do you think of lasagna? -[campers agreeing and disagreeing] -[woman] Super-duper! [young Heumann] Quiet! How many people... Raise your hands. How many people want lasagna? [indistinct chatter] [man 2] When do we get not to eat starch? The only deal is we don't have to eat those starchy things, so why eat lasagna? [young Heumann] How many people don't want lasagna? -[man 3] Lasagna wins! -[man 4] No lasagna wins. [young Heumann] All right. When you go back into... Mark. When you go back into your groups, will you also decide... Get some suggestions as to what you want, and when we come back in a group together, um, we'll decide what we're going to have to eat. Okay? If the cook is off on Wednesday. [Heumann] I felt like it was important to be inclusive, because I didn't really have a lot of role models, as I was growing up, who had disabilities. It made people feel like they were more a part of what was happening. -[young Heumann] Very good idea. -[camper] Yeah! [Heumann] It was more free and open than certainly what I was experiencing in my day-to-day life at home. I love my baby My baby loves me [Heumann] I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, in a neighborhood called East Flatbush. Growing up in the neighborhood, I didn't feel different. I had polio. I wasn't able to walk anymore and things like that, but there were a lot of kids. We played outside. Stick ball and jump rope. It was a great neighborhood. So, one day, I was going to the candy store with a group of friends. My friend was pushing my wheelchair, and we went around the block, and these kids came over, this one boy said, "Are you sick?" And I was really, like, taken aback, and I recall that I meekishly said, "No, I'm not sick." But I remember... I wanted to cry. I get that feeling a lot even as an adult. I'm kind of in between being shocked by the question, maybe being angry by it, but having to center myself. It was an awakening that people saw me not as Judy, but as somebody who was sick. When I was five years old, my mother took me to the local school to enroll me, but the principal said I couldn't go to that school 'cause I couldn't walk. I could be a fire hazard. So basically, my mother was teaching me. Of course, all my friends in the neighborhood were going to school, but I was at home. Then, one day, when I was about eight, nine years old, my mom got a call that there was an opening in PS 219, in the special ed classes. [bell ringing] [Heumann] The classes for disabled kids were in the basement. The other classes were upstairs. We would call the non-disabled kids "upstairs kids." They would come down, a few of them, Fridays, help us go to assembly. They were allowed to come, and you know, meet us in our classroom and push our wheelchairs. There were people that I met in those classes who then went to Camp Jened together. Neil Jacobson, Stevie Hofmann and Nancy Rosenblum. We would sit together at lunch, and I would help people put their sandwich in their sandwich holder. And I think we respected each other, and we all felt that what we were saying was important. I mean, in some way, even when we were that young, we knew that we were all being sidelined. -[indistinct chatter] -[Rosenblum laughs] [Heumann] We didn't wanna sideline anybody. We wanted to hear what everybody had to say. We were willing to listen. [Rosenblum speaking] -[man 1] Sounds more like... -[woman] Yeah, wow. [chuckles] [Rosenblum] You... You... You're always... You're always talking. You're... You're always talking. [man 2 and 3] You're always talking. [all laugh] [man 3] That's 'cause he's a good public speaker. [woman 1] Jean and I thought I was being, you know... [woman 2] I thought so, too. [man 4] Jack? I think you're really great in the bunk. When the worst things happen, you're sitting in the corner cracking up, and nobody can get depressed when you're sitting there. [all laugh] [woman 3] She knows what she's doing when she's all, like, coy. You know, I really dig you, Nance, and there are a lot of things, you know, I'd like to get to know you better, but, so far as I know you, I really like you. [young LeBrecht speaking] [counselor] Remember, you're speaking to her, not about her. [young LeBrecht] I don't know too much about you, but you're okay. [indistinct chatter] [young Heumann] Um, there's some people here who have been filming. I told them that I would like them to please address us as a group so they could tell us their ideas and we could ask any questions that we wanted to. [Gutstadt] We are People's Video Theater. That's Ken Marsh, I'm Howie Gutstadt, and that's Ben Levine over there. And we have been working with this equipment, which is half-inch video tape, which is simply closed-system television. Whatever, actually, you really wanna say about yourselves, let us know. Let's have a lot of interaction. -[girl 1] Tommy! -[boy] Hey, Tommy! [girl 2] Tommy! -[girl 1] Tommy, look! -[boy] Tommy! -Tommy! -[girl 1] Who's on the television, Tommy? [laughs] [camper] What a ugly face. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [LeBrecht] There was a period of adjustment I had to go through for the first couple of weeks at camp. Because I was in public school, I wasn't around other people with disabilities. I wasn't a shut-in. I could come and go more or less as I pleased. And not everybody at the camp had those advantages. [counselor] Rory. [LeBrecht] Some of them were going to special schools. Some of them were isolated a lot of the time. You had people from institutions. [campers singing] Lately it occurs to me What a long, strange trip it's been [LeBrecht] Being 15, I was drawn to the people that were smoking cigarettes and listening to music. Sometimes the light's All shining on me [LeBrecht] Outside of camp, I really didn't feel like a cool kid. But at Jened, I was. There were a lot of cute girls at camp, and, you know, I was friendly. [laughs] [camper] Yeah! [Denise speaking] [Neil speaking] [LeBrecht laughing] Oh, my God! -[all laughing] -[LeBrecht] Oh, my God! Oh, my God! ["Crimson and Clover" by Tommy James and the Shondells playing] [young LeBrecht] There's one of my counselors with a waitress. Aha! This is a little sitting corner over there. It's kind of dark over here at night. [videographer] So what's that mean? What goes on there? [young LeBrecht laughing] [counselor speaking] [videographer] You've been going around giving me this superficial tour. Let's have some real stuff. [counselor speaking] -[videographer] Who's Nanci? -[young LeBrecht] She's my girl. ["Crimson and Clover" continues playing] [LeBrecht] Camp Jened was where I met my first girlfriend, Nanci. [LeBrecht] She was funny. She was cute. She was always in the middle of things and having a really, really great time. I mean, I really loved her. As much as you can at the age of 15, you know? I literally remember us, like, making out in the dining hall. It seemed like we were making out all the time. [Heumann] There was a romance in the air if you wanted to experience it. I never dated outside of camp. But at Jened, you could have make-out sessions behind the bunks and different places like that. [Neil speaking] [LeBrecht laughs] [Neil speaking] [LeBrecht laughs] -[LeBrecht laughs] -[Neil speaking] [campers laughing] [D'Angelo] You want me to tell them what happened? -[interviewer] Yes. -Oh, well... Well, two people got crabs, and, um, they're spreading. They form in human body in there, and I don't know... [chuckles] And they, um... multiply! In the beginning, when this thing started happening last night, we found out what was going on. We were kind of all very hyper about it. And who the fuck knew what, you know, crabs were, or lice or anything? I wanna go over there. [chuckles] [interviewer] What's over there? [chuckling] My girl. [interviewer] Have you seen her today? Just from over here. [interviewer] Have you talked to her? Not really. Just from across here. [man] We're all quarantined. Yeah. It's our first-week anniversary today. [chuckles] It's your first-week anniversary, and you can't even talk to her. That's right. -Why I'm mad? -[woman] Your boyfriend. Oh, yeah. I'm mad because I can't see Jimmy, and today is our first-week anniversary. [all laugh] [camper singing] I got those poor old crab blues, yeah [counselor] Haven't had so much fun since Grandma caught her tit in the wringer! We're thinking of collecting all the crabs and having a bake. [all laughing] [counselor] We may have to burn the bastards out. [camper singing] Oh, yeah I got the... Just the most asinine, stupid thing I have ever heard. When thinking about it rationally, I realized that I don't itch, so there's no need for me to disinfect. My wheelchair doesn't itch, and neither does my bed, my mattress or my roommate, Bruce. Yet we're all in the process of dehumanization. Got a match? We got crab power! Whoopi-doo! It's the best activity yet. -I do so declare, y'all. -[woman] Tell them, Jean. It's spreadable! You know, how would you like to have somebody wash your balls? -[man 1] That's the part... -[man 2] It depends who. Right, I can do it myself for me. So, you know, I don't really care. But there are other people who can't. You know, and they have to have it done for them. You know, people around here feel small enough most of the time, and when somebody has to scrub their balls, they'll probably feel even smaller. I think, actually, what happened was that people were having fun. We were working together as a whole unit, washing and cleaning and showering, and doing things that we've never done before. And it's really a very different kind of a thing. And I have to go shower some