Nationally ADAPT Members Ready To Protest, to Secure 'DNC' Support for the Disability Integration Act

Members from across the United States meet with the DNC Chair Tom Perez!

11/29/17 – Washington, D.C. Activists from the disability rights organization ADAPT, the same group that spent summer fighting Republican efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, today set their sights on the Democratic National Committee. The ADAPT activists had traveled from as far as Colorado to express their anger at DNC chair Tom Perez because he didn’t live up to his commitments to them for the DNC to support Disability Integration Act (DIA – S910/HR2472) which would ensure that no Disabled American is denied Life and Liberty by unwanted institutionalization.

“Tom Perez promised me personally that he and the DNC would work tirelessly to put the full weight of the party behind the Disability Integration Act and instead we get the empty gesture of this council and still struggle to get Democrats in Congress onto our bill.” said Dawn Russell from Denver. “Too many disabled people are still forced into nursing facilities and other institutions and too many Democratic Party leaders have been doing almost nothing about it.”

When ADAPT activists showed up to disrupt the launch of the DNC Disability Council, Perez agreed to meet with them and stated that the DNC would be issuing a statement in support of DIA and would work with ADAPT and other organizations to better address issues of importance to the Disability Community.

“We’ve been here for the Democrats all year, fighting to save Medicaid and the ACA” said Rochester ADAPT member Ericka Jones “and then we’ve had to fight them just to get them to support our lives and liberty. It has been disheartening and exhausting. Frankly, Democrats who do not support legislation that would allow us to live in our own homes are no better than the Republicans; and they damage the party’s relationship to the Disability Community.”

The group was also frustrated that the DNC has not publicly condemned HR.620, a bill that would drastically undercut the Americans with Disabilities Act, and that eleven Democrats are sponsors of this bill.

“The ADA has been around for 27 years, which means businesses have had 27 years notice that they need to be accessible. We’ve waited long enough!” said Laura Halvorson of DC Metro ADAPT “For Democrats to even think of sponsoring this bill is appalling. Is anyone else required to endure a legal waiting period before they can have their civil rights be enforced? Absolutely not. And we shouldn’t either.”

ADAPT has proposed that the DNC coordinate a meeting with Congressional Leadership to get the Democratic cosponsors to withdraw their support for the bill. Recognizing that there are concerns from small business, the activists hope to work with Democrats on an alternative approach that will address the concerns while not undercutting the rights of Disabled Americans. The DNC also agreed to work to phase out Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act which allows Disabled workers to be paid less than minimum wage.

ADAPT’s history, the issues it is fighting for, and its activities can be found at www.adapt.org, the NationalADAPT Facebook page and on Twitter under the hashtag #ADAPTandRESIST.

SOURCE: ADAPT press release

ILLINOIS U.S.CONGRESSMAN RUSH CHANGES STANCE TO SUPPORT DISABILITY RIGHTS

Congressman Bobby Rush

After days of protest and pressure from disability rights activists in Chicago and Washington DC, Illinois Congressman Bobby Rush has withdrawn his sponsorship and support from the misleadingly titled, “ADA Education and Reform Act,” also known as HR 620. Disability advocates, activists, and organizations have all come out against the bill.

article by SARA LUTERMAN, for NOS Magazine | Nov. 6, 2017                                     

Scott Nance, a co-organizers of the direct action that ADAPT held outside Congressman Rush’s Chicago office, told NOS Magazine, “I am proud of the Congressman for being open to learning more about our concerns… Bobby Rush has preserved his identity as a leader in protecting the civil rights of every person.”

Rochester ADAPT activist Anita Cameron was pleased with the outcome and highlighted Congressman Rush’s own past activism. “I thank Congressman Rush for listening to his constituents and colleagues and coming off of HR 620… I hope that he hearkened back to his Black Panther roots.” Cameron also had praise for her fellow activists. “Thanks to Chicago ADAPT for their hard work to get the congressman to rescind his support of [HR 620].”

NOS Magazine reached out to Congressman Rush’s office, but they have declined to comment about the decision or the reasoning behind it. Congressman Rush also did not give a reason when he withdrew his cosponsorship on the floor. His office had released two previous press releases on the topic, but both explicitly stated that he would remain a cosponsor.

