New Disabled South is advocating for greater investments in home and community-based services, Medicaid expansion, and other services that deliver care for disabled people. It is fighting to end measures that keep disabled people in poverty including subminimum wages, sheltered workshops, and asset limits. And it is organizing mutual aid in local communities throughout the South to help people access the resources they need.
Decriminalizing Disability
Because disabled people of color experience our criminal justice system at its worst, New Disabled South is fighting for justice for everyone in the community and centering the voices of those who are most marginalized, its board chair, Mia Ives-Rublee explains. The data is shocking. Half of people killed by law enforcement are disabled. More than half of Black disabled people have been arrested by the time they reach age 28, which is double the percentage of their white peers. New Disabled South is investing in research to identify solutions that will decriminalize disability in the South; working with allies to abolish systems that harm, incarcerate, and criminalize disabled people; and organizing with disabled youth to stop to criminalization of disability in schools.
Participation in the Democratic Process
In a strong democracy, voting is a way to make change. But voting is often a challenge for disabled people, who can face countless barriers including inaccessible polling places, limited windows for early voting, restrictions on absentee ballots, and long lines that make it more difficult to participate in our democracy. In the South, the legacy of Jim Crow and continuing voter suppression make it even more difficult for disabled voters, particularly those of color, to cast their ballots. To end the disenfranchisement of disabled voters, New Disabled South is working to remove barriers that keep disabled voters out of the democratic process, educate disabled voters about how they can vote freely and independently, and coordinate with partners to help provide accessible rides to polls during elections.
Impact
All the work of New Disabled South is grounded in research that helps the organization better understand what disabled people in the South are facing and the policy solutions that will bring meaningful change. Among its recent innovations is a plain language policy dashboard that is putting complex state legislative proposals on accessibility, civil rights, criminalization, poverty and care, democracy, and education into language lay people and advocates can understand.
New Disabled South is at the forefront of innovation that advances racial justice, economic justice, and democracy—all of which are necessary to achieve true disability justice. It has quickly become a leader in the fight for disability rights and disability justice. “We’re fighting back,” New Disabled South co-founder and COO Kehsi Iman Wilson says. “Our work is guided by disability principles that remind us that, in order to achieve liberation, we have to be unapologetically interdependent. There has never been a more important moment.”
