The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law on July 26, 1990. This month, we pay tribute to the incredible impact this landmark civil rights law has had on the lives of individuals with disabilities. Join us as we celebrate Disability Pride Month with this special collection of films and programs that shed light on the disability rights movement and the courageous people who have driven it forward.
Watch these stories and the works of storytellers whose creations depict the diverse spectrum of disability experiences in North Carolina and beyond on the PBS App.
What is the role of sound and what does it mean to listen? Hard of hearing filmmaker Alison O’Daniel uses a series of tuba thefts in Los Angeles high schools as a jumping-off point to explore these questions. Through several d/Deaf people telling stories in a unique game of telephone, the central mystery of The Tuba Thieves isn’t about theft of instruments—it’s about the nature of sound itself.
Watch The Tuba Thieves on the PBS App.
Also, watch a panelist discussion on language, sound and resources for the d/Deaf and hard of hearing after a PBS NC screening event of The Tuba Thieves.
Encouraged by civil rights movements of the 1960s, the Disability Rights Movement gained momentum leading to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. Decades earlier in 1978, 19 individuals tossed aside their wheelchairs and blocked city buses deemed inaccessible for the physically disabled. Discover how this one act led to years of advocacy in Colorado and inspired the nation.
Watch The Gang of 19 - ADA Movement on the PBS App.
Celebrate Disability Pride Month with a curated playlist of POV stories, from a doc about Black and brown disabled artists living in a nursing home during the COVID lockdown to a short about Jeremy Sicile-Kira, who uses painting to communicate his dreams and transcend his disability. Also delve into the magical-realism of Samuel Geiger, which offers a window into life with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and the emotional depth of his physical world.
An unlikely group of nursing home residents launch a movement during the pandemic.
Join author and disability rights advocate Rebecca Alexander as she meets the founders and educators of Protactile, a language based solely on touch. Historically, DeafBlind people have been limited to using interpreters to communicate. With Protactile, one-on-one and group conversations are not only possible, but they also allow for deeper and more meaningful connection.
Watch Protactile: A Language of Touch on the PBS App with Audio Description and ASL or with Extended Audio Description.
Did you know many of our programs offer audio descriptions? Narration that describes the visuals of a program make our documentaries and shows more accessible to people with low vision or other visual impairments. The audio description describes images on screen and visual details that might otherwise not be available.
WGBH pioneered closed captioning for audiences who are deaf or hard-of-hearing and created Descriptive Video Service (DVS) for audiences who are blind or low vision. For more than 45 years, the Media Access Group at WGBH has been providing accessible media services to the 36 million Americans who are deaf, blind, hard of hearing or visually impaired.
Shaheem Sanchez is showing the world that the “deaf can dance.” Dulé Hill learns how Shaheem taught himself to dance after going deaf at the age of four, and the dancer’s mission to ensure that deaf people aren’t limited by their disability.
Watch The Express Way with Dulé Hill on the PBS App.
In this new digital series, musician and disability inclusion advocate Lachi explores the cultural contributions of people with disabilities and how they transformed America. This pilot episode investigates the amazing life and accomplishments of deaf stunt legend and speed racer Kitty O'Neil.
Watch Renegades Pilot: Kitty O'Neil with Open Captions or watch with Audio Description and ASL on the PBS App.
From 2016, meet one of top-ranked wheelchair tennis players in the world, but the incredible thing is 15-year-old Conner Stroud also plays #2 seed on his able-bodied high school tennis team at Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy. Conner was born without hip joints, ankles, femurs, or knees, but that doesn’t stop him from being ranked the #1 junior wheelchair tennis player in the US and #9 in the world. In 2020, Conner represented the United States at the Paralympic Games in Tokyo.
Watch My Home, NC featuring Conner Stroud on the PBS App.
Racial and ethnic health disparities are a pervasive public health problem. Research finds similar health disparities among people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Host Kenia Thompson discusses diagnosis, treatments and the impact with guests Nicole Harris, a disability resource advocate; and NaShonda Bender-Cook, Wake County special education teacher and interventionist.
Watch Black Issues Forum on the PBS App.
When Davian Robinson was born in Hickory, North Carolina, the doctor told his mother he would not make it through the night. Watch this 2018 story about how defying the odds is just a way of life for Davian Robinson. Meet this fearless young man who is breaking barriers as the first visually impaired dance major at UNC-Charlotte, a world-class Paralympic cyclist, and now sky diver.
Watch My Home, NC featuring Davian Robinson on the PBS App.
Prosthetic limbs have come a long way in the past several centuries, from solid iron to wooden supports. A joint project between NC State University and UNC-Chapel Hill is dedicated to designing a prosthesis that follows a user’s commands by responding to the signals sent from their brain. Take a look at the research transforming how we work with limbs and the hopes to develop a bionic ankle.
In Matter of Mind: My Parkinson’s, three people navigate their lives with resourcefulness and determination in the face of a degenerative illness, Parkinson’s disease. An optician pursues deep brain stimulation surgery; a mother raising a pre-teen daughter becomes a boxing coach and an advocate for exercise; and a cartoonist contemplates how he will continue to draw as his motor control declines.
Watch Matter of Mind: My Parkinson’s on the PBS App with Passport.
Also, watch a panelist discussion on treatment options and resources for Parkinson's patients and caregivers after a PBS NC screening event of Matter of Mind: My Parkinson’s.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neuromuscular disease with an average survival time of 2-5 years from diagnosis. In this intimate exploration, three people with ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, bravely face different paths as they live with this progressively debilitating illness.
Watch Matter of Mind: My ALS on the PBS App with Passport.
At 27, Kelsey Peterson dove into Lake Superior as a dancer and emerged paralyzed. But within the Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) community, she found allies in her quest to discover who she is now and to dance with disability. When a cutting-edge trial surfaces, it tests her expectations of a possible cure. She finds herself both scared it might not work—and scared that it might.
Watch Independent Lens: Move Me on the PBS App with Passport.
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