Celebrate Disability Pride Month!

Disability Pride Month is in July because the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed in July of 1990. Disability Pride comes out of the Disability Rights Movement and the knowledge that disability is a normal, common part of human diversity. Disability Pride Month celebrates the diverse identities, cultures, and accomplishments of people with disabilities and fights against social stigma and physical barriers. 

Cuyahoga County and the Northeast Ohio Coalition of Disability Organizations are celebrating Disability Pride with an event on July 27 from 3 to 7p.m. at the Fieldhouse Studio West 117th.  

You can also celebrate Disability Pride at Wade Oval Wednesday on July 24 from 5:30 to 8:30p.m.  

And Disability Pride is every day at your Coventry Village Branch, where we offer adaptive storytimes and Deaf culture programs regularly, and where we are expanding our disability book collection and accessible programming with support from a grant from the Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities. 

In the meantime, you can celebrate with one of my favorite books, We Move Together, by Kelly Fritsch, Anne McGuire, and Eduardo Trejos.  

We Move Together is a beautiful introduction to Disability Justice. For fans of Tyler Feder’s Bodies are Cool, this is a deepening of that acceptance of all the ways bodies can be. We Move Together takes it further and envisions not only a fully accessible world, but also how we get there. It’s an ideal resource for families working to build that better, accessible world. Remember, access is love.  

P.S. In March, the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library received a grant for $3,500 from the Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities. The funds will be used for ASL (American Sign Language) storytimes and the purchase of an expanded disabilities collection for the system.