people. [chuckles] I'll see you later. [Heumann] At Camp Jened, personal assistance was built into all of our lives, who needed help. There were people there that would help me get dressed and undressed, and go to the bathroom and shower, and get in and out of the pool. In some way, it was also the beginning of my experiencing what it would be like to have someone other than my mother or my father have to do all those things. [campers chattering and shouting indistinctly] [Woodyard] At the camp, you could do anything that you thought you wanted to try to do. You wouldn't be picked to be on a team back home. But at Jened, you had to go up to bat. And if you didn't hit the ball, hell, you were out. ["Like a Ship" by Pastor T.L. Barrett and the Youth for Christ Choir playing] When we were at Jened, the Disability Act had not been passed. So, when we would take the campers on a trip into town for ice cream, we couldn't get you in the door. And then deal with the staring, or deal with, "We don't want them here because they make our other customers feel uncomfortable." Whatever obstacles that were in my way being a black man, the same thing was held true for individuals in wheelchairs. Back home, I had to be careful who I said things to, because that was a way of surviving. They were survival skills that you had. I had to be very, very, very careful not to be disrespectful. Not to look a white man in his eye. You had to do those things. You had to be mindful of that. [camper singing] I got the one-time blues You get them only once I got the one-time blues You get them only once When you're alone with me You know you can't get enough My eyes get red I don't know what to do My eyes get red I don't know what to do I've got so much pain I don't know if I'm really blue 'Cause I got The one-time, one-time blues Hooray. Are you ready? -[videographer] You're on now. -All right. We're here now. We're gonna talk about parents. You know, and what kind of... How they bug us, or how you lie to them, whatever it is. Maybe we should start off with, uh... overprotectiveness, which I really hate. Does anybody wanna start it up? My parents are great, but sometimes I hate them, 'cause they're too great, and they're too protective of me. And things that I want to do, and I would love to do, they say, "No, you can't do it. You're handicapped." And they keep reminding me of the fact that I'm in a chair. They don't seem to realize that there's so much I could do. And, um... [young LeBrecht] I depend on my mother for some things and so I can't really fight her as hard as I wish I could. [interviewer] What kind of things do you depend on her for? Well... Some of the things everybody else depends on their parents for, like laundry and stuff, but, like... Like, she's the person that orders special supplies when I'll need it and stuff, and... If I'm in a position where I'm not able to do something, you know, she's gonna have to do it. If you keep on bugging your mother, saying, you know... Fighting her constantly, then there's gonna be a time when she's gonna be very reluctant. Does everybody think... Everybody here think that their parents are, you know, stricter with us? Or, you know, do they hit us the same as your sister or brother, or they think you have to be careful? I have two brothers and, um, they got a lot more freedom than I did. [man] There goes your argument. Those are brothers. That's a universal argument. -Brothers... -[woman] We're basically the same age. It's her responsibility to do that. And as long as she keeps on accepting things being done for her, it will always be done. [Rosenblum speaking] -[interviewer] Is that it? -Yeah. [interviewer] Did someone understand it? Did anybody get part of it? ["Tomorrow is a Long Time" by Bob Dylan playing] How many other people have those kinds of problems? [LeBrecht] What we saw at that camp was that our lives could be better. If today was not a crooked highway [LeBrecht] The fact of the matter is, you don't have anything to strive for if you don't know that it exists. [Heumann] We kept having these discussions. It was allowing us to recognize we needed to look at ways of doing things together. Not just at camp but after camp. I can't see my reflection In the water I can't speak the sounds To show no pain [LeBrecht] When it was time to leave camp, some of us vowed to stay in touch and write or call. Or remember the sound of my own name [LeBrecht] There was always a chance that some campers weren't gonna come back next year. Yes, and only If my own true love was waitin' [all cheering] [counselor] The night before the end of camp, everybody'd be hanging out almost all night. Nobody wanted to go to bed. If today was not a crooked highway [Woodyard] It was a very happy night, but you knew the next morning, there would be tears. If tonight was not