Crip News v.163

2024 digest, Jimmy Carter. Until 2025!

Dec 30, 2024

2024 Digest

Over the past year, Crip News turned 3 years old, welcomed 1,100 new readers, and published 51 issues. The year’s most-read posts included…

A Black performance artist is brightly lit in the woods at night. She’s holding an aluminum crutch with a flag that says PALESTINE. She is looking out in the distance, vibrant.

v.150, an original essay about Ann-Archy Artist’s performance artistry at Honcho Campout.
A Feb. 12 special issue about cultural policy in NYC.
v.158, with anti-ableist analysis of Wicked: Part One.

This year’s issues document the methods activists are using to address ableism’s chronic emergencies and the alternatives artists and culture bearers are showing to be real. Thanks for being here.

NEWS

The Legacies of Jimmy Carter

The death of the 39th U.S. President (1977 - 1981) will be commemorated on the National Day of Mourning declared for next Thursday, Jan. 9.

Hand-written letters on white background saying "Sign 504 now!" The zero in the number "504" is the handicapped symbol (person in wheel chair). — Protest sign by **Ken Stein**, held by the **National Museum of American History**.

Carter’s presidential campaign featured strong calls for disability access to education, employment, care, and independence. But once he was in office, he rebuffed disabled organizers by refusing to implement rules for Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Carter’s inaction led to the longest occupation of a federal building in U.S. history and a powerful declaration of the arrival of the Disability Rights Movement.

His presidency also coincided with an important time in the movement to decarcerate disability, the growth of the new Supplemental Security Income program, and the birth of what is now called the National Council on Disability.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter running along the lawn of the White House in athletic clothing. — Image via **Getty**.

Perhaps lesser-known was Carter’s contribution to new public aesthetics of fitness. He joined the “running boom” of the 70s with daily jogs behind the White House. This time, called a “new strenuosity” in American life, featured mass participation in running fundraisers for an expanding disability non-profit sector that cast disability as the shadow of enduring cultural myths about the moral goodness of able-bodiedness.

Until 2025!

We’ll be back with more news, new works, context, analysis, calls and events in the new year.