Long before the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), there was Camp Jened, a hippy-run summer camp for people with disabilities that operated for almost 25 years, tucked in the shadow of Hunter Mountain in the Catskills south of Albany, NY.

Mixed in with the swimming, impromptu sing-alongs and teenage make out sessions by the campfire, a fire of another sort was lit … and those flames fed the beginnings of the disability rights movement.

It was there at Camp Jened that the late Judy Heumann, known as “the mother of the disability rights movement,” first realized she and others like her had been sidelined their entire lives. It was a powerful and life-changing realization for many of the campers, as they used their time away from home to embrace independence and an awareness of new possibilities.

The 2020 Sun Dance film festival winner, “Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution,” documents a powerful transformation in the campers, as they realize change will only come if they get out there and make it themselves. The experience was so galvanizing that several camp alums joined the disability rights movements in the early ‘70s, including the film’s director James Lebrecht.

“Jimmy” Lebrecht was at the camp the same year as Heumann, and he shot some stunning footage of the campers and the counselors. Some of the most poignant footage documents the conversations between the campers, talking about things every teen would talk about … sex, music, dreams … and how people and situations were holding them back from the lives they imagined for themselves.

The film follows the lives of several of these campers and the revolution they sparked over the next three decades and beyond. It takes the historical facts we’ve heard before – the traffic-stopping demonstrations in NYC and DC, the protests at the Capitol, the sparring with elected officials, the sit-in fighting for passage of Section 504 of the civil rights act – without taking our eyes away from the very real people in the movement.

At times equally heartwarming and shocking, “Crip Camp” follows the arc of the disability rights movement to a conclusion, the ADA, that was far from forgone.

It offers an eye-opening glimpse of the radical potential for change when a group of likeminded people decide to stand up for their rights … and never flinch. With nothing to lose and everything to gain, they seized the chance to create a world where they belonged. Watch it streaming on Netflix.