Judy Heumann, Author and Disability Rights Leader Discusses Career and Film Crip Camp

Welcome to Disability Matters with your host Joyce Bender. All comments, views, and opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the host, guest, and callers. Now the host of Disability Matters, here's Joyce Bender.

Hi everyone, welcome to the show. Welcome to fall, the beginning of September. Wow, did this go Fast. Did you notice if you're working from home during this time that it seems like it's faster, like faster, faster than ever? I don't understand that, but boy, it seems like Monday, Friday, Monday, Friday. Seems like we're on a spaceship. But I wanna send a special shout out to my dear friend, Yoshiko Dart this year as we're celebrating the 30th anniversary of the signing of the ADA. I think about Yoshiko and her late hus— hus— husband Justin all the time. Two people that were instrumental in seeing the ADA signed. And a special shout out to my two friends, Gang Young with the embassy in South Korea and Richard Roberts in Okinawa, both with the State Department. I love both of them and I'm so excited to tell you we have an upcoming show and I'll tell you more details before the end of the show from South Korea. Thanks to Richard. I love you, Richard. Um, and To the listeners in the 17 countries, China being the largest, I gotta tell you, I appreciate everything you do. Even that one listener in Iceland. Hey, that's how it gets started, right? With one person. So, you know, if you've been listening to the show for the past 4 years, our sponsor has been Highmark right here in Pittsburgh. And I just wanna thank you, Highmark, for your incredible dedication. I also wanna thank new sponsors, Peoples, formerly Peoples Natural Gas, Wells Fargo, and the Employment Options. Every company dedicated to quality of life and spreading the news about people with disabilities. Now I've got to tell you, I have no words to tell you how absolutely not only excited but honored I am with our guest today. First of all, very blessed to tell you she's a friend of mine, and I've known her for, you know, a long time, and I've always been just in such admiration of her, and I'm talking about Judy Heumann, an author portrayed in a recent documentary, speaker, international speaker, formerly worked at the State Department and with education in two different presidential administrations, and just an advocate Beyond Belief. Such an honor to have you, Judy. Welcome to the show.

So great to be with you. Yeah, we know each other for more years than we care to know at the moment. We're getting older, everybody.

Yeah, you know what, I met you around the time that I won the President's Award, uh, in the Clinton administration. That's right, 1999. So I'm going to tell it Even though you told me not to. 21 years. Okay, we've known each other a long time, and it's been joyful for me to know you. You know, you're just— well, I'm going to tell you all something. When I went on these trips with the State Department to Indonesia, to Japan, no matter where I am, people would say, Judy, Do you know Judy? Do you know Judy Heumann? I mean, around the world, she's so well known and more well known, I'm sure, with this movie and this fabulous book. And I didn't even know where to start, although I got some ideas from Judy's book. But, but I wanted to talk to you first, Judy, about your parents, because, you know, when I was—

one thing we could— Let me just say one thing. To everybody, the name of the movie that we are talking about is Crip Camp. C-R-I-P Camp. And for those of you who have access to Netflix, it is available on Netflix. And it is in 29 languages and captioned in 29 languages. And it is also audio described. And the audio descriptions are in 19 languages. And the name of the book is Being Heumann, my last name H-E-U-M-A-N-N, an unrepentant memoir of a disability rights activist. And it's also an audio version that was read by an actress in the United States called Ali Stroker, who herself is a disabled woman. And you can get it on Amazon.

Yeah, and I, I want to add to— I want to add to that and say, uh, that Judy is like the main major character portrayed in Crip Camp. And I was telling Judy, I— when I watched this with a group of people, I'm saying, hey, that's Judy, that's Judy, that's my friend, that's Judy. And boy, she's right. This is a great documentary. I would encourage everyone to go to Netflix. You know, I think they should be showing this in colleges, universities, everywhere. But Being Human is a great book, which we're going to talk about in a little bit. But the beginning, uh, as I said, at the beginning of the book, it talked about two people that I believe not only changed your life but are the reason— is the reason I'm talking to you right now. And that would be your parents. For example, your mother, you know, I could tell from reading this is like a force. She was a force to be reckoned with. But I wonder, since we have all these listeners, if you could just take a few minutes and talk about that.