Scott Nance attributes the withdrawal to, “the combined efforts of advocacy from Centers for Independent Living and the direct action of ADAPT.” We also asked Scott Nance which HR 620 cosponsors ADAPT might target next. Nance responded, “[Congressman] Bill Foster, BIG TIME.” It is still unclear what action ADAPT will take, as they keep a tight lid on details about upcoming protests. NOS Magazine will continue to follow the story as it develops.

http://nosmag.org/congressman-bobby-rush-stays-true-to-activist-roots-hr620/

President Trump's Dept of Education “Confused” About Protections for Students with Disabilities — So Scrapped Dozens

The Trump administration is rolling back guidelines meant to protect students with disabilities

President Donald Trump with Betsy DeVos

article by TAYLOR LINK for Salon Media Group | Oct 23. 2017                                                 

Education secretary Betsy DeVos quietly rescinded 72 policy guidelines on the rights of students with disabilities over the weekend, The Washington Post reported.

When pressed by Democratic senators about during her confirmation about The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which dozens of the memos deleted by DeVos dealt with, the wealthy heiress and charter school advocate admitted that she had "confused it."

Devos' latest move comes as the Education Department seeks to follow through on President Donald Trump's executive order “to alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens.” The presidential action launched a review by department officials into regulations pertaining to disabled students.

The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services revealed that it had “a total of 72 guidance documents that have been rescinded due to being outdated, unnecessary, or ineffective — 63 from the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and 9 from the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA),” The Post reported. The document that explained students’ rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Rehabilitation Act were one of the guidances rescinded.

Overall, the documents at issue here — some of which had been in place since the 1980s, according to The Post — provided information about the rights of students with disabilities and explained how federal funds could be used for special education.

Rep. Robert C. Scott, D-Va., said in a statement that the documents rescinded by DeVos' department "focused on critical clarifications of the regulations required to meet the needs of students with disabilities and provide them a free, appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment."

"Notwithstanding the actions taken by the Department today, the regulations still remained enforced; however they lack the clarification the guidance provided," The Post reported.

Scott asserted that the latest decision was another example of "disturbing actions taken by the Trump Administration to undermine civil rights for vulnerable Americans."

Trump's proposed policies thus far have been ruthless to Americans with disabilities.

The various iterations of the health care legislation he supported contained drastic Medicaid cuts that would have affected people with disabilities. ADAPT, a national advocacy group for disabled rights, organized a die-in in June in response to the Senate GOP's healthcare plan.

Policy rollbacks have defined Betsy DeVos' time as education secretary. Her department already scaled back investigations into civil rights violations at the nation’s public schools and universities, another decision made to ease the burden of regulations.

https://www.salon.com/2017/10/23/betsy-devos-was-confused-about-protections-for-students-with-disabilities-so-she-scrapped-dozens/

Disability Community Action Alert - ADAPT Needs Help For Grant Funding

                          PLEASE VOTE AND FORWARD!      

Thanks to so many people from around the country who either came to DC or supported ADAPT from home, we once again led a charge that has (for now) saved Medicaid from efforts to destroy it.

Unfortunately, the Disability Community is likely to face many more attacks in the coming year including more efforts to cut Medicaid, undercut the ADA, underfund social services. We will also continue to experience violence against our community in its various forms and need to fight back against other ableist policies. It is clear that we are going to need ADAPT's direct action and activism more than ever!

You can help with this fight! CREDO mobile has nominated ADAPT as one of the three recipients of its October grant program. The amount ADAPT receives is determined by a public voting process.

Please go to the link below and vote for ADAPT!                    

https://www.credodonations.com/

It costs nothing. By voting with a valid email address, you can help ADAPT continue to lead the fight against the attacks on our community and to push for the Disability Integration Act which will ensure that no Disabled American is denied Life and Liberty simply because they have a disability.

Please share the link with everyone you know over all of your networks and ask them to vote for ADAPT.

ADAPT is a national grass-roots community that organizes disability rights activists to engage in nonviolent direct action, including civil disobedience, to assure the civil and human rights of people with disabilities to live in freedom.

Senate Advances On Obamacare Repeal, Healthcare Advocates Fight For Medicaid - 64 Arrests

Many health care advocates were arrested at a Senate building, including several disabled activists.

article by Kaeli Subberwal for HUFFPOST | July 25, 2017
Crowds of protesters flooded the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building on Tuesday to protest efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, making the halls echo with now-familiar chants: “I’d rather go to jail than die of no Medicaid!” and “No cuts to Medicaid! Save our liberty!”

The protests came as the Senate voted on a motion to proceed with a repeal of the Affordable Care Act. The procedural measure, which passed 51-50, allows Congress to move ahead with its goal to repeal Obamacare. As the Senate voted on the motion to proceed, protesters in the Senate gallery chanted, “Kill the bill! Don’t kill us!”

