How did you celebrate Disability Awareness Month this past October? If you found it hard to find information on disability history, you’re in luck: PBS has just debuted a new docuseries, Renegades. Hosted by award-winning musician and disability rights advocate Lachi, this five-episode season sheds light on the lives of significant historical figures with disabilities—and it is the perfect show to watch if you’re interested in learning about their little-known histories.
Just N Life had the chance to sit down with the host and crew of Renegades to discuss the new series. Working with FWD-Doc (Documentary Filmmakers with Disabilities) and many creatives who either have disabilities or have worked in the social justice sphere—Marsha Hallager, Cashmere Jasmine, Lachi, Day Al-Mohamed, Charlotte Mangin, and Amanda Upson—this docuseries was a labor of love. With a total of five episodes, each episode follows a certain little-known historical figure and sheds light on their lives in an uplifting way.
The historical figures that this season of Renegades chooses to highlight are all inspiring in their own right. Judy-Lynn del Rey was a science-fiction editor who published Star Wars and got people buzzing about sci-fi. She was a woman with dwarfism—and though the science-fiction community is very inclusive, one major exception was its portrayal of dwarfism. In classic sci-fi, people with dwarfism were often portrayed in an exploitative or demeaning way, but del Rey’s impact in this literary genre sparked a diversity increase in sci-fi as a whole.
The series also follows Brad Lomax, a member of the Blank Panther Party and the leader of the 504 Sit-in in San Francisco, Thomas Wiggins, a pianist and composer who was born into slavery and was a blind man, and Daniel K. Inouye, a Japanese-American who had his arm amputated after a battle injury in World War II and went on to be a senator for Hawaii and fight for civil rights.
Another episode took on the striking story of Celestine Tate Harrington. Celestine was a quadriplegic street musician who played keyboard along the boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey with her lips, teeth, and tongue. She was born with arthrogryposis muliplex, which reduced her limb development, but this never stopped her from being fully capable and adapting to a world that wasn’t built for her.
In our conversation with Cashmere Jasmine, the series director and producer, and Marsha Hallager, the director, we discussed Celestine’s resiliency. In 1976, Celestine faced a child custody court battle; Celestine’s daughter, Niya, was only four months old when she was taken away from her mother by a social worker from the Philadelphia Department of Public Welfare. Celestine was deemed unfit to take care of a child, which she later disproved in court due to her adaptability — Celestine was able to dress and undress baby Niya using only her mouth.
There’s still a lot of work to do to move past the damaging stereotypes placed on people with disabilities. According to Hallager, the way to do so is by having people with disabilities be a form of representation and make themselves available to answer questions through creative projects. The representation when watching this show—of Celestine’s wittiness and resilience as “she bulldozes through everything that comes her way… of Wiggins’ who was continuously enslaved and had to find his agency in his own way”—is so important for people to see on screen, said Hallager.
Day Al-Mohamed, the series creator and senior producer, discussed this as well. “I wanted to show real stories of real people who actually made a difference,” she said. Instead of following the media-typical story about a person with a disability overcoming or experiencing hardship, Renegades is there to show true stories. “This is a history of American society, so there’s a piece of it for everyone,” she said. “It’s told in a way that reflects the vibrancy and the dynamism of the community but also of these people. They were badasses and their stories should be told like the badasses that they were, instead of some sort of tragedy-scape.” Al-Mohamed is incredibly passionate about sharing the truth about these little-known but incredibly impactful historical figures, and that is apparent through every bit of Renegades.
Jasmine and Hallager also discussed the differences between invisible and visible disabilities. Both Jasmine and Hallager have invisible disabilities, something that has impacted their work. For Jasmine, “as a late diagnosed autism and ADHD, it’s been a reflection of a life of really and truly doubting yourself or worse, pushing yourself too hard and too far to try to meet standards that were never built for you and never had accommodations created for you.”
Lachi, the series’ host and narrator who also has a disability, sees this issue in a similar light. “We’re not overcoming disability, and we’re not succeeding despite disability,” she said. “What we’re overcoming is ableism, and we’re succeeding despite ableism. We’re succeeding despite societal barriers.”
Renegades series episodes will be available every Tuesday on https://t.co/DW0HmZHE1j, the American Masters YouTube, or the PBS app.
— Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (@DREDF) October 2, 2024
We're thrilled historical figures with disabilities are in the spotlight! @PBSAmerMasters @lachimusic @DayAlMohamed https://t.co/4xKrQI4LUK
This is where FWD-Doc comes into play. Al-Mohamed is a founding member of FWD-Doc, and Amanda Upson, the series producer, is the former interim director of FWD-Doc. This wonderful organization helps get talented filmmakers with disabilities onto sets and behind the scenes. Having representation for everyone in all sectors of media helps to propel disability awareness.
Upson came from a legal background but has turned to working in film. “I realized is that I could [work on nondiscrimination in employment] in the media a lot faster than I could do it in one-off cases,” Upson said. Her goal with working on projects such as this is to bring her legal point of view into the media—to help people in any way she can.
“Working on the Renegades series was the first time that I got a chance to tell stories about and with the disabled community,” Charlotte Mangin, the Renegades executive producer, said. She also emphasized the importance of telling these stories in an “authentic” way, which is the great impact of Renegades.
If you’re looking for a docuseries that, in Lachi’s words, will “get folks curious about disabilities, wanting to know more about these disabled badasses, wanting to finally begin to stop viewing disability in these narrow lenses that have been put forth in the past,” check out Renegades. Whether you want to see yourself represented in the media or want to discover some little-known histories, Renegades is the perfect next watch.
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