Crip Camp reminds us that, in America, nothing improves without massive sacrifice

In Crip Camp, the revolution begins at summer camp. The Netflix documentary, now available to stream, follows several young people who attended Camp Jened, a New York campground for people with disabilities. That alone is a wonderful subject: a story about what happens when a group of teens neglected by society finally discovers a place where they are treated as complete, whole people. But Crip Camp is going somewhere incredible, and a story about how a camp changed a group of teenagers’ lives becomes a story about how the country was changed for the better.

Directed by Nicole Newnham and Jim Lebrecht — the latter attended Camp Jened, and his story serves as one of Crip Camp’s focal points — the film begins in 1971 with Lebrecht and...

Continue reading…