While the Senate prepared to vote on the bill, the line along the wheelchair ramp leading into the Hart Building snaked onto the sidewalk. Once protesters, representing groups including ADAPT, an organization of disability rights activists, and the National Council on Independent Living, entered the building, they gathered into a group and began their chants calling for Republicans to end their fight to repeal Obamacare.

Many of the protesters were in Washington for the annual conference of the National Council on Independent Living, which held a rally on the West Front Lawn of the Capitol earlier Tuesday.

The rally’s speakers included House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez. Schumer emphasized the moral significance of the impending vote, saying, “You are reminding everybody how dismantling Medicaid is the wrong, inhumane way to go.”

Ashley Bridwell, a participant in the Hart Building protest, said that the benefits people with disabilities accrue from Medicaid are not luxuries.

“If the bill passes and Medicaid is cut by 30 percent, there are people in this room that will die as a result of the legislation and the cuts in the funding,” said Bridwell, who serves on the board of directors of a Phoenix-based center for independent livi

The consequences of a repeal are very real for protester Dina Garcia of Los Angeles. Garcia, her husband and their 11-year-old son would all be affected if Medicaid were cut. She vowed she would keep hounding Republicans to fight against the repeal.

“It’ll hurt so many people with disabilities,” Garcia said.

As the protesters continued chanting in the atrium of the Hart Building, a police officer raised a megaphone and warned them to desist or risk arrest. Slowly, protesters from the outskirts began to trickle away, and police officers formed a circle around the remaining crowd.

The police cordoned off the protesters with yellow police tape and began to arrest people one by one. Many of those arrested were in wheelchairs. As they progressed toward the door, each arrestee was heralded with applause; on their way out, many raised a hand in a victorious fist. 

Sixty-four people were arrested, according to a press release from the United States Capitol Police.
Although the atmosphere at the Hart Building was one of defiance and determination, the Affordable Care Act that the protesters were fighting to protect faces its biggest challenge yet in the aftermath of Tuesday’s vote.

“It’s crazy,” Bridwell said, “that for the first time we’re actually talking about it in terms of life and death.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/protesters-obamacare-repeal-senate_us_5977b667e4b0c95f375fa645

Wade Blank 1940-1993, Disability Rights Movement Advocate Remembered

The following history of ADAPT's founder Wade Blank, a non-disabled former nursing home recreational director who assisted several residents to move out and start their own community. The Atlantis Community. The below article from the Ragged Edge- July/August 1993 will offer a look into the history and achievement's of Wade Blank and fellow advocates. Also below is a remembrance by Justin Dart after the unexpected passing of his friend, and fellow advocate.
# # #

Article published by the Ragged Edge- July/August 1993.

Wade Blank

The death of the Reverend Wade Blank on February 15, 1993, left a profound emptiness in the hearts of many people who loved and respected him. But any void in the disability rights movement is only momentary, for Blank left behind scores of human values, a keen analysis – and scores of skilled, committed leaders ready to carry the movement forward.

American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT) and its mother, the Atlantis Community in Denver, both embody the spiritual, organizational and strategic lessons Blank carried over from the 1960s black civil rights movement. He had been a Presbyterian minister, a War on Poverty field organizer and a disciple of Dr. Martin Luther King, jr., before becoming an orderly, then an assistant administrator, in a Denver nursing home.

Liberated Community
Early in his career as a iconoclastic minister and civil rights worker, Blank developed the concept of a "liberated community" – a society where human beings could live in equality and develop the power to effect change. When, at the Heritage House nursing home, he found himself in the midst of a "community" of people with severe disabilities, whose only community structure was one of oppression – the confines of the institution – he took on the challenge of making the "liberated community" a reality.

It all started when Blank came to Denver seeking a change. "The nursing home industry in Denver recruited its nursing home administrators from the ranks of ex-ministers," he recalled recently… A nursing home executive called Blank. "They said, ‘You’re young. You’re hip. Could you start a youth wing for us?’ So, I started a youth wing."

Hired by Heritage House in December 1971, Blank went to visit the residents the evening before he began his new job. "I remember for dinner that night we had baked potatoes, applesauce and scrambled eggs, and that was near Christmas. The place was like a morgue. The food was cold." Blank chatted with severely disabled individuals, some of whom would later become ADAPT organizers. "Little did I know," Blank recalled, "that I was to enter the most important moment of my life.

"I had 60 young people I recruited. Every morning at 7:30, they’d get dressed and get on a school bus, and go to a workshop and count fish hooks. Called it (a) work activities program."