Thank you, Joyce Bender. So I had my disability when I was about 18 months old. And I think for those of us who had our disabilities when we were younger, in many ways our parents played very important roles. And for me, my parents, you know, in the late 1940s when I had polio and moving forward, we didn't see laws in the United States on issues like requiring that disabled children had a right to education until 1973, and we didn't see many other laws until '75 and 1990. So really, parents then and still now had to really be advocates on behalf of their children. In my case, I was very fortunate that my parents both felt that they wanted me to grow up and be able to do all the things that they had wanted for me before I had polio. But what they learned they had to do was to become a strong advocate because the experiences that we were having in the United States in the 1950s and '60s and really through to the mid-'70s were that typically many disabled children, like myself—I don't walk, I use a wheelchair, can't go up and down stairs—were rejecting us from going to school. And we were getting something called home instruction, where a teacher would come to your house. So, when my mother took me to school when I was 5, I was denied admission into the school. School because I was considered a fire hazard. The Board of Education in New York City sent a teacher to my house for 2.5 hours a week, not a day, but a week. And then when I finally started going to school when I was 9 years old, this program that I went to was not equivalent to the classes that non-disabled children were taking in school. And my mother learned that if you were unable to walk up and down stairs, that for high school, people were going back onto home instruction. So my mother really began to organize with other mothers to get the Board of Education to make changes in schools throughout the city so we wouldn't have to go back on home instruction. But my mother learned as she went. My father worked all day, so he would be supportive and maybe go to meetings with her from time to time. But I think that's what we've seen with parents. And for me, I was very fortunate that my parents didn't fight for the minimum. They fought for what they felt was the maximum. And that was throughout my life. And then when I started going to college, it was really imperative for me to begin to assume responsibility of things that my parents had done for me when I was younger. But now that I was a college student, out of college, I really needed to be the one who was taking the helm, so to speak, and being responsible for myself.

Yeah. How much it makes a difference having advocates. And right now, as you said, Children with disabilities still need advocates in school to help them with their education, with their rights, with their rights in school. But I want to move on to this fabulous book of yours, Being Human. As you said, H-E-U-M-A-N-N, Being Human: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Advocate. And ah, it is so good. It is such— I would encourage everyone, buy this book immediately. Go to Amazon and get this book immediately. I'm endorsing it. Gotta get the book. Uh, and, and first Judy, and then I'm going to ask you to read a passage, um, short passage from it. But when did you how did you decide and what made you decide to write this book?

Well, people had been suggesting to me for many decades that I write a book, and I felt that I neither had the time nor the confidence to write a book by myself. I was very lucky people reached out to me. They helped me find an agent who helped me find a publisher. A woman, Kristin Joyner, who I co-wrote the book with. And it was a wonderful experience. Difficult, because writing a story, which is a memoir, is personal and it's difficult. But in the end, I'm very happy that we did it.

Well, I mean, it's a great book. As I said— excuse me. Amazon, easiest way to get it, Amazon. And you can also get it, as Judy said, Audible, but you can get this book in large print also. So, you know, it's the book, it's the accessible book. So Judy, I wanted to ask you—

I'm sorry, Joyce. You can also get it on Bookshare. So if any of you do Bookshare, you can get it on Bookshare.

Okay. And again, buy the book. Judy, would you mind— I mean, it would mean so much to our listeners to actually hear you be the person that reads a little bit from your book. Sure.

