Crip Camp: Cradle of the Disability Rights Movement

In the 1970s Camp Jened was not just any old summer camp in the Catskills. Hippy values, the Grateful Dead and pot smoking shaped this utopia for teens with disabilities.  

Before long, a generation of summer campers with disabilities became a social movement that soon changed the world.

We welcome Jim LeBrecht and Nicole Newnham, co-directors of the Netflix documentary Crip Camp, to the podcast. Jim and Nicole share their experiences making a documentary about one of the most compelling, previously untold stories of our time.

In the process, we find out what it is like to work with executive producers Barack and Michelle Obama. Jim and Nicole also discuss the next items on the agenda for disability rights.

“I had no mental model for imagining disability communities, and I didn’t have any mental model for thinking about wild, horny teenagers listening to Bob Dylan at a summer camp. It was just joyous.” – Nicole Newnham