At council meetings of the young people, the residents made simple requests, and an idealistic Blank tried to implement them. "I let them evaluate the nurses," he said. "They wanted co-ed living. They wanted to have pets. They wanted to have rock ‘n’ roll bands. So three years into this experiment, the nursing home is just like a college dorm on a crazy weekend all the time.

"I was trying to change it from inside, and I didn’t understand the monster I worked for," he recalled.

Outside of the Home
In 1975, Blank proposed "that we move a few of them out into apartments, and we let the aides and orderlies punch in at the nursing home, then go to the apartment and give them service." That idea got Blank fired. "The nursing home saw where I was going, and they couldn't let me go in that direction."

Once Blank was fired, the nursing home erased all his reforms. "They came in and they took all the stereos and TVs out of everybody’s rooms, had the dog pound come by and get all the animals and in one day it went from everything I’d built for four years – to that."

But Blank wasn’t about to give up. Thinking to himself that he’d "recruited all these people to this hell," he decided simply to move them out "and do the care myself…

Atlantis Community
"Within the first six months, I’d moved 18 severely disabled people out. So now I was wed to the concept. You know, I couldn’t walk away from it."

That exodus laid the foundations for the Atlantis Community and its political-action offshoot, ADAPT. "We began t learn about power and what empowerment is, and how to use it," Blank said. While Atlantis was liberating people from nursing homes, ADAPT (which then stood for American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit) took on discrimination in Denver’s, and then the nation’s, bus systems. Using non-violent, direct-action tactics similar to King’s movement, ADAPTers made bold demands and achieved extraordinary results.

Blank had found himself at the center of another civil rights campaign, similar to the one he had seen African Americans wage. "All the issues are the same," Blank asserted. "The black movement wanted to ride the buses equally. The black movement wanted to eat at the Woolworth’s counters. The black movement wanted the right to vote. The black movement wanted the right to keep their families together. The black movement wanted the right to be integrated into the school system. That’s what the disability rights movement wants, exactly…

"My members are into confrontation. We’ll tell somebody what we want, and we’ll talk about it once or twice, but that’s it. Then we deal with you. Either we’ll shut you down or whatever."

Confrontation worked, Blank believed, because it took society’s fears – those fears we’re always trying to dispel in disability awareness workshops – and turned them to a new use…

"So I said," (Blank explained, recalling earlier successes in the black civil rights movement), "…‘Let’s take 25 wheelchairs and go out and surround a bus and hold it and see what happens." Bam! Just like magic. It worked. Total power. Police couldn’t move the wheelchairs because they were afraid. The mayor said, ‘Don’t arrest disabled people.’ We win…"

Focus on Fundamental Human Rights
Blank’s focus on fundamental human rights and on the most impoverished members of the disability community distanced him from more affluent groups. In this, too, he emulated Martin Luther King. "King involved the poorest in the community," Bank said, "and a movement cannot really change things unless they address the poorest, the least. When King was shot, he was beginning to attack the ghettos." For Blank, "Our ghettos are the nursing homes, and we need to address the ghetto."

Blank attacked not only the mainstream disability movement’s economic hierarchy but also its disability hierarchy. "You go around to independent living centers and you’ll see a lot of post-polios and a lot of spinal cord injuries," he said. "But you won’t see people that slobber and can’t speak clearly…" These are the people often excluded or left behind by more "respectable" advocacy organizations, he pointed out…

Blank found leadership qualities in people who had never before thought of being leaders: former nursing home residents, people with speech impairments, people labeled retarded and others typically disenfranchised both by society at large and by traditional disability organizations. Blank had little patience for people who put their own egos or their own careers above the movement.

But more people were and are being empowered every year to free Americans with disabilities from institutions. All are encouraged to help plan protests, identify issues and targets, hold press conferences, and become a part of the "liberated community."

# article originally published in the Ragged Edge- July/August 1993

# # #

photo: Wade Blank with his son Lincoln and fellow Atlantis cofounder Michael Auberger celebrate the laying of the plaque, dedicated to the original protesters - The Gang of 19 - who blocked the intersection to protest the inaccessible buses in 1978.

# # #

The Reverend Wade Blank, 1940-1993 is a tribute to Wade Blank written by Justin Dart in 1993.

Press Release in 1993:                                                                                                                            

The President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities 

Justin Dart, Chairman

The Reverend Wade Blank, 1940-1993

Disability rights leader Wade Blank died on February 15 in rough seas off of a beach at Todos Santos, Mexico. He was trying, unsuccessfully, to save his drowning eight year old son, Lincoln.

