Crip News v.183
Poor People's Campaign, new works, other news, calls, and events.
NEWS
Happy 57th Birthday, Poor People’s Campaign
May 12, 1968 marked one of the official launches of the Poor People’s Campaign, just weeks after the assassination of its leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The action was a Mother's Day March & Rally organized by the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), led by Johnnie Tillmon and Dr. George A. Wiley. The NWRO organized over 100 groups of people using welfare programs in 26 states and D.C.
During the rally, Coretta Scott King called for a repeal of 1967 Social Security amendments that used protection against disability benefits loss as a pretext for freezing federal funds for poor mothers. Instead, she called for a solidarity framework using guaranteed income.
Today, when federal public benefit programs like Medicaid are under attack, we can point to the people power of grassroots direct action that modeled forms of disability solidarity long before we had the language for it.
New Works
Deaf President Now! from directors Nyle DiMarco and Davis Guggenheim comes out this week, Friday, May 16, on Apple TV+. The documentary uses a “Deaf Point of View” approach to recount historic 1988 student protests at Gallaudet University.
Margaret Fuhrer from The New York Times profiled Berkeley-based AXIS Dance ahead of the company’s premiere of Kinematic / Kinesthetic in San Francisco last week, focusing on the choreographic integrations of collaboratively designed devices like telescoping crutches.
For e-flux, artist Kenny Fries traces the disability aesthetics of Donald Rodney’s posthumous retrospective, Visceral Canker, that recently closed at Whitechapel Gallery (London).
Troels Steenholdt Heiredal’s entry for for the Uhørte Stemmer (Unheard Voices) competition by Copenhagen Architecture Festival and Danish Arts explores an “Autistic Architectural Approach” from Taipei.
A Small Enclosed Room with Alfie Murphy, a “darkly comic” play from autistic artists Cian Binchy and Anna Constable co-produced by Access All Areas and The Lowry, is kicking off a national U.K. tour this week at Soho Theatre from May 13 - 17.
In Other News…
Detroit Disability Power recently won a historic $8 million for accessibility in Detroit’s budget.
The state of Georgia passed the Dignity and Pay Act that will phase out sub-minimum wages for disabled workers over the next 2 years.
A recent survey found that 65% of disabled Britons believed that AI-integrated healthcare “could prioritise speed and efficiency over personal human support, of which many patients rely on.”
The Corporation for Independent Living, a disability-centric nonprofit real estate developer, recently secured a $45 million line of credit with KeyBank to create a “national footprint” for disability housing.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. declined to attend a national roundtable discussion with autism and disability groups scheduled for yesterday.
CALLS
Cardea Services is seeking paid members of a Design Council to support Women of Color (WOC) with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) in healthcare settings. For more information email cboyles@cardeaservices.org.
EVENTS
Imagine new landscapes for madness
TODAY, May 13, 6:30 - 8pm BST, in-person at Delfina Foundation (London)
Join us for an evening of conversation between writer and former Delfina Foundation UK Associate Micha Frazer-Carroll and artist and activist the vacuum cleaner (James Leadbitter). This talk is part of the public programme of the third thematic season of science_technology_society at Delfina Foundation, which explores how emergent technologies complicate our understanding of mental well-being.Disability Meets Design: Hack Your Home with Laura Mauldin
Sunday, May 18, 2 - 4pm ET, in-person at Cooper Hewitt (NYC)
Held in celebration of NYCxDesign, this program presents tactics and strategies for making our homes more accessible for ourselves and our loved ones. Led by Laura Mauldin, professor, author, and founder of the site DisabilityAtHome.Org, the program includes a presentation followed by a hands-on workshop inviting participants to identify and take action toward making a more accessible world, one home at a time. This program is offered in conjunction with Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial, currently on view at Cooper Hewitt.Bed In: Disabilty Led Protest Outline
Saturday, May 17, 3pm ET, onlineBed-In: A Disability-Led Protest, co-curated by Opulent Mobility and DIYabled, is an accessible virtual event advocating for disability rights, uplifting disabled voices—especially those who are bedbound or housebound—and promoting inclusive activism. This event highlights threats to disabled people and the barriers our community faces in traditional protest spaces and provides alternative methods of advocacy.
Crip Authorship
Friday, May 16, 1 - 2:30 pm ET, streamed on Zoom
Editors Mara Mills and Rebecca Sanchez have assembled a diverse array of disabled perspectives in their volume Crip Authorship: Disability as Method. The contributions explore how disability and authorship are interconnected both aesthetically and structurally. In this panel, joined by three contributing authors, they delve into the central theme of translation. Featuring Kelsie Acton, Remi Yergeau, and Jaipreet Virdi.Disability Day of Visibility
Saturday, May 17, 1 - 4pm ET, in-person at Access Osais (Astoria, NYC)
Come out to the garden to learn more, and meet your disabled neighbors doing great work for Astoria. We'll make zines, have an inclusive coloring activity for kids, show you how to grow your own food with accessibility in mind, and show ways to support your disabled neighbors.
Again such a broad horizon but well curated worthy news! Where would I be without Crip News?!
Hope you had a good break!