a crooked trail If tomorrow wasn't such a long time [Woodyard] We were going back, almost in time. Then lonesome would mean Nothing to you at all [O'Conor] We were brothers and sisters there. [Woodyard] I took ideas back home that my community was unfamiliar with. I wore tie-dye shirts. My afro had grown really, really... It was out like this. I burned incense. Between the revolution that was going on, the peace movement, the desire to stop the war, I became very involved in that. Jened had exposed me to the world outside of Alabama. [LeBrecht] At camp, I was in a whole other world. My first girlfriend, and I'm popular, and I'm... And I'm going back to this world in which it's hard to get around. Sometimes I would just, like, go home after high school and go to bed for a few hours and just get away from the world. I have friends, but I'm the only person with a disability. I had to try to adapt. I had to fit into this world that wasn't built for me. It never dawned on me that the world was ever going to change. Most disabled people, like myself, are unable to use public transportation because it discriminates against the disabled due to the fact that it's architecturally inaccessible. [man 1 speaking] [interviewer] So, you have to stay on the street here-- [man] I have to stay on the street and go around the block. [TV show host] Most animal species abandon or destroy members of the group which are maimed or deformed. Some human societies have been equally harsh. Down through the centuries, our literature, and recently, our movies, are full of monstrous, misunderstood creatures. Through this conditioning, we come to think of the handicapped as objects of fear or pity or loathing. Tonight we look at them as human beings with problems. Judy Heumann is the president of Disabled in Action, a political organization of the handicapped. I think one of the real problems is that, when you grow up being disabled, um, it's the fact that you're not considered either a man or a woman and even the beginning of any kind of a relationship, you know, beginning at all because you're just thought of as a disabled person. -You know, person being-- -[woman] Asexual. -Yeah, second and asexual... -[woman] Asexual. Right. ...and "Can you do this?" and "Can you do that?" [Pat Figueroa] Let me give you an indication of that. We have an elevator operator in school that whenever he stops on a floor and there are a couple wheelchairs, people in wheelchairs waiting, he starts yelling, "All right, get these wheelchairs in here." And he doesn't take into consideration the people in... You know, the... the... [woman] The people in the wheelchairs. Yeah, the person there. It's just wheelchairs to him. [Heumann] I don't think I felt, really, shame about my disability. What I felt more was exclusion. For me, the camp experience really was empowering, because we helped empower each other that the status quo is not what it needed to be. Disabled in Action was started as a result of a lawsuit that I had brought against the Board of Education in New York City. There was publicity going on and we set up all these different committees. One of the first things that Disabled in Action worked on was on deinstitutionalization. [narrator] There are some aspects of life which society has hidden from public view. The following program will remind you that they exist and that we all bear a responsibility to humanity. [LeBrecht] I remember watching TV one evening before dinner and on comes this exposé about this state hospital in New York called Willowbrook. [Rivera] The early morning mist gave the place an eerie feeling like a set from a horror movie. And once inside, that feeling became suddenly appropriate. The doctor had warned me that it would be bad. It was horrible. There was one attendant for perhaps 50 severely and profoundly retarded children. Lying on the floor naked and smeared with their own feces, they were making a pitiful sound. The kind of mournful wail that it's impossible for me to forget. [LeBrecht] It was really shocking. It was just, like, how could this be? [staff member] The kids can't feed themselves. There are so few attendants that there's only an average of, in time, three minutes per child for feeding. [Rivera] How much time would be needed to do a job adequately? [staff member] The same amount of time that your children and my children would wanna have to eat breakfast. [LeBrecht] I suddenly remembered one summer, there had been a camper at Camp Jened from Willowbrook. I remember being in the dining hall and this guy comes in. He was basically just eating as much as he could. He was just... Kept on shoveling it in until the point where he threw up. It was kind of like somebody coming in from the wild. [Rivera] What's the consequence of three minutes per meal per child? [staff