It is always a tragedy when great lives are cut short by apparently preventable events. But to dwell on the tragedy of Wades Blank’s death would be a very large disservice to the future. Wade’s life is the message. His existence was a towering triumph that demands to be shouted, to be heard, to be acted on.

Unlike others who participated in the sixties revolution for a rational society, Wade did not give up the struggle when it became unfashionable. In 1974 he founded [the first Center for Independent Living in Colorado,] the Atlantis Community in Denver – a radical program to enable people with severe disabilities to leave the isolation of nursing homes and live in the mainstream. Atlantis was a success. But it soon became apparent that the mainstream itself was polluted by devastating discrimination which prevented people with disabilities from fulfilling their humanity.

In the tradition of Martin Luther King, Wade made equal access to bus transport the symbol of full equality: “Rosa Parks protested the indignity of being forced to sit in the back of the bus. We can’t get on the bus at all.” On July 5th and 6th, 1978, he and nineteen people with disabilities illegally detained an inaccessible bus at the intersection of Broadway and Colfax in Denver. ADAPT was born – American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit. During the next twelve years hundreds of ADAPT activists blocked buses, streets, hotels and government buildings across North America. They filled the police records of the jails of Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Little Rock, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Reno, Montreal and Washington, DC. Wade, Mike Auberger, Bob Kafka, Mark Johnson, George Roberts, Larry Ruiz, Rick James, Stephanie Thomas and Anita Cameron were arrested 15-30 times each. Molly Blank, Babs Auberger, Frank McComb, Lori Eastwood, Bobby Simpson, Melvin Conrady, Beverly Furnice, Joe Carle, Karen Tarnley, Ann Sawtel, Sue Davis, Diane Coleman and many others were co-heros in the long struggle.

In March of 1990, with the fate of the ADA hanging in the balance, Wade organized the historic march of disability rights leaders from the White House to the US Capitol to demand a law that would provide full equality, “with no weakening amendments.”

People with severe disabilities crawled up the Capitol steps and were arrested demonstrating in the rotunda. ADA passed in July – with no weakening amendments. Without the courage and inspiration of Wade Blank and his colleagues, the world would not have its first comprehensive civil rights law for people with disabilities.

After the passage of ADA, knowing that the job of justice was far from completed, Wade and the members of ADAPT refocused their advocacy. They demanded that the federal government provide funds for personal assistance services that would enable persons with disabilities now trapped in nursing homes to live free in their communities. The demonstrations – and the arrests – continue. Progress is being made. President Clinton has promised to form a task force that will create a national program of personal assistance services.

Some – mostly those that didn’t know him – have said that Wade’s methods were “extreme.” They said that civil disobedience in the eighties and nineties is “passe,” “obsolete,” “inappropriate.” The same kinds of things were said about Washington, Jefferson, Gandhi and Martin Luther King. What is extreme, what is inappropriate is millions of human beings living with less dignity than we accord to our pet dogs and cats. What is inappropriate is American citizens imprisoned without due process of law in oppressive institutions and rat infested back rooms. What is inappropriate is people with disabilities living and begging in the streets. What is inappropriate, what is unspeakably immoral, is a society that cannot be bothered to make the simple changes necessary to give its own children the opportunity of full humanity.

It has been my privilege to work closely with Wade Blank during the last several years. He demonstrated against a meeting I chaired – when HHS Secretary Louis Sullivan spoke at the 1991 PCEPD annual conference in Dallas. We counseled together by telephone at all hours of the day and night. We served together on the ADA Congressional Task Force and in negotiating ADA with the President of Greyhound. We marched together for equality in San Francisco, Philadelphia and Washington. We were together in the freezing midnight outside the barricaded Department of Transportation in Washington. I never put myself in a position to be arrested. Wade said that was alright, because I could play a positive role within the system. I was never sure in my heart that I was on the right side of the bars. I knew he was.

Wade Blank was a sensitive philosopher of Democracy. He was a superb organizer. He was a mature, sophisticated politician. He had total honesty and total follow through. You could take his promises to the bank. These are rare and good qualities, but they alone would not have enabled him to use an unfashionable method to lead an unfashionable cause to an historic victory.

Wade had a magic sword. It was love. Unlike many with religious labels, he understood and lived the central commandment of his God, “that ye love one another as I have loved you.” He understood that love is not just smiling at nice people, but passionate, lifelong action to preserve and enlarge the joy, the dignity, the quality of every human life. He understood that love does not smother with criticism, care and control; it encourages, emancipates and empowers. He understood that love for all means justice for all.