So, let me tell you that I use a motorized wheelchair now, but at the time, When my memoir starts in the book, I'm a child and I'm 4 or 5 years old, and I didn't get a motorized wheelchair till I was in college because they didn't even exist until starting in the mid-1960s, and I finally, I was able to get a motorized wheelchair when I was in college. So, what I'm going to be reading where someone is pushing me is because I was using what we call a manual wheelchair. I was about 8. I think it was a beautiful sunny day, but it might have been cloudy. I don't know. What I do remember was being caught up in my conversation with Arlene as she pushed me in my wheelchair, talking about what we were going to buy at the candy store or what we wanted to do later that day. We were pleased to be walking around the corner to buy sweets in front of Dr. Nagler's brick house, which I knew was Dr. Nagler's house because I'd been there with my mother for her doctor's appointments. We paused across the street. Arlene turned me around to lower my wheelchair off the curb, pushed me across the street, and then once we reached the other side, she put her foot on the metal bar on the back of my chair tipped me and the chair back and lifted my chair onto the sidewalk. As we did this, a few kids came toward us from the opposite direction. They were walking slowly down the sidewalk. As they passed, Arlene shifted my wheelchair to the side to make room for them. We didn't know them and didn't pay much attention, engrossed as we were in our conversation. So I was surprised and one of the kids turned suddenly to look at me. He stood in front of me, staring down at me in my wheelchair. "Are you sick?" he asked me loudly. I stared at him, not understanding. "What?" "Are you sick?" he repeated insistently. His voice boomed. I shook my head, trying to clear the words away. I was still confused. But couldn't speak. "Are you sick?" he asked, slowing the words down as if I were a toddler. The world went silent as the words reverberated in my head. I couldn't hear anything except those words. "Are you sick? Sick? Sick? Sick? Sick?" I shrank down, frozen from confusion. Wanting to cover myself up with something, anything to hide from that question, the boy's insistent eyes on me. "Are you sick?" he asked insistently, almost shouting. Suddenly I became aware of Dr. Nagler's house behind me, and my face turned a cringingly deep red. Does he think I'm going to the doctor? But he's not my doctor, I thought fiercely. I fought back tears. I couldn't. I wouldn't cry in front of everyone. I wasn't sick. It made no sense. I knew I wasn't, but then why was he asking me that? I became uncertain of myself. Was I sick? I saw myself through the eyes and the light around me shifted. Shadows emerged from the corners of my mind. Previously submerged words, thoughts, and half-heard conversations tumbled into the glare of a spotlight. In a blinding flash, everything in my life made a perverse kind of sense. I couldn't go to school. I couldn't go to that school. I couldn't do this. I couldn't do that. I couldn't walk up the stairs. I couldn't open doors. I couldn't even cross the street. I was different, but I'd always known that. It wasn't that. It was the world and how it saw me. The world thought I was sick. Sick people stay at home in bed. They didn't go out to play or go to school. They weren't expected to go outside to be part of things, be a part of the world. I wasn't expected to be a part of the world. Abruptly, I knew this to be true. As if the knowledge had already existed for years throughout my entire body. I felt nauseatingly humiliated at the idea that everyone else had known this but me. Had they kept it from me? The embarrassment settled in as a cold ball deep in my stomach where I could feel it spreading into my limbs. Was it sunny or cloudy? I don't know. I remember Arlene was pushing me. We were going to the store to buy candy, and we were chatting, and I was a butterfly becoming a caterpillar.

Thank you. Wow. Wow. You know what? It's so different reading it and then hearing you read it. And, you know— Thank you. I'm thinking as you read it, that doesn't it just say so many things, you know, that happen? Like all those years there was a medical model, you know, this are you sick, and the pity and everything that goes with it, and the inability, as you said, really to do anything. I mean, no, during that time before the ADA, here you are to get up on a curb having to be pushed up, lowered down, or having your friend push that bar to get you up there. But yeah, do you think that, that what happened to you, I'm sure had an impact, Judy, really on the rest of your life, don't you think?

I think all these different incidents, and I speak about many of them in the book, really, um have an impact, had an impact, but still in many ways continue to have an impact. I think what was important about these experiences, and certainly my experience are not unique experiences. People around the world, in some cases still today, are experiencing some of the things that I'm discussing. So what is different is we have been really working more together in the cross-disability movement, which I think has spread our impact and also been able to make valuable changes in our laws and regulations as more disabled people get involved in trying to obtain their rights.

Right, just like what I'm going to ask you about next that you talked about in your book, which is the occupation army and the fight for Section 504. And by the way, Crip Camp, which we're going to talk about in a little bit, uh, this is in the book, in the movie. But once again, I've noticed when people talk about you and think about you in our history you know, even if it's recent history, but they, they talk about this. I mean, this is so important. Would you mind sharing with our listeners what you believe that means to our history, but also what happened?

So I think— are you talking now about some of the activities in the U.S.? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, so I would say that the United States and other countries have been benefiting from the evolution and development of the disability rights movement in the United States, and by that, and around the world. By that, I mean, as We, as disabled individuals, have begun to recognize that we will fight for our rights, that it's no longer a nicety, but it's really something which is imperative to us, our ability to contribute to society. Is something that has been adversely impacted by society in general and government, too, in not recognizing that there have been barriers that we've been experiencing, discrimination that needs to be rectified. So, in the U.S., we've been seeing, as I said earlier, numerous laws that have been developed and ultimately passed into law. And we've also seen the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which most countries around the world have in fact ratified. Unfortunately, the United States has not yet ratified. And we are seeing a growing movement of people who are working with government to get laws introduced and passed to require accessibility, removal of discrimination in the area of employment, in the area of education, removing barriers and discrimination that have limited our participation in schools, both early childhood, primary, secondary, and higher education. There are very many constructive things that have been happening as a result of the strengthening of our movement. And I think one of the other important aspects of this has been the legitimization of the fact that disabled people are amongst the poorest of the poor because of lack of education and because of limited job opportunities, not limited capacity, but limited job opportunities.