member] The consequence is death from pneumonia. [Heumann] I had never seen the inside of an institution like this. The chaos that existed was frightening to me because I recognized that myself and other friends could have easily been in this institution. At the time, people still were not thinking of what was wrong with the Willowbrooks of the country. The civil rights movement was going on around us and that was an opportunity to talk about why were we excluded, and what did we need to do? There weren't anti-discrimination laws at the federal level. But members in the Senate and House were looking for avenues to make that happen. The Rehabilitation Act in 1972 was a perfect vehicle. Buried at the end of the bill was Section 504, an anti-discrimination provision. The language was drawn from civil rights legislation in the 1960s. It was gonna mean that anybody who got federal money, hospitals, education, transportation, on and on, was gonna have to not discriminate. It was like a "yahoo" wonderful moment. And Nixon vetoed it. The President has vetoed a bill setting up a vocational rehabilitation program because he said it would cost too much. [William Ronan] It would be just impossible in terms of its financial cost to put in elevators or ramps in all these stations. Just costs would be horrendous in terms of their total. The problem here is, as with all of this question, how many people would really be served by it? [Heumann] Disabled in Action decided to have a demonstration in New York City in front of Nixon headquarters. [young Heumann] We decided that we were gonna sit down in the street and we were gonna stop traffic. So at 4:30 in the afternoon, we formed this huge circle. We cut off four streets. [horns honking] [Freeman] You get the call to action. "To the barricades!" You know, Judy would call it. I remember being on the ground with these big trucks coming at you, going, "Whoa." [Bronston] It was a very unusual demonstration. People were not used to seeing a whole lot of folks in wheelchairs. And you had to back up. I mean, you had to back up if you were on the wrong side in front of that young woman. [announcer on TV] The newswatch never stops. This is WINS... [young Heumann] They were announcing, "Paraplegics stop traffic in Manhattan." [Heumann] There were only 50 of us. But basically, with the one street, we were able to shut the city down. [Bronston] Those DIA demonstrations were the first time a real, serious, radical agenda was mobilized. [LeBrecht] When I heard about DIA, I really wanted to join, but I often couldn't go 'cause I was stuck in high school. Judy would put out the call that we're gonna show up to this event or we're going to demonstrate about this or that, and when this call came out to go to this Martin Luther King birthday gathering, I had to go. So I took the train down from Hartsdale to Grand Central Station. And going to Grand Central Station, it's so freaking huge. That day, I couldn't find a ramp or an elevator. I had to climb out of my chair, pull the wheelchair up behind me, so step by step, pull it up, push my... Put myself up, pull it up, push myself up. But I made it. And I was there with Pat Figueroa, one of the counselors from Camp Jened. [all chanting] [Heumann] In the spring of 1973, we decided we were gonna have another demonstration. The bottom line was, we were a small group of disabled people. We were getting very little coverage from the media at the national level because we didn't have any disabled veterans. And that was, you know, the time of the Vietnam War. ["Volunteers" by Jefferson Airplane playing] They lied about the war in Vietnam. They've lied about every damn thing in the world. They lied about Watergate, and about how they're treating us. They're lying about how they're treating the physically disabled and mentally retarded in this country. We wanted to be able to mobilize disabled individuals in D.C. to express the feelings of the disabled community around the United States, and that in unity we do have strength, and that we must expand the pie that we're fighting from so that we don't have to fight each other, but that we can all get our adequate services. That's really what this is getting into. [reporter] There's a minority in America that has only recently begun to speak up and be heard. They face problems of discrimination and prejudice in employment, education, transportation and in just about every other aspect of what society considers everyday life. Until the last few years, they suffered mostly in silence, but that's changing. They have begun to organize and to get politically active. -[man] What do we want? -[all] Civil rights! -[man] When do we want it? -[all] Now! -[man] What do we want? -[all] Civil rights! -[man] When do we want it? -[all] Now! [LeBrecht] Eventually, Nixon caved in to