Philadelphia’s disabled community honors trailblazers featured in ‘American Masters: Renegades’ docuseries

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For too long, families and community advocates say stories about people with disabilities have narrowly focused on how those disabilities made people less capable.

Instead, film producer and writer Marsha Hallager wanted to explore stories of people who lived full lives with disabilities and became pioneers and game changers in the arts, motherhood and civil rights.

“We have to find out the stories behind the stories,” she said.

That’s what Hallager, filmmakers and other creators set out to do in “American Masters: Renegades,” a documentary short series on PBS exploring the untold stories of five disabled historical figures who paved the way for future generations.

Members from Philadelphia’s disability community, advocacy organizations and support programs gathered at WHYY Tuesday for a special film screening and panel event.

Local leaders remarked on how progress has been made in meeting the needs of people with disabilities, but they emphasized there needs to be more opportunities in housing, transportation, health care and other areas to improve quality of life.

“We have to become barrier-free,” said Domonique Howell, a disability advocate and independent living specialist who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair full-time. “And really focus on the independent living philosophy and the social model aspect of disability.”

The documentary series features five disabled figures, including the late Celestine Tate Harrington, a Philadelphia street musician and performer. She was born with a congenital joint condition that made her unable to use her arms and legs.

Harrington lived as a quadriplegic and used her mouth, tongue and teeth for everything from playing piano to cooking to changing her children’s diapers.

Nia Tate-Ball, Harrington’s daughter, said people constantly underestimated her mother, who died in Atlantic City in 1998.

“Challenges were going to come, but she would often take a challenge and make something out of nothing,” Tate-Ball said. “I never perceived her as disabled, she was just my mother.”

Harrington made headlines in 1975 when she successfully won a child custody case against the Philadelphia Department of Child Welfare, which claimed Harrington’s disability made her unfit to care for her daughter.

But Harrington prevailed in court, and the case paved the way for other parents with disabilities who had been perceived as unfit.

Her fight inspired people like Howell, a mother who has faced her own custody challenges related to her disability.

“It’s gratifying to know that there was someone before you that can accomplish raising children and them being successful and you going after your dreams,” said Howell, who founded Momma Chronicles Too, an advocacy and support group for mothers with disabilities and parents with disabled children.

Tate-Ball and her family are featured in the documentary series, and she eventually became an executive producer of her mother’s story. Tate-Ball is a real estate investor and an advocate for affordable living opportunities for people with disabilities.

“She was the epitome of resiliency, determination,” Tate-Ball said of her mother. “I watched my mother go out and make opportunity, and as a result of watching her do that, now I have the ability to also make opportunity.”

Episodes of “American Masters: Renegades” are online at pbs.org.