Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution is an exuberant film by and about people who have been marginalized on screen and in their lives. It opens with a 1970s soundtrack behind black and white archival footage of Camp Jened, a quirky, free-spirited, counter-culture summer camp for disabled teenagers in New York’s Catskill Mountains. One camper called it utopia.
Located near Woodstock, geographically and culturally, Jened offered a space free from the discrimination the summer residents encountered elsewhere. Campers engaged in uninhibited physical activities, uncensored storytelling, self-governance, mutual caretaking, real friendships, irreverent insider humor, romance, and fun. One powerful, sobering scene allows viewers to overhear campers with diverse disabilities share common experiences: being disrespected or ignored at school, overly protected at home, isolated everywhere. Another tracks the campers’ hilarity and pride over an outbreak of “crabs.” One camper declares his counselor’s demonstration of how to kiss, “Best physical therapy ever!”
The second and longer part of the film follows several former campers into their adult lives. They become parents, spouses, professionals, and disability rights activists at a crucial historic moment for disability legislation. Both parts of the film propose that the liberty and solidarity experienced at Jened emboldened several of the campers to seek opportunity and equality in the world beyond their camp.

While former camper Jim Lebrecht narrates the film, Judy Huemann—who died in 2023—is its political and moral center. A wheelchair user, Heumann rose from Jened camper to counselor. Campers revered her for successfully suing the New York City Department of Education for the right to teach. When she and several former campers unexpectedly reunited in Berkeley, California, they participated in the Independent Living Movement that famously started there. An astute leader, Heumann inspired an astonishing 25-day sit-in at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) offices in San Francisco’s Federal Office Building in 1977. She and her disabled colleagues risked their health and their lives—they slept on the floor and improvised medical necessities—to convince HEW to enforce the anti-discrimination section of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act: Section 504. Heumann’s uncompromising standoff with the HEW representative is unforgettable. As is her daily urging for the occupiers to hold fast. Regular deliveries of food, supplies, and solidarity from the Black Panthers and other marginalized groups fueled the protesters’ determinism and ultimate success.
In other archival footage, Heumann, demanding accessible taxies, leads demonstrators to gridlock traffic in New York City intersections. Still other protestors abandon their wheelchairs and pull themselves up the steps of the U.S. Capitol to insist on disability civil rights. Recently filmed interviews with several former campers affirm that, despite the work toward disability justice that remains, they live fuller, more vibrant lives as a result of their camp experiences and the legislation they demanded.
Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution
Directed by Jim LeBrecht and Nicole Newnhan
Higher Ground Productions: 2020, RT: 104 minutes
For more information about Crip Camp and its Impact Campaign, please visit https://cripcamp.com/