On Friday, July 24, Buffalo celebrated the 36th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, at RiverWorks with the annual Disability Pride Festival.
This week on the Disabilities Beat, we share a snapshot of what the festival was like.
TRANSCRIPT:
This is a rush transcript created by a contractor and may be updated over time to be more accurate.
Emyle Watkins:
Hi. I'm Emyle Watkins, and this is the Disabilities Beat.
[Sounds of musicians practicing their instruments]
Bianca McGraw:
Bring out Every Voice United!
["Uptown Funk" begins to play, and the musicians on stage begin to play along]
Shane Lowe:
The crowd has been super kind to us. We just crashed someone's performance. We just crashed their party and they were very ... It just turned into a spontaneous jam session.
Joseph King:
Pretty much.
Shane Lowe:
It feels very collaborative. It feels very supportive.
Joseph King:
Oh, yeah.
Shane Lowe:
The community is amazing.
Emyle Watkins:
Shane Lowe and Joseph King, who make up Kentucky based band Midair Decision, were on stage at Buffalo's Disability Pride Festival, sound checking alongside a guest bandmate and Mike Farrow when a dance party broke out.
[Recording of the dance party continues playing in the background]
Every Voice United, a dance group, was supposed to take the stage before the musicians to hype up the crowd. Instead, everyone joined in.
[Recording of the dance party continues playing in the background]
Here's festival organizer, Sophia Roberts, who was dancing in the crowd when it happened.
Sophia Roberts:
And so those guys came to just dance, and they came to just hype up the audience, but the band was out doing their soundcheck and the first performer was, and they just joined in. And it was just like a big party, just really fun. They all joined in.
Emyle Watkins:
This moment perhaps best encapsulated Friday's festival. A time where everyone came together, shedding outside perceptions, celebrating and embracing what the disability community has to offer.
Julia Victor:
So we've come to the festival a few times in the past and we heard so many new things that we didn't know before.
Emyle Watkins:
Julia Victor and her 23-year-old daughter, Theresa, were making art at a table near the entertainment stage. Julia's daughter and brother both have disabilities, and Julia says the festival has helped them connect with a lot of activities and resources over the years. When I asked what it meant to bring her family somewhere where they could be surrounded by community, there was a lot of emotion.
Julia Victor:
Because we can have so many friends and family in the world, but sometimes they don't get it, the struggles that we go through.
Emyle Watkins:
That sentiment of understanding seemed to reverberate throughout RiverWorks, which the festival nearly completely took over. Across the venue on the covered rinks where over 70 plus vendors exhibited, it was impossible to miss Lisa Clark and her colleague, Amanda Herbert, wearing giant rainbow balloon Mohawks and butterfly capes. Butterflies are often a symbol used by the lupus community. Here's Clark:
Lisa Clark:
And I actually had a little bit of a lupus flare up when I got here and was in public, and this place, it just made me realize that being in a community where any and all of us are pretty much struggling with something, that I was able to be vulnerable and feel more comfortable. And it's just proved what it feels like when you're around a community of people who understand and genuinely care because I had a lot of people coming to my aid and now that's kind of opened a door for me to realize that-
Amanda Herbert:
We shed our shame.
Lisa Clark:
Yeah.
Amanda Herbert:
We shed our shame here.
Lisa Clark:
Exactly.
Emyle Watkins:
This year's festival featured entertainment, art, speakers, vendors, various activities, a walk and roll, and not to mention too many accessibility features to list. Notably, this year also stood out not just for the large crowds that drew, but the people who came.
Joseph King:
Because if your public figures give a care, then that's going to be huge for everyone else, right? Because those are the people who are making the laws, who are ...
Emyle Watkins:
Lowe and King from Midair Decision said they've never seen elected officials show up like they did at this festival.
Shane Lowe:
I mean, the city of Buffalo really showed up for this. The mayor was here. We had council people here. We had people from the State of New York were here. That's incredible. And that's not something that I've seen at many other disability pride festivals. And so I think that is one way, you're [King is] very right, that's one way that Buffalo really has stood out to me.
Emyle Watkins:
Roberts shared that for her, the best moment of the day was every moment where they built community.
Sophia Roberts:
We are building community and we are a community and it's a very vast community. Some of the things that were talked about today were just the challenges that we're up against as a community and how people [are] helping people and working together and just how diverse we are.
Emyle Watkins:
For more on this story, visit our website at btpm.org. I'm Emyle Watkins. Thanks for listening.
