Geraldo Rivera is a fucking national hero that hardly anybody knows about. He is the reporter that blew open the disgusting concentration-campesque conditions at Willowbrook State Hospital of NY, along with a kid that lived there named Bernard Carabello (The Father of the Self Advocacy Movement that almost nobody knows). 30 kids packed into a room, no clothing, little staff, no bathrooms, no fucking programming. Shitting themselves, and getting injured by other kids. All of them, forgotten by society. He broke that story and saved the entire disability community from ever having to face those conditions again. Deinstitutionalization happened shortly thereafter and people with disabilities stopped being hidden away in these conditions.
Geraldo Rivera should be a household name. Bernard Carabello should be a household name.