Happy 4th of July! On today’s dojo, Tony talks about freedom, liberty, and the consensus around fear of our freedoms being taken away. He talks about how freedom is the foundation on which our country was founded on and currently, a lot of people are feeling that it is being threatened. However, he hopes that we may be able to celebrate this day as a unity the people.
Tony also uses this opportunity to tie in the struggle for civil rights for people with disabilities. He takes us back to a time not too long ago, when people with disabilities were institutionalized; it wasn’t until the 1973 Rehabilitation Act that people with disabilities finally had laws to help ensure that they can live in the community to whatever extent possible and not to be institutionalized against their will. Many things had to happen before that freedom was gained. On this dojo, Tony takes us back to the time of Crip Camp, where campers and camp counselors found freedom and liberty to be themselves when they created a community that supported each other: free from stigma, free from tyranny. Through that bonding and through that freedom, many of those campers and camp counselors went on to be to be revolutionaries in the civil rights movement, some of which helped to pass the 1973 rehabilitation act.
Freedom takes time, it takes a lot of people to fight for it, and wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for the ideals signed into a resolution and declared a long justification, known as the Declaration Of Independence. These ideals were fought for in our civil war and taken up by Ed Roberts, who wanted to go to Berkeley California but it wasn’t accessible. He had to fight for it, which started the independent living movement, giving birth to the 1973 Rehabilitation Act.