Well, yes, and all that is so true. Someone actually— Marca Bristow, you know, when I heard her speak first time, it was when she was the chair of the National Council on Disabilities. Yeah, and you know what I remember her saying? Disabilities and poverty go hand in hand. And sadly, we lost Marca, and I know that you mentioned her right at the beginning of this book. Um, I wonder if you want to talk for just a few minutes about Marca and your relationship with her.

Absolutely. Marca was one of the heroes in the disability rights movement. She has a very kind of typical story. She passed away last year, almost a year ago today. Marca was in her early 20s and she dove into water in the Chicago area, not realizing that the area that she was driving into was very shallow. So, she broke her neck and she became a paraplegic. And she'd been an activist before she acquired her disability. And so, she really, over a couple-year period of time, really started taking on the role of fighting for the rights of disabled people. And she had a very important experience in her life. She— after she became disabled, she was beginning to take on the attitude of, as you were mentioning earlier, the medical model, not the rights-based model. And so, she was thinking that she was not going to be able to work again. She was a nurse. And she got a call one day from the hospital that she had worked in, and the head nurse said that there was a project going on in Berkeley, California that she wanted her to go to. It was a training on disability. And when Marca went to that conference, she really became inspired by the work that was being done at that time in what we call the Bay Area, or the San Francisco Bay community. In the area of disability. And she came back to Chicago and continued work that she had started to do with some other local disabled people to set up a Center for Independent Living in Chicago. And that effort on her part to recognize that that she needed to speak up and out, that she had capacity even though she had a disability, and that she wanted to be able to not only use her skills in a way that would help advance the rights of disabled people, but she wanted to do it in a really powerful way. So she became the first director of an organization in Chicago called Access Living. And to her dying day, she not only was an activist on behalf of independent living from the Chicago area across the United States, and Access Living, which is the organization that she helped create, was an outgrowth of an organization that had started at the Rehab Institute of Chicago. And between 1978, '79, and until she died a year ago in 2019, Marca only continued to grow and become a leader in the independent living movement here in the U.S. and around the world.

Yeah, I only wish that, you know, unlike you, I didn't know her as well as you do, but I did know her, and you know, what a great person. It was truly a terrible loss when she passed away, but she will not be forgotten because of all the things you just talked about that she did. But Before we talk about Crip Camp, just to set the stage, you really took over with that federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare like no one else ever has. And I— before you talk about it, I know it's here in your book. You were— well, first tell everyone what it was, what this is all about and what you did and how people really don't know how difficult that was for many people that had catheters or that needed medication like me for epilepsy or, you know, whatever, whatever it was. But share with everyone what happened and why you did this.

Well, in the United States, we had a law that had been passed in 1973. And in that law, there was a provision that said if an entity received money from the federal government, it could not discriminate against a disabled person. That basically meant hospitals, governments, public schools, universities, not only would not be able to discriminate in the services that they were providing, but also would have to ensure that their employment policies no longer discriminated against disabled people. And one of the reasons why this particular sketch was very important to me was because I had experienced discrimination when I had applied to become a teacher in New York. I was denied my right to become a teacher based on the fact that I was unable to walk. And I sued the Board of Education. was able to get my teaching license. So, um, when Section 504 came out, um, in the regulation form, uh, we decided that it was so imperative that we were going to fight to make sure that these rules were in fact implemented in a way that would grant disabled people the rights that the law prescribed. And there was a group set up called the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities, and one of its main purposes was to bring disabled people together from different communities to fight for the rights of disabled people, and this particular provision of law was one that we were working very hard on. Now, one of the reasons we were working really hard on this was because we had also been very invested in the development of these, what we call in the United States, rules. Basically, it's an explanation of what the law says. And it explains what discrimination is, who is protected by the law, what can happen if discrimination has occurred. On and on. And when the Republicans were in power, at that point it was President Nixon, and this is a little bit of— this is probably of interest only to a few people, but President Nixon was the president, and then President Ford. And when the Republicans left office, they still had not signed the rules. And President Carter was elected as president. He was a Democrat. And he had said that he would have the regulations signed. Well, when he came into office, the person who was given responsibility for doing this began to do a review. And we were hearing from people with inside the government that the review that he was looking at doing was in fact going to weaken the proposed regulations. And we decided that that was not going to be acceptable, that we'd been working with people for 5 years around the United States on these regulations, and that we were going to insist that they be signed as they were.. And when that didn't happen, we decided that we were going to have demonstrations around the United States. And that's what happened. And in San Francisco, which is on the West Coast of the United States, there was a very strong community of disabled people. And I had moved from Washington— I'm sorry, I had moved from New York City, from Brooklyn, to California. And I was working there with many other people. And we basically decided, in conjunction with groups around the United States, that if the regulations were not signed by a certain date, that we were going to have these demonstrations, which we did. And in San Francisco, what happened was we decided that we were going to stay in the building. And we stayed in the building for about 27 days. Until the government agreed that it would sign the rules as they were when we began the demonstrations, and they did. It was a very empowering experience because we were really able across the country to work together and to demonstrate that why we felt these regulations needed to be signed and to be able to persuade the powers that be that they needed to be signed without any further change.

