Amber and I just finished watching Being Heumann on Apple TV, and I need every single one of you to go watch it. They did a really good job with it. Ruth Madeley plays Judy, Mark Ruffalo plays Joseph Califano (the guy who wouldn’t sign the damn regulations), and it’s directed by Siân Heder, the same woman who did CODA. It’s funny, it’s pissed off, and it doesn’t treat disabled people like a tragedy you’re supposed to feel sorry for. I knew going in who Judy Heumann was. If you’re one of the people who’s been living under a rock, here’s your rundown.
Who the hell is Judy Heumann (rock dwellers, this part’s for you)
Judy got polio in Brooklyn in 1949 and used a wheelchair from then on. When she was five her mom tried to sign her up for kindergarten, and the school said no. They called her a fire hazard. Hold onto that, because it comes back later in this post.
She never stopped fighting after that. She sued the New York Board of Education to become a teacher and won. She co-founded Disabled in Action. In 1972 they shut down traffic in front of Nixon’s re-election headquarters in Manhattan. Then came the big one.
In 1973 Congress passed the Rehabilitation Act, and Section 504 said federally funded places couldn’t discriminate against disabled people. Great on paper. The problem was nobody would sign the regulations that made it actually mean anything. Years went by. So in April 1977 Judy and more than a hundred disabled people went into the federal building in San Francisco and wouldn’t leave. They stayed for nearly a month, in wheelchairs, without the care setups they needed at home, sleeping on mattresses on the floor. Califano finally signed.
That sit-in is the reason the ADA happened in 1990. Every ramp, curb cut and accessible bathroom stall you roll past today goes back to these people refusing to go home. Later on Judy worked in the Clinton administration, and Obama made her the State Department’s Special Advisor for International Disability Rights. She died in March 2023. She was 75.
And yes, she’s in Crip Camp too
If you’ve got Netflix, go watch Crip Camp. It came out in 2020, got nominated for an Oscar, and the Obamas produced it. The first half is about Camp Jened, a pretty run-down summer camp in the Catskills for disabled teenagers, run by a bunch of hippies. Jim LeBrecht, who co-directed the movie, was a camper there. Judy was a counselor. And at that camp a lot of these kids figured out for the first time that the problem wasn’t them. The problem was the world.
The second half follows those same people out of camp and into the 504 sit-in. Being Heumann covers the same history with actors. So watch both. Watch Crip Camp first and you’ll see the real faces, then watch the movie and it hits a lot harder.
Good on you, Apple. Now where was everybody else?
I’m glad Apple made this movie. Big director, Mark Ruffalo, a disabled actress playing Judy, disabled actors all through the cast. That stuff matters, and they deserve credit for it.
But this thing should have been huge, and it wasn’t. It got a short run in select theaters and then went straight to streaming. I didn’t see a big push for it anywhere. It’s one of the biggest civil rights stories in this country, and it got treated like a nice little movie you might stumble across some night while you’re scrolling.
And I’ll tell you what: most non-disabled people don’t know any of this. They don’t know who Judy Heumann is. They’ve never heard of the 504 sit-in. They don’t know a bunch of disabled people took over a federal building for almost a month so the rest of us could get into a building at all. They think ramps and accessible bathrooms just kind of showed up one day, like somebody at city hall woke up feeling generous. Nobody handed it to us. People fought for it, and their kids never learned their names in school.
That’s just wrong. Every kid in this country learns about Rosa Parks and the lunch counter sit-ins, which they should. Almost nobody learns that disabled people did their own sit-in and won. So when a movie like this finally gets made, it should be a big deal.
So here’s what I’m asking. Watch it, then tell somebody about it, especially somebody who isn’t disabled. That’s the only way this story is going to get any bigger.
OK, I’m just going to say it
I don’t want to piss anybody off with this, and I’m not trying to take anything away from the civil rights movement of the 60s. But for the disabled community, Judy Heumann is kind of our Martin Luther King.
I don’t think that’s as crazy as it sounds, because the two movements were never really separate. Section 504 was modeled on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. During the sit-in, the Black Panthers brought those protesters hot meals every day. That happened because of Brad Lomax, a Black Panther who was disabled himself and was in that building. People call Judy “the mother of the disability rights movement” for a reason.
She also didn’t do it by herself, and she’d be the first to tell you that. Kitty Cone, Brad Lomax and a whole building full of people got that thing signed. But somebody has to be the face that people will follow into the building, and that was Judy.
Apparently I’m not a fire hazard
Here’s what blew my mind while we were watching it. In the movie Judy keeps getting told she’s a fire hazard, over and over, at different points in her life. And Amber goes, yeah, that still happens.
I’ve been in a wheelchair my whole life. I’ve been to more concerts, clubs, bars and theaters than I could ever count. I’ve worked radio and ran sound for bands. And I don’t think anybody has ever come out and called me a fire hazard. If they had, I’d probably have run them the fuck over.
Here’s how Amber tells it:
“So we’re watching Being Heumann and she is saying how she gets told that she is a fire hazard for multiple experiences in her life. I said yeah that is still happening and I hate when I’m told that. Lucas gives me a weird look and goes who has told you that and then tells me he doesn’t recall ever being called a fire hazard! I was shocked! How has he been in a wheelchair for his whole life and never been told this? Especially when he has been to many, many more concerts, theaters, clubs, bars, etc. given his extensive history in the radio, music and media background. I know this is still a common issue in the disabled community from my other friends and my advocacy experiences.”
So I went and looked it up, and she’s right. A disabled writer for The Progressive says this happens so often that it’s become a kind of inside joke among disabled people. He says he’s never met a disabled person who doesn’t have a fire hazard story. Bishop William Barber, the civil rights leader, got told his chair was a fire hazard at a movie theater, and they called the cops on him. Just this past April, an 18-year-old wheelchair user in Manchester got thrown out of a club for being a “fire risk.”
Fire code doesn’t say disabled people have to leave. It says the building needs an evacuation plan that works for everybody. When a venue calls you a fire hazard, what they’re really admitting is that their plan sucks, and they’d rather throw you out than fix it.
Amber also thinks women get this a lot more than men do. I couldn’t find hard numbers either way. Knowing what I know about how women get treated in pretty much every space ever, I wouldn’t bet against her. So I want to hear from you, especially the women:
Who else has been told that you and your wheelchair are a fire hazard? Do you feel like women get told this more often? Drop it in the comments. I’m guessing I’m about to find out I’ve been lucky.