Maurice Parent and Kami Smith in Underground Railway Theater's production of "The Mountaintop" by Katori Hall, January 2013. Photo by A.R. Sinclair Photography.
This is a guest blog post by Michael Muehe, Executive Director of The Cambridge Commission for Persons with Disabilities
The Cambridge Commission for Persons with Disabilities was very pleased to have had the opportunity to collaborate with the Central Square Theater and Underground Railway Theater on a disability rights symposium in January. This symposium was one of a series of events, each of which connected with several community organizations doing work on behalf of various human rights/civil rights constituencies. Each event dovetailed with an ASL-Interpreted performance of The Mountaintop, a Katori Hall play that imagines the final evening on earth of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., just prior to his assassination.
Local disability advocates and activists Joanne Daniels-Finegold, John Kelly, and I were featured speakers in the January 26 panel discussion. The panel explored various dimensions of the legacy of Dr. King and how his civil rights strategies and tactics have been used by subsequent disability rights activists, right up to the present. Both the panel discussion and subsequent performance were very well received by the audience.
VSA intern Julia Beck filmed this video at our partner, The Henderson Inclusion School, a few weeks ago during their Black History Month Show. We think it's pretty awesome and are hoping you'll agree and help to make it go viral with shares and likes. If the video touches you, please share it on your Facebook page. Don't use Facebook? Leave a blog comment, Tweet it, email a link, etc.
The student saying the speech is a fifth grader with disabilities and it was a major accomplishment for him to be able to perform the speech in front of an auditorium full of parents and classmates. Kati Blair Kotrc, VSA's Director of Education, met his mother before the performance and she was beaming with pride - "my son is the one who plays Martin Luther King, Jr. and says the 'I have a dream' speech."
We have a dream also . . . that one day, people of all abilities will have fair access to the arts and learning.
How many deaf writers do you know? One, two? No? How about four? Kristen Harmon, Raymond Luczak, Allison Polk, Kristen Ringman. These deaf published writers welcome you with their poems, stories, and memoir excerpts on
being treated differently. Despite recent bestsellers featuring deaf characters by
hearing writers, the media rarely listens to deaf writers themselves. These writers provide a needed corrective to the stereotyping of deafness and the cliched symbolism of silence.