So this is Health, Education, and Welfare federal building. Um, isn't this— isn't this like the longest occupation of a federal building ever? Yep, it's the longest demonstration. Yeah, and, and, you know, weren't you real involved in getting this going? Because when I read in the book, when you suggested this, uh, you were kind of nervous because you didn't know what everyone would say.

Yeah, we had done it under the auspices of the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities, but we didn't really know what was going to happen. We weren't sure if people were going to I mean, it kind of unfolded slowly. We had a rally outside this particular government building. We had a meeting with the gentleman who was the head of the regional office in San Francisco, and the reason we ultimately decided to stay they were completely unprepared. They did not know the answers to the questions that we were asking them. They didn't really know what the law was. And we felt that if— because they knew that this meeting was coming about before it happened, and they had failed to do their homework and were unable to answer anything that clearly was an indication that they were not going to take what we believed needed to happen seriously.

Well, a lot of this is talked about in that great movie we talked about. So how did that come to be? And, you know, I, I just thought that was incredible that, you know, these young people with disabilities went to this camp and like were all over the No Pity, the Independence, and then ended up some of you being these national advocates. So how did this, how did this great movie come to be? Because you're like the feature character.

Well, I had nothing to do with the production. So for those of you who haven't seen it, for those of you who have seen it, this is the film that was the inspiration of a gentleman by the name of Jimmy Lebrek. He's a disabled guy. He grew up in New York, and he went to regular school, but this one particular summer, he went to this camp called Camp Jened, which was a camp for disabled kids. I had gone to that camp for a number of years when I was younger. There were many camps in the United States at that time. For kids with disabilities. There were camps for non-disabled kids, and usually disabled kids did not go to the camps where the disabled kids went to camp. And Jimmy came to camp. I was there the summer that he was there. Many, many other kids were there also. And what was unique about this particular summer was there was a little organization that had started in the community that had video cameras. And they were— they came to the camp and offered to train some of the campers on how to use the video camera. And so here you have this camp of younger disabled people, like 12 years old to about 18 or 19., and we were teenagers. But we also, by being able to come together at this camp, were not only talking about things that disabled and non-disabled kids talked about, but we also really began to get involved in discussing our experiences. Our experiences meaning being segregated, the kinds of discrimination that we were experiencing that people typically did not even acknowledge as discrimination. What you can see in the film is not only our experience at camp, but then what happened as many of us moved on in high school and at universities and how and why we became activists. So I think, you know what, this film is valuable for a number of reasons. One is it really gives an example of some of the important developments that went on at camp when disabled kids were able to come together and really talk about our experiences as disabled individuals in our communities. But also how we really empowered each other. We were really beginning to talk about what we felt could be different and how we wanted to make that happen. And I think for some reason there were just coincidences, coincidences of opportunities that we were taking advantage of. We meaning a number of us who had been to this camp, but there were other people who had also— were very involved in the movement, are very involved in the movement, who weren't at the camp. So it was really a combination of people. But I think those of us who— there are about 150 people who were in the federal building, most of whom were there for the full days, 24/5 days that we were in the building, I, along with about 22 other people, left the building and went to Washington, D.C. to link up with disabled people around the country. And I think it was the combination of the work going on in San Francisco and the work going on in the U.S. Capitol that made the government sign the regulations.

