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New film introduces world to Berkeley’s disability rights pioneer Hale Zukas
‘Hale’ is a new short documentary film about Hale Zukas, diagnosed with cerebral palsy as a child, who helped make Berkeley the birthplace of the disability rights movement.
By Sasha Khokha / KQED
Nov. 72017, 9 a.m.Nov. 72017
Hale Zukas was a founder of the disability rights movement at UC Berkeley, and was involved in building a national civil-rights movement for people with disabilities. Photo: Courtesy of Brad Bailey
‘Hale’ is a new short documentary film about Hale Zukas, who helped make Berkeley the birthplace of the disability rights movement. He was diagnosed with cerebral palsy as a child. He went on to study Russian and math at UC Berkeley in the 1970s and he helped found Berkeley’s groundbreaking Center for Independent Living, which has become a nationwide model.
Filmmaker Brad Bailey made the documentary as his thesis project at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. He just picked up a Student Academy Award for the project, joining some big names like Spike Lee and Robert Zemeckis. He spoke with Sasha Khokha, host of The California Report Magazine. What follows are some excerpts from their radio interview.
https://www.berkeleyside.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Hale2Way-1.mp3
On choosing to tell the story of Hale Zukas: