Judith Lesner came to the disability rights movement early in her life as a counselor for Camp Jenad, which was memorialized in the Oscar-nominated movie Crip Camp.  When her son Jacob was born with cerebral palsy, Judith turned her early experiences into fodder for a life of effective, able-bodied ally-ship.  Among her other work, Judith taught thousands of parents in workshops to better advocate for their children’s rights in school settings.

Judith died August 30 at age 80 and, in this program, we air excerpts of an interview with her by Tina Lemmon, a student at California State University, Monterey Bay.  An activated progressive, Judith speaks of her early disability work in the context of the larger movements of the 1970s and 80s and provides some elder-wisdom for weathering our current right-wing backlash.

Her family, including her son and our producer, Jacob Lesner-Buxton, asks that you carry on her work to bring disability rights into the centers of progressive/left movements.  If you don’t, they say, an old Jewish lady will come down from heaven and speak severely to you. 

Produced, edited and hosted by Denny Daughters.

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