all the political pressure and he signs the rehab bill. But they do nothing to enforce Section 504. [Denise speaking] [laughing] [LeBrecht] In 1974, I finally graduated high school and wound up going to UC San Diego 3,000 miles away. Truckin', got my chips cashed in Keep truckin' [LeBrecht] My plan was that I was gonna study acoustics so I could do sound for the Grateful Dead. When I got to California, my whole life opened up. I wanted to take advantage of everything. I tried to learn how to surf. One night, I even convinced my friend Doug I could drive his motorcycle. [motorcycle crashes] As absurd as it sounds, I really felt like I had overcome my disability. During my first year in college, I heard that a bunch of people from Camp Jened had moved out to Berkeley. Sometimes your cards ain't worth a dime If you don't lay 'em down [LeBrecht] I'd drive up and go to Dead concerts and it seemed like I'd always bump into Al Levy. Al was like the Dead Head. Sometimes the light's All shinin' on me [LeBrecht] The Bay Area was a wild scene. You didn't have to worry about fitting in like you did in San Diego. There was this whole movement brewing where a group of radical disabled people were, like, making this new world for themselves. What a long, strange trip it's been [narrator] The Center for Independent Living is unique because it is run by the handicapped for the handicapped, a model for the rest of the nation. A center where the severely disabled help themselves. It's the first time I think that a group of severely disabled individuals have really gotten together to solve some mutual problems. [Heumann] Ed Roberts contacted me to see if I'd be interested in coming out to Berkeley. I didn't want to go out there by myself. And I said to D'Angelo, "What do you think about moving out to Berkeley?" And we were roommates. [young Heumann] I wanna see a feisty group of disabled people all around the world. I mean, a group of people who, um, will not accept no, um, without asking why. That's really what's so critical about CIL is that, you know, it's not a card that you get handed at the door, but it is kind of a demand that is expected of people in this community and that is, if you don't respect yourself and if you don't demand what you believe in for yourself, you're not gonna get it. [Corbett O'Toole] My first experience of finding home was coming to Berkeley and hanging out at CIL. I had always kind of pretended like I wasn't disabled. You know, I could walk. I would stick the cane under the couch, but the whole time I'm worrying about the minute I have to get up and everybody's gonna see me limp around. So I didn't realize how heavy that burden was until I was with people where I didn't have to pretend. [reporter] The repair shop has just about everything. Even electronic equipment to fine-tune the battery-powered wheelchairs. And the center also provides transportation. Relying on state, local and federal money, the goal is to make the handicapped self-sufficient. [phone rings] Nanci D'Angelo, may I help you? Uh-huh. Um... Let's see. It shouldn't be any problem finding you an attendant. What I'll do is I'll give you a list of people who wanna work in the hours that you need somebody, and their phone numbers, okay? -[woman] Okay, it sounds good. -And anything you need, we're here. -[phone rings] -Excuse me. [young Heumann] You wanna live in a house, then that's your right. You want a two-bedroom apartment, we'll try to help you find a two-bedroom apartment. And here is how you can apply for money to get attendants paid for. [attendant] Want me to get anything while I'm out? -Yes. -[attendant] What? Ice cream. [attendant] Ice cream? What else? Candy. [attendant] And candy. When that whole gang of the Camp Jened kids started to come, they were like this. Like, so... If you socialized with one, like, "Oh, hey, you wanna hang out on Friday night?" "Yes." But it always meant one of those people, if not five of those people, were always gonna be there. You know, camp kind of traveled with them. There was like the traveling Camp Jened show. How did I first hear about it? Well, obviously, I heard about it from Steve, who was out here. Neil had the computer training program. [Neil speaking] [Denise speaking] [women exclaiming and laughing] [Freeman] They took me to a Halloween party at CIL. I remember that day, it was... Oh, my God! They were all drunk and carrying on. [laughs] And these people, all these cripples, were dressed in costumes. And... I don't know. I always felt you had to kinda hide yourself. You didn't want to draw attention. And there they were, like, all proud. It really struck me. Like this is... This is different. This is really different. [announcer] Next we have Steven Hofmann, 28. He's a transvestite by trade. He likes to work with handicapped children