Lansing Mayor raises Disability Pride Flag at City Hall

LANSING, Mich. (WLNS)– In a small ceremony today, Lansing Mayor Andy Schor raised the Disability Pride Flag in front of the Lansing City Hall.

The ceremony was led by Schor and Luna Brown, a local disability advocate, “putting this outside our City Hall is a learning opportunity for our community,” Schor told 6 News.

Speaking before the flag was raised, Brown said, “it’s an important step. [The flag is] definitely not a [well] recognized symbol nationwide… most people are completely unaware of it,” referencing a lack of public consciousness to the disabled community.

Disability Pride Month is a commemorative celebration of the Americans with Disabilities Act being passed in July 1990. According to the city of Lansing’s historical breakdown on their website, the fist Disability Pride Day was held in Boston in 1990 and the first Disability Pride Parade was held in Chicago in 2004.

A Disability Pride Month was first recognized in New York City in 2015 as a declaration by Mayor Bill de Blasio. In 2019, the Disability Pride Flag was created by Ann Magill, and each color used symbolizes a particular group of disability types. The city of Lansing’s online educational resource on the flag, which is linked above, stated that, “the flag was updated in 2021 to accommodate feedback that the original ‘lightning bolt’ design posed a risk for people with epilepsy and migraine sufferers.”

In 2022, Governor Gretchen Whitmer declared July as Disability Pride Month in Michigan, marking the first time Disability Pride Month was recognized by the state of Michigan. There are more resources to learn about Disability pride and Disability civil rights on the michigan.gov website for the Department of Health and Human resources .

Brown summarized her experience when she spoke at the flag raising ceremony: “there’s still a ton of stigma against disabilities, but when you bring it up, you get a lot of support.”

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