This year鈥檚 2025 Disability Inclusion & Affirming LGBTQ+ Student Lecture at Hope College will feature the documentary "Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution.鈥� The film shares the insight, clarity, humor and beauty about the experiences of a group of disabled young people and their journey to activism and adulthood. The documentary is scheduled for Tuesday, October 28, at 3:30 p.m. in the concert hall of the Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts. The public is invited and admission is free.
Doors will open at 3:15 p.m. and there will also be an opportunity for the audience to participate in a Q&A discussion following the presentation, led by student leaders from Hope Advocates for Invisible Conditions and Prism.
Both Disability Awareness Month and LGBTQ+ History Month run throughout October. The college鈥檚 Center for Diversity and Inclusion is presenting the Oct. 28 event in collaboration with the: Hope Advocates for Invisible Conditions, Prism, Disability and Accessibility Resources, and the Office of Culture and Inclusive Excellence.
To inquire about accessibility or other accommodations to fully participate in the event, please email accommodations@hope.edu. Any event updates are posted when available at hope.edu/calendar in the individual listings.
The Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts is located at 221 Columbia Ave., between Ninth and 10th streets.
About the Film
In the early 1970s, teenagers with disabilities faced a future shaped by isolation, discrimination and institutionalization. Camp Jened, a ramshackle camp 鈥渇or the handicapped鈥� (a term no longer used) in the Catskills, exploded those confines. Jened was their freewheeling Utopia, a place where summertime sports, smoking and make-out sessions awaited everyone, and campers experienced liberation and full inclusion as human beings. Their bonds endured as many migrated West to Berkeley, California 鈥� a hotbed of progressive activism where friends from Camp Jened realized that disruption, civil disobedience and political participation could change the future for millions.
Co-directed in 2020 by Emmy庐-winning filmmaker Nicole Newnham and film mixer and former camper Jim LeBrecht, this joyous and exuberant documentary arrives the same year as the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, at a time when the country鈥檚 largest minority group still battles for equality and the freedom to exist. "Crip Camp" is executive-produced by President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama; Tonia Davis and Priya Swaminathan; Oscar庐 nominee Howard Gertler (鈥淗ow to Survive a Plague鈥�) and Raymond Lifchez, Jonathan Logan and Patty Quillin. A preview is available at: .
A Note from the Film Team
鈥淐rip Camp鈥� is the story of one group of people and captures one moment in time. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of other equally important stories from the disability rights movement that have not yet received adequate attention. We are committed to using the film鈥檚 platform to amplify additional narratives in the disability rights and disability justice communities 鈥� with a particular emphasis on stories surrounding people of color and other intersectionally marginalized communities. We stand by the creed of nothing about us, without us. For too long, too many were excluded and it is time to broaden the number of voices and share the mic.
Director鈥檚 Note from Documentary Directors Jim Lebrecht and Nicole Newnham
鈥淐rip Camp鈥� is about the emotional experience of finding community and yourself for the first time and the power of realizing that a better life is possible through social change. Camp Jened, a ramshackle hippie-run summer camp 鈥渇or the handicapped,鈥� (a term no longer used) was an environment where people with disabilities were treated as equal members of a community, empowered to make their own decisions, and experienced for the first time the fullness of themselves as human beings. At the camp, late-night discussions in the bunk led to revelations of common experiences of oppression. These experiences caused a perspective shift in Jim, and in many of the campers and counselors. It awakened an understanding that the problem was not them, but rather, the problem was an unjust world. This realization would go on to have ripple effects that would change the trajectory of the campers鈥� lives, the lives of other people with disabilities, people without disabilities, the United States, and eventually the world.
Making "Crip Camp" has been a unique collaboration between a man and a woman, disabled and non-disabled, a first-time director and a veteran filmmaker. Our respective perspectives pushed on each other and produced a fuller human narrative. We made "Crip Camp" through partnership and built our own community in the making of this film.