July 2024 Disability Pride Month Events
Souls Above Water: A Night of Disability Music and Culture
Thursday, July 11
6pm – 7pm
Edgewater Public Library Branch
6000 N. Broadway
Free
Join singer/songwriter Stephanie Alma Hernandez and percussionist Tommy Carroll as they share songs of joy, resistance, pain and solidarity, rooted in the disability experience. The evening will feature a discussion of disability culture and show where the movement is heading. Both performers are disabled artists living and working in Chicago. This event is in partnership with Cuerpos Justificados, a disability-led grassroots artist collective, and the Chicago Public Library Diversability Advocacy Committee.
Wheelchair accessible. Please contact CPL at edgewater@chipublib.org for other services in regards to accessibility.
For more information and tickets, please visit: https://chipublib.bibliocommons.com/events/666c87688639e476db5f538b
Open Studio: Matt Bodett at Center for Mad Culture
Friday, July 12
5pm – 9pm
Center for Mad Culture, Fine Arts Building
410 S. Michigan Avenue
Free
The Second Friday series at the Fine Arts Building features 10 floors of artist studios. The Center for Mad Culture will be open with some of Matt Bodett’s paintings!
Wheelchair accessible via elevator.
For more information, please visit: https://www.fineartsbuilding.com/events/second-fridays/
UIC Disability Cultural Center Pre-Parade Art Build
Saturday, July 20
9am – 10:45am
Harold Washington Library, 8th floor
400 S. State Street
Join the UIC Disability Cultural Center for community and sign making before the Disability Pride Parade! We’ll have games and art supplies. Come when you can, leave when you want.
All are welcome–students, staff, faculty, community members; disabled folks, nondisabled folks and anyone in-between.
You can march in the parade with us too, starting at 11am, or go straight to the endpoint at Daley Plaza.
Access info: The space is wheelchair accessible, and we’ll have ASL and auto-captioning. If it’s accessible for you, please wear a mask to make this space safer for immunocompromised folks in our community. We’ll have some masks with us.
Chicago Disability Pride Parade
Saturday, July 20
11am
400 S. Plymouth Court to Daley Plaza (along Dearborn)
Chicago is home to the longest-running Disability Pride Parade, which has been happening since 2004. You can march (or roll) with the UIC Disability Cultural Center! Most folks who go to the parade are in it, but you can also cheer from the side of the road or meet up at Daley Plaza.
Genevieve Ramos, whose Crip Paint Power portrait series (https://dcc.uic.edu/space/crip-paint-power/) has its home in DCC’s Quiet Lounge, is this year’s Grand Marshall!
For more information, please visit: https://www.facebook.com/events/2643227355840194/?ref=newsfeed
Cuerpos Justificados Disability Pride Parade After Party
Saturday, July 20
6pm – 10pm
HAZ Cooperative Studios (Pilsen)
1706 S. Halsted Street
Save the date for a Disability Pride Parade afterparty celebration, hosted by Cuerpos Justificados! The DCC will share details out in our social media when they’re available.
CRIPPING THE MAP: A People’s History of Disability in Chicago
Ongoing
In Spring 2024, DCC’s Diversity Community Engagement Program (DCEP) interns, Sunny and Dorian, build out an amazing project called CRIPPING THE MAP: A People’s History of Disability in Chicago.
As we move into Disability Pride Month, we want to collect more stories of disability experience, history and culture.
- Why? Nothing about us without us: a map by and for disabled/mad/crip Chicago
- We have always been here: remember and honor overlooked disability histories and cultures
- Collective memory: share everyday stories of disabled joy, grief, rage, resistance and rest tied to how we experience this city; our lives speak truth to power!
Fill out the linked form below and we’ll place your story on our custom map of Chicago. This beautiful project continues to grow–we plan to add to the oral histories Sunny and Dorian started, and will be sharing a print version at the Disability Pride Parade!
To share a story or make a suggestion, please use the following form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdprsHZYqvhAkq6KILnPaUX1H_ThsYAk149G2Wb8_6YMOIjPA/viewform
Contact E-mail: dcc@uic.edu
Photo ID: A large scale painting by Matt Bodett on a piece of canvas. It layers line drawings of containers/ pills, medical text, and handwriting in thought clouds over a classical painting of the Libyan Sibyl from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel paintings.