and other animals. His ambition is to be a headless amoeba with a lot of large, thickly-endowed boyfriends. -["Sweet Transvestite" playing] -[audience cheering] How'd you do? I... See you've met my faithful handyman He's just a little brought down Because when you knocked... [Hofmann speaking] Don't get strung out by the way I look Don't judge a book by its cover I'm not much of a man By the light of day But by night I'm one hell of a lover I'm just a sweet transvestite From Transsexual, Transylvania [reporter] Good evening, Judy. Good to see you again. How has the situation changed since 1973? Are you still as upset and angry as you were then? I think that what I've tried to do in part, is to turn some of that anger around and put it into, um, positive action. And outside the fact that legislation has been passed, there's been very little actual enforcement. [reporter] Federal law prohibits discrimination against handicapped persons. An organization of the handicapped claims that law has been ignored. Today there were demonstrations at 11 regional offices of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare across the nation. [Heumann] Carter had been elected. They had said that the regulations would be adopted, but when Secretary Califano became head of Health, Education and Welfare, he began to do a review. [reporter] Handicapped citizens demonstrated at Health, Education and Welfare today. They accuse Secretary Califano of weakening and delaying regulations to implement the 1973 law to protect the rights of the handicapped. We have maintained this position for almost three years now, but, apparently, when Mr. Califano became secretary, he said, "This is a whole new ball game." To us, it is not. We're still in the same game. [cheering] [all chanting] 504! 504! 504! I have reviewed those regulations. There are some difficult questions. The last administration took two and a half years and decided not to move. I've had two and a half months. [protester 1] Why can't you move now? What are you waiting for? Because I wanna make sure I understand them-- -[protester 1] No! It's one law! -I will do the-- -[protester 2] Boo! -[protester 1] Not in May, now! [crowd clamoring] [Heumann] What we were hearing is that lobbyists were coming in, wanting to make changes in the regulations. Schools and universities, and even hospitals, didn't want to have to spend the money to make their buildings accessible. So, we believed that there was, like, an imperative. That we had to act quickly. We were told, today, you heard it here, that because of their failures, we are not to have... our civil rights. [crowd clamoring] [all protesters] Sign or resign! Sign or resign! [reporter] Some of the protesters vowed to stay outside of Califano's office until he signs the regulations. [woman] This coalition is a part of a national movement and we're going to stick together and continue to fight for our civil rights. [crowd cheering] [HolLynn D'Lil] I didn't even know there was a national movement. And I didn't know what a 504 was. I was a girl from Texas. When I was 22, just right out of college, and I was on my way home one day and a truck ran me off the road and so I became a paraplegic. I had all the assumptions and prejudices that people have about people with disabilities and about disabilities, and suddenly I was one. I'd never been around so many people with disabilities and so many different kinds of disabilities, all in one place and all chanting about rights. [chuckles] I'd never really thought about it as applying to me. And I called Ms. Magazine, and they gave me an assignment. So I went back there with my camera. [man over PA] We people who are here in the Bay must stay together. We are the strongest political force in this country. We are young, we are sensitive, and we are intelligent. Let's stay together. [Dennis Billups] I was asked to go to the demonstration by my sister. And I said, "Okay. I'll give it a shot." And then all of a sudden, someone said, "Well, let's go in the building. You know, what are we gonna do, stand outside?" So I headed toward the building. [D'Lil] The speeches were over and I followed this group of people into the building. There must have been 300 people and they went up to the fourth floor and they went into the office of the regional director. Now, what's he gonna do with all these people in wheelchairs? [protesters chanting] 504! 504! 504! [young Heumann] We are not asking anything unreasonable. We are asking you to request a telephone call to talk to Joseph Califano. Mr. Lebossi, the general counsel for HEW, has been designated as the person that I should discuss these matters with, and if you... [young Heumann] The more I sat in this room and got these absolute non-answers, the angrier I got, and that's when people started really feeling like we couldn't leave, because no one knew what we were talking about, but we knew that they were trying to rescind the regulations. We shall not be moved [Billups] Five or six o'clock came and nobody was leavin'. So, I figured, "Okay, we're gonna have to spend the night." [laughs] [Heumann] Kitty and I and a few others, we just kind of took a vote and said, "How many people wanna stay overnight?" And that's how it started. [protesters chanting] 504! 504! 504! Judy said, "Bring a toothbrush." And I was like, "Okay." [chanting continues] I said, "Well, Judy, I didn't come prepared." [chuckles] She said, "You gotta stay here, Ron. You gotta stay here." Solidarity forever Solidarity forever The truth goes marching on [all cheering] This is for tonight. Okay? How many people in the room cannot sleep on the floor? [Heumann] Bay Area was the most well-organized. We had the expertise to not only have demonstrations but to sustain them. I, I, I I am somebody [reporter] The sit-in at San Francisco's HEW headquarters now is in its third day. Hot water has been turned off on the fourth floor, where the occupation army of cripples has taken over. [O'Toole] The FBI cut off the phones. They said we couldn't have any communication. So, we're like, "Okay, what do we do?" And the deaf people went... "We know what to do." Someone would sign out the window. That's how we communicated back and forth to the people outside the building. Uh, one fellow, who's right behind me and asleep right now, built us a refrigerator. He attached some plastic to an air conditioner and built it out of cardboard and stuff that was around. So, we've been able to keep a lot of stuff cold. [Billups] There were just so many people trying to figure out how to eat, how to wash. "Where are we gonna get food? Where are we gonna get blankets?" Brad Lomax was the one who had the idea to call the Black Panthers. Brad could hardly speak, but he could gesture [laughs] and he got his point across. [O'Toole] The Panthers would bring a hot meal for dinner and then they would leave food for breakfast and lunch. For nothing. No money, no nothing. I ended up, you know, after the meeting I said to this guy, "I don't get it. You're the Black Panther Party and you don't have a ton of resources." You know, they had a food kitchen in Oakland. "Why are you choosing to feed us?" He said to me, you know, "You are trying to make the world a better place and that's what we are about. We are about making the world a better place for everybody. So, if you're gonna go to the trouble to stay here and sleep on this floor, we're gonna make sure you get fed." You know, that's how we survived. [man] We have a cafeteria. We have a conference room. We have beds all over the place, mattresses, food. It's incredible. [Heumann] Our support was much broader than just within the disability community. Union members and other civil rights organizations. We had relationships with local government. The mayor was clearly in support. One of the secretaries in Sacramento sent down mattresses. Glide Memorial Church, which was run by a progressive minister. We are a people who believe in liberation! [crowd applauding] [Heumann] It was the right place, the right time. [O'Toole] One of the women who ran the big lesbian bar in the East Bay came and said, "What do you guys need?" And we said, "We're so tired of being dirty." And, so, her partner was a nurse and they went out and bought a gallon of shampoo and a gallon of cream rinse. And, one night, just showed up. And for three hours, anybody that wanted their hair washed got their hair washed. [woman] Oh, my lord. It feels good. Yay for gay children And teenagers! We shall not be moved [singing continues] [O'Toole] You can't imagine what the 504 sit-in was like. It was camp. Everything we learned at crip camp was what we did there. [LeBrecht] So many people from Camp Jened, campers, counselors, disabled, non-disabled found their way into the building. We shall have our rights We shall have our We shall have our rights ...do right now, is to read off the list of the names of people who are going to be speaking tomorrow. [Heumann] There were many different committees that were working on media and food and medical issues and different things like that. ...the regulations that we agreed to at the January 21st meeting, and he is trying to obscure that... [D'Lil] Judy made sure everybody gets a chance to speak. ...the hunger strike. Anyone here who wants to... [D'Lil] We could not begin a meeting until there was a sign interpreter there. The meetings would go until three o'clock in the morning. [Heumann] People have to be engaged and feeling like they made a difference. Otherwise, people weren't gonna stay there all that time. [all singing] Ain't gonna let nobody Turn me around Turn me around - I said