Yeah, that, that movie just really— I, I really, I'm encouraging everyone, you've got to see that movie. As you said, it was really just the being together. I want to go back for one minute to what we talked about, um, in, in the federal building. Remember I was saying this was involved, you know, people don't realize how hard this was for many people with disabilities. But what I wanted to ask you is what part did the Black Panthers play in your time in that building?

So, one of the leaders in the building, a guy named Brad Lomax, was a disabled man who was a member of the Black Panthers, and the Black Panthers were very involved in helping to provide food for us, which made it of course possible for us to be able to stay in the building. I think it's important to recognize that the Bay Area was kind of unique, the San Francisco Bay Area, because the vast majority of politicians supported what we were doing. We were having peaceful demonstrations. We weren't bothering people, although obviously people were not able to work in their offices and some of the offices in the building because we had occupied space. But I think over time people were also recognizing that what we were fighting for was just and were really supporting what we were trying to do. I think that was all important. And people felt, while in the building, I mean, if you really felt you couldn't stay for health reasons, people left. But I think, obviously, there were 150 people who were there almost every day. A few people left and came back. Some people left and others came in. But the bottom line was, people really were working together. We believed that we could get these regulations signed and that if we left, it wouldn't happen.

Yeah, right. Well, I just thought that part was a great story, and I want to mention because— wow, how did this show go so fast? Oh my goodness, this is unbelievable. Judy, um, I would like you to consider coming back in December, uh, because not only is that your birthday, it's my birthday, December 7th.

And I thought, uh, you Do you know what? What? My father's birthday is December 7th. My late father. Oh my goodness, isn't that something?

Wow. Well, there you go. You'll never forget my birthday now. I won't. Um, no. But anyway, I'd like to have you back on, uh, and read another portion of your book because I'm thinking to myself, what a great holiday gift, you know, when people are having a hard time thinking What am I gonna do? And I think it does another thing. I just think we have to continue, especially during this time we're in right now, we have to continue talking to one another, educating one another. We can't go into isolation. I know it's hard. It's hard for all of us. It's hard for people like Judy and I that wanna be out and about and cannot, but I really would like to do that. And I hope you're able to come back, Judy.

Sure, we'll work it out. That'd be great.

Good, good. That would be wonderful. Um, and before we close the show today, do you have a message for young people with disabilities? By the way, with disabilities, not differently abled and all these other words. Do you have any advice for any young people with disabilities listening to the show?

So, I actually have a message not just for young people because I think in the area of disability, people acquire their disabilities at different points in their life. So, certainly, my message is towards young people with disabilities, but also to people who may be acquiring their disabilities in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, whatever it may be. Disability is a normal part of life. Disability, I believe, gives us strength. It gives us resilience. It allows us to be role models for what other people could do, even when they feel they can't. But it also makes it incumbent upon us to speak up and out and to be really demanding more of our governments, making sure that we have good laws, that these laws are implemented. And I think it's also really important that we work in collaboration with other movements. Not everybody wants to join organizations, but I encourage you, for those of you that do like working in organizations, looking for disability-run organizations that are ethical and are doing important work. In a way that is similar to your vision of what needs to happen. So working together, being collaborative, and respecting yourself, and demanding that respect for disabled people be something that occurs in our society all the time.

What a great message, and I agree with you 100%. I am— we have a quote at the end of every show, so I decided to get a quote from Being Human, something that Judy had in the book. And this actually is what you're just talking about now, working with and remembering other people. And Judy said, perhaps we need to remember what Shirley Chisholm, the first Black congresswoman and the author of Unblossomed Anand Bhatt said, and here it is, wow, what a powerful quote, "You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas." And Judy, you live that, no doubt about it. Judy, thank you so much for being with us today. Listen, Everyone, you can get— call all your friends. They can subscribe to my radio show Disability Matters with Joyce Bender, and they can hear this show or go to, uh, Apple, Spotify, uh, or voiceamerica.com, and then share it and tell everyone else about it. Thank you again, Judy. We love you and look forward to having you on again. All right, my pleasure. Talk to you next week, everyone. This is Joyce Bender, America's Voice, where disability matters, at voiceamerica.com. Happy ADA 30 this year. That's why we had on a real legend and part of that movement. See you next week.

Voice America would like to thank you for tuning in. Please join us next Tuesday at 11 AM Pacific time and 2 PM Eastern time for another installment of Disability Matters right here on the Voice America Variety Channel. We are the leader in live internet talk radio. VoiceAmerica.com.