Independent Lens
Three Chaplains
Three Muslim chaplains aim to make change in one of America’s most powerful institutions—the military. For them, the fight for equality and religious freedom begins on the inside.
Lives Worth Living
One man's struggle to survive after a spinal cord injury leads to his role in the earliest days of the Disability Rights Movement.
- Series
- Independent Lens
- Premiere Date
- October 27, 2011
- Length
- 60 minutes
- Funding Initiative
- Open Call
Producer/Director
Eric Neudel
Eric Neudel has been an editor and producer of many PBS programs. He has worked on After The Crash for The American Experience, Eyes On The Prize, The Philippines and The US: In Our Image, AIDS: Chapter One for NOVA, Vietnam: A Television History, and Chachaji: My Poor Relation for World. His independent films include Steps (1980), Fred’s Story (1994), Marie… Show more
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The Film
Lives Worth Living is both an historical documentary about the Disability Rights Movement and a biography about one man's struggle to survive.
Charismatic leaders of the movement narrate the story of a long, hard, and successful drive for civil rights — a drive that brought together a once fragmented population into a powerful coalition that created some of the most far reaching civil rights legislation in our nation's history.
People with disabilities are one of the largest of any minority within our nation, and this is the first television history on the subject. It is a window into a world inhabited by people with an unwavering determination to live their lives like anyone else, and a passage into the past where millions of people lived without access to schools, apartment buildings, public transportation, etc. — a status quo today's generation cannot imagine.
