IMAGE ©ANDRAÉA LAVANT

Published: May 12, 2021

Never before has there been a visibly disabled person on the red carpet at the Oscars, let alone a Black visibly disabled person accompanied by her blinged-out service dog. Andraéa Lavant (Impact Producer for the Oscar-nominated Netflix documentary Crip Camp), wrote about her experience in Essence Magazine. She shared her lifelong feeling of always being “the disabled girl” or “the Black girl.” But her efforts, and the efforts of her co-founders at 1IN4 Coalition, are bringing change to Hollywood. Their mission is to add accessibility to DEI efforts, so that more authentic stories are told and disabled people are fully represented from the writer’s room to the crews to the actors. 

“We’re seen in less than 1% of Hollywood screens and stages, and we’re missing from most offices, crews, and sets,” writes Lavant. “Now is the time to employ disabled people, to tell authentic stories, and to ignite change for the 1.3 billion disabled people around the world.”