(slow piano music) - [Announcer] From isolation to sterilization, some would say those with intellectual disability have faced oppression at every turn.

- Out of sight, out of mind historically is the way society has dealt with people with intellectual disabilities.

- [Nancy Thaler] It was extremely negative.

Often that they were a menace, that they were dangerous, that it was contagious.

- What they had to face, they faced impossible odds.

- [James Conroy] Part of the story that has to be told is here's how bad it got.

Look at this.

Can you believe that we did this to other human beings?

That story has to be told.

(soft piano music) The rise of institutions was with good intentions so that needs to be said at the outset.

It was the best thing we knew how to do at the time.

It would be efficient.

- [Announcer] Parents were often advised to institutionalize a child with intellectual disabilities, that it would be better for the child, the family, and the community.

- Parents were told to institutionalize your child.

Your child has a very poor prognosis.

He'll never do this and this and this, oftentimes given a long list and lots and lots of pressure for families to sort of do the right thing not only for their family and for their other children, but also for the society as well.

- [Announcer] In 1908 the Eastern Pennsylvania Institution for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic, later known as Pennhurst State School and Hospital, opened.

The campus sat on over 100 acres along the Schuylkill River in Spring City, Pennsylvania.

The campus offered a pretty facade, but it wasn't long before a different picture emerged.

(sad piano music) - [James Conroy] The going wrong of our institutional system began almost on day one.

Take in for example Pennhurst which opened in 1908.

One year later the legislature of Pennsylvania was being asked for more money because Pennhurst was overcrowded.

- My earliest experience at Pennhurst was as a graduate student.

I remember the smells and the sounds, neither which were pleasant.

Crying, screaming, moaning, all of it.

People unsupervised sitting in day rooms rocking.

No meaningful activity at all.

- Cribs packed so tightly together you couldn't walk between 'em is a pretty astounding image.

I mean the fact that these were people who no one even attempted to get out of their bed.

Day in, day out.

Day in, day out.

That was a pretty telling image.

- [Announcer] In 1968 Bill Baldini, a TV reporter for Channel 10 in Philadelphia, heard about the conditions inside Pennhurst and went to see for himself.

- We went in there and my crew literally got sick.

The smell was incredible.

I mean you had rooms filled with people banging their heads, defecating.

We were just stunned.

It became an incredible story.

We have never had a response like that before or since then.

- On the day that we saw it on the TV screen at 6:00 at night, we could never say again, "We didn't know."

You can imagine the outrage and the terror of families, some of whom had their sons and daughters at Pennhurst.

"We have to do something.

"What can we do?

"Well, we might have to sue somebody."

- [Announcer] In 1971 they did just that.

The Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children, later known as the Arc of Pennsylvania, sued the commonwealth for a right to education and they won.

- The governor admitted that the commonwealth had a responsibility to educate all children, All, A-L-L. Then that changed the world.

- [Announcer] In 1975 the Arc of Pennsylvania alleged adverse and dangerous conditions in a lawsuit against Pennhurst.

And in 1977 US District Court Judge Raymond Broderick agreed ruling the commonwealth would need to replace Pennhurst with appropriate settings in the community.

- [Celia Feinstein] The significance of his order was that more than 20 states had similar litigation filed and similar decisions won based on the Pennhurst decision.

It was the first time in our history, in the history of this field, that a federal district court judge made such a far-reaching order.

- Any social liberation movement or any equality movement starts with consciousness raising which is what happened at Pennhurst.

At that point it wasn't hard to activate people to fight on behalf of people with intellectual disability who were institutionalized.

- We were asking, "What should the future look like for people with developmental disabilities?"

And people were saying things, "Well, in the future, people should be able to go to school and get married and have friends."

And when it was done, there was a man who kinda sat back and looked at the wall and said, "Gee, that's just the life we all have."

And that's what it is.

- [Announcer] The impact of the Pennhurst closure can still be felt today.

Since that landmark decision, the population inside state institutions across the country has dwindled in favor of smaller community-based settings.

Still many worry that living in the community doesn't mean being a part of it.

- The reality is for many people, we have a long ways to go.

That we still, we have a lot of people who live smack dab in the middle of the community and don't know their neighbors.

We have people who spend all day congregated and segregated in special places just for people with disabilities.

We have people who have nobody in their life whose not either a fellow client of the service that they use or a paid staff person.

And as long as that reality exists for a good number of people, then we have a lot of work left to do.

(soft piano music) - I think we've made great strides.

I think we need to make sure we don't backslide.

It's too easy to forget about the past 40 years as we go to the next 40 years.

If you don't learn from your history you're destined to repeat it.

- This is how it happens, that there's a period of great activation, excitement, and passion, and then it gets hard.

It gets hard to keep people invested and involved.

People with disability have been the last and the least to get paid attention to, and I think our movement is far from over.