Disability Pride Month: Celebrating the ADA and people with disabilities
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July is Disability Pride Month, a global movement to celebrate people with disabilities and to advocate for change. This month commemorates the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act being signed into law.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 27% of the U.S. population has some kind of disability – a little over one in four people. Most people will experience being disabled at some point in their lives, either temporarily or permanently.
I did not grow up as a person with a disability. When the ADA was signed into law 34 years ago, I didn’t understand its significance. Now, as someone with vision loss, I know that, without the ADA, there are numerous barriers I would have to face.
I am a person who not only lives with a disability but thrives with a disability. I wholeheartedly embrace my status as a person with vision loss. I’ve been fortunate enough to advocate for disability employment opportunities with federal legislators and tell my story on national and local levels to provide hope for other people with vision loss.
There was a time I felt the loneliness of a disability; I couldn’t get out of bed and my son was taking care of me instead of me taking care of him. Then, the day came when I realized I was slipping away, and it was time to find a purpose in myself and in my life. I like to say you can’t get a rainbow without rain, and my vision-loss journey is no exception to that.
This year, the American Bar Association’s Commission on Disability Rights is celebrating Disability Pride Month with the #BeCounted campaign. The campaign encourages lawyers with disabilities from across the country to add themselves to the ABA’s U.S. map, because attorneys with disabilities are generally underreported.
While we might not all be lawyers, it’s important to know we count. If you are reading or listening to this, and you have a disability, I want you to know that you count. People with disabilities deserve to live a full life, just like everyone else. While we can’t control when a disability becomes a part of our lives, we can control how we react to it.
This month is about celebrating people with disabilities and the barriers that have been broken thanks to the ADA and recognizing that people with disabilities count.