Making Disability Justice a Reality in the South
New Disabled South is championing liberation and justice for disabled people in the South by fighting for disability rights and policies throughout the region. One-third of the country’s 61 million disabled people live in the South, most of them people of color. Founded in late 2022, this groundbreaking nonprofit is building a powerful coalition of disabled people, families, change makers, policy influencers, volunteers, and others who are transforming state and local policies to improve the lives of disabled people across the 14 southern states. New Disabled South also prioritizes an approach to inclusive leadership which recognizes the unique talents, lived, and learned experiences of everyone on their team.
Confronting Challenges
Everyone should have access to inclusive and accessible communities where they can thrive. But in the United States today, too many people with disabilities face deeply entrenched barriers that undermine their health, wellbeing, and autonomy. These challenges are even more pronounced for disabled people of color. New Disabled South is tearing down these barriers by organizing disabled people and allies, developing innovative strategies, centering the voices and experiences of people who are marginalized for multiple reasons, and fostering full inclusion throughout the region. Their mission focuses on reducing poverty and improving care, decreasing criminalization of people with disabilities, and strengthening democracy.
Advocacy Efforts
“For too long, the disability community in the South has been tokenized, scapegoated, forgotten, or sometimes just completely ignored. People in power have decided that our rights don’t matter,” says New Disabled South co-founder, president and CEO Dom Kelly. But we are “bringing our community together and building the first regional coalition of disability justice leaders.”
Poverty and Care
Lifting disabled people out of poverty is a priority for the organization because, right now, disabled people live in poverty at more than twice the rate of nondisabled people, and nine of the 10 states with the highest poverty rates are in the South. The caregiving crisis the country is facing is especially acute in the South, with the 14 southern states home to three in four people in the United States who are wait-listed for waivers that would allow them to receive care in their homes and communities, instead of in institutions. Seven of the 10 states that have yet to expand Medicaid are in the South.
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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.”