Wade’s leadership of love made ADAPT the family for those who had no family, the family with justice, with hope, with transcending fulfillment. Wade’s love warmed and empowered us all. It breached the defenses and won the respect of Congresspersons, businesspersons, policepersons, jailers, judges and mayors. Again and again, it lifted my heart and my mind from selfcentered desperation of Washington politics to the dream.

Before he died, Wade planned a series of demonstrations for personal assistance services to be held in Washington, DC, on May 9th, 10th and 11th. These will go forward in his honor. There will be a tribute to him on Sunday, May 9th, at the Lincoln Memorial. Let us join together in memory of Wade – on May 9th, today, tomorrow, as long as life remains – to continue his struggle for a truly human society.

Let us pick up his sword of love and truth and courage, and use it – each in our own way – to cut the chains of all who are slaves to pity, prejudice and paternalism. Let us join in one voice to shout his shout – “free our people.” Let us embrace his golden heritage of responsible action for life, enlarge it in our own lives, and invest it in the lives of all who will come.

Wade, we love you. That’s easy. We will try our best to love each other as you loved us.

– Justin Dart
# # #

"How Wade Blank Became a Disability Activist"
John Holland of Denver, Colorado speaks about working at the forefront of disability civil rights law as he protested and advocated alongside Wade Blank.
The is part of the "It's Our Story" project, there are many additional videos telling of the history and the people of the Disability Rights Movement.

YouTube published by It's Our Story

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT - a Documentary about a renegade Jerry's Kid - and Jerry Lewis "MDA Telethon"

TRAILER - YouTube Uploaded by myartwork1 on Sep 15, 2008

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT is a half-hour documentary about a renegade Jerry's Kid named Mike Ervin. Mike was a Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) poster child in the 1960s. Today he is a disability rights activist who challenges the MDA's use of pity to raise money in its annual Jerry Lewis Labor Day telethon. THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT follows Mike as he organizes Jerry's Orphans, a group that protests against the telethon each year. 

                     
The film offers a critique of the "pity approach" to fundraising by contrasting the telethon's outdated attitudes (personified by Jerry Lewis) with a view into the real life of a disability civil rights activist today.

For the Full Half Hour Documentary, and more go to 
"THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT" at:
http://www.thekidsareallright.org/watch.html

# # #
RELATED POSTS:

"Adopt a Smart Ass Cripple" by Mike Ervin : Labor Day (MDA Telethon) 2011
https://abilitychicagoinfo.blogspot.com/2011/09/adopt-smart-ass-cripple-by-mike-ervin.html

JERRY'S ORPHANS PROTEST THE MDA TELETHON : The Story
https://abilitychicagoinfo.blogspot.com/2011/09/jerrys-orphans-protest-mda-telethon.html

A Test of Wills: Jerry Lewis, Jerry's Orphans, and the Telethon : article from "The Disability Rag" from 1992
https://abilitychicagoinfo.blogspot.com/2011/09/test-of-wills-jerry-lewis-jerrys.html

"Jerry's Orphans" ; MDA Telethon : Jerry Lewis speaks about the disabled (video)
https://abilitychicagoinfo.blogspot.com/2011/09/jerrys-orphans-mda-telethon-jerry-lewis.html
###
Mike Ervin publishes and writes the Smart Ass Cripple blog at:
http://smartasscripple.blogspot.com/

# originally posted Sept. 2011

"WE WILL RIDE!" ADAPT "Gang of 19" in Denver; ORIGIN'S OF THE DISABILITY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

photo: Wade Blank with his son Lincoln and fellow Atlantis cofounder Michael Auberger celebrate the laying of the plaque, dedicated to the original protesters - The Gang of 19 - who blocked the intersection to protest the inaccessible buses in 1978.

(July 26, 2015) marked the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and to commemorate the dedication of those involved in making this legislation a reality, the Denver Public Library's Western History/Genealogy department is currently processing a collection (Wade and Molly Blank Papers, WH2283) that intimately details the history and turmoil of the disability rights movement. Some of the foundational protests that ignited the movement took place on July 5-6, 1978, just around the corner from the Denver Public Library at Colfax and Broadway. Men and women of the Atlantis community, known as “The Gang of 19,” threw themselves in front of buses in an attempt to convey their disenfranchisement. This group blocked the intersection all day and night, chanting their mantra, “We will ride!” until representatives of the Regional Transportation District (RTD) were willing to talk about the absence of wheelchair-accessible buses. It was this initial protest that brought public light to the many other kinds of discrimination and abuse faced by the disabled community. 

ADAPT Bumper sticker supporting the Disability Rights movement.

Wade Blank, a Presbyterian minister from Ohio, first found his passion for civil rights when he marched with Martin Luther King, Jr., in Selma, Alabama. But it wasn’t until 1971 when he began working as the Recreational Director of the youth wing for Heritage House, a nursing home for people with physical and mental disabilities, that he found his calling as an advocate for disability rights. Wade devoted his time and effort to improving the quality of life for the Heritage House youth and was resolute about liberating them from the less-than-ideal conditions of the nursing home. Heritage House refused to accept Blank’s insistence on helping the nursing home patients live independent lives, and he was fired for his progressive agenda. He refused to give up what he had started, so Blank founded Atlantis Community, Inc. in 1975 – an organization dedicated to providing free, individualized care to those in need including housing, meals, in-home care, and job training. Blank inspired a national movement for the differently-abled by advocating for equal opportunity rights ranging from humane, independent care to wheelchair-accessible public transit. In order for these people to live independently, they needed transportation, and so ADAPT was born.   

ADAPT members march in Los Angeles to protest the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) in October of 1985.

The overarching mission of the Atlantis Community was, and still is, to provide as many of life’s necessities—the necessities often taken for granted by those who do not live life with a physical or mental disability—as possible. Blank and those who resided at Atlantis decided to form an activist group to garner as much attention as possible for disability rights – ADAPT (American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today; once known as the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit). The members of this militant-style activist group first focused their efforts on the Regional Transportation District (RTD), the origin of the initial rallies, which drew major attention to the cause. ADAPT members traveled across the nation protesting the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) and various bus companies, like Greyhound, to get wheelchair lifts installed on buses. Many ADAPT members were arrested during these protests, calling further attention to the lack of preparedness of local police departments’ inaccessible squad cars and facilities. Police officers erected makeshift barriers to detain the ADAPT members in wheelchairs because they had no other way of arresting and transporting the protestors. The second major wave of ADAPT protests targeted Social Security, health care policies, and Medicaid. Their ultimate goal was to obtain government support for attendant care and independent living funds. Eventually, ADAPT began protesting restaurants, schools, parking lots, post offices, housing communities, casinos, churches, and more. Wherever wheelchairs could not go, ADAPT was there to take action and demand access. 

ADAPT members block a bus with their wheelchairs to demonstrate RTD's inaccessible buses on February 15, 1985.

It took Blank and members of ADAPT decades to encourage legislation that demanded equal access to public transit, in addition to accessible public restrooms, airlines, and courthouses, for patrons using wheelchairs. Even after Blank’s tragic death in 1993, his family and the members of both the Atlantis Community and ADAPT continued his legacy by fighting against the discrimination that differently-abled people still face to this day. 

Denver Public Library Article by KATIE RUDOLPH for  | May 18, 2015

https://history.denverlibrary.org/news/we-will-ride-origin-disability-rights-movement-denver-0

# previous post

ADAPT Health-Care Protesters Plead NOT GUILTY To Charges, After Action at Senator Gardner’s Denver Office

July 18, 2017 - The ADAPT protesters arrested after a nearly 58-hour sit-in at Sen. Cory Gardner’s Denver office, where they tried to pressure him to vote no on the Senate health care bill, on Tuesday entered not-guilty pleas.

ADAPT claiming First Amendment rights were violated!

John Leyba, The Denver Post

ADAPT protesters Lonnie Smith, left, and Dawn Russell are wheeled out after getting arrested from Senator Corey Gardner’s office on June 29, 2017 downtown Denver. The protesters some in wheelchairs were taken out and loaded in to Denver Sheriffs vans to be processed. Protesters were chanting “Rather go to jail than to die without medicaid” and free our people”. / photo: John Leyba, The Denver Post

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Nine of the protesters were arrested while still in the Republican’s office. Another was arrested while protesting downstairs. All were charged with trespassing while some had additional charges of interfering with police.

The protesters, many who have disabilities, entered Gardner’s waiting room the morning of June 27 and stayed there until police arrested them the evening of June 29. Gardner’s office initially allowed the protesters to stay, keeping staff on duty to assist them. Gardner’s staff eventually called Denver police, saying management of the office building at 17th and Lawrence streets told them the protest was in violation of Gardner’s lease.

ADAPT protesters were previously arrested in January on charges of trespassing while trying to access Gardner’s office, which is inside a privately owned building. Building management did not allow the group of 18 up the elevator to Gardner’s floor.

The group, working with the attorney David Lane, is fighting that arrest in court as well, arguing that the private entity violated the protesters’ First Amendment right to freely assemble and to petition the government for redress of grievances.

Article by DANIKA WORTHINGTON | The Denver Post                                                               

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/07/18/cory-gardner-protesters-plead-not-guilty-charges/

ADAPT protesters Dawn Russell, left, and Lonnie Smith are loaded into the Denver Sheriffs van after getting arrested from Senator Corey Gardner's office on June 29, 2017 downtown Denver. Protesters were chanting "Rather go to jail than to die without medicaid" and free our people". / photo: John Leyba, The Denver Post

"Climbing the Capitol Steps for Americans with Disabilities Act"

The “Capitol Crawl” had an effect on the passage of the ADA. Several Senators felt “inconvenience” by the “stunt” and it reportedly pushed them to approve the Act. At the time, the event was not widely known to the public since the media failed to shed much light on it. But to present-day disability activists, on the other hand, the “Capitol Crawl” is seen as one of the single most important events that finally pushed for the passage of the ADA into law.


YouTube Published on Mar 3, 2017 by sadie3doodles
(Entry for "Taking a crawl in History" for National History Day Jr.)

ADA supporters crawling up
 the steps of the U.S. Capital
building on March 12, 1900.
Photo Credit:
 Tom Olin/Disability History Museum

Monday, March 12, 1990 disability rights activists descended on the U.S. Capitol demanding the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) which would give equal rights to people with disabilities. 

The ADA was passed by the Senate the year before but as finding complications getting through the House of Representatives. Well over 1,000 protesters came from around the country to protest the Act’s delay.









Jennifer Keelan of Denver, (the little girl in above video) talks about growing up as a person with a disability in the era of the ADA, as well as her activism as young child fighting for the ADA.


YouTube Uploaded by It's Our Story on Jul 21, 2010

After the day’s rally and speeches, over 60 activists abandoned their wheelchairs and mobility devices and began crawling the 83 stone steps up to the U.S. Capitol Building. During which people were loudly chanting “What do we want?” “ADA!” “When do we want it?” “NOW!” Other activists remained at the bottom holding signs and giving encouragement to the crawlers. “I want my civil rights,” Paulette Patterson of Chicago stated as she was inching her way to the top. “I want to be treated like a human being.” Eight-year-old Jennifer Keelan was famously taped [as seen in the video above] while crawling up the stairs. “I’ll take all night if I have to,” she firmly stated. The second-grader from Denver suffered from cerebral palsy and decided to partake in the crawl after joining ADAPT (Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transit). She was inspired by her friend Kenny Perkins who passed away in January 1990. As Jennifer reached the top she stated, “I’m doing it for Kenny.” Michael Winters, a leader in the Independent Living Movement, later wrote about event and the reaction people had to the crawl. “Some people may have thought that it was undignified for people in wheelchairs to crawl in that manner, but I felt that it was necessary to show the country what kinds of things people with disabilities have to face on a day-to-day basis,” Winters recalled. “We had to be willing to fight for what we believed in.”

The Day Disability Rights Activists ADAPT Stormed Sen. Mitch McConnell's Office

ADAPT, a national disability rights organization, organized a protest to fight back on the health care bill.

Disability rights activists from grassroots group ADAPT staged a "die-in" in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, June 22nd, 2017.

Article by s.e. smith for ROLLING STONE | 06/22/2017                                                                      

As Senate Republicans rolled out the Better Care Reconciliation Act, their health care reform proposal, on Thursday, the halls outside the office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell were starting to get a little crowded. Sixty disability rights activists from grassroots group ADAPT, many of whom were using wheelchairs, staged a "die-in" to protest steep Medicaid cuts in the bill. They were arrested and removed by Capitol Police, with witnesses saying that some protesters were dropped by police officers dragging them from their chairs.
 

Bruce Darling, an ADAPT organizer who participated in the die-in, tells Rolling Stonethe group took less than a week to coordinate. "It's truly un-American that the Republicans in Congress are trying to steal from disabled Americans to give to wealthy people," he says, describing the impetus behind the protest.

While ADAPT may not be widely known outside the disability community, the group has been fighting for disability autonomy since the 1970s, representing the 20 percent of the U.S. population that lives with a disability. The 43-year-old organization has engaged in thousands of direct actions like this one across the country. In Washington alone this year, protesters were arrested outside the White House in May and dragged from the Capitol Rotunda in March at the behest of House Majority Leader Paul Ryan (R-WI).

This protest comes with high stakes: Both the House and Senate "Trumpcare" bills propose radical changes to the American health care landscape that would hit disabled Americans first, and hardest. Some of the deepest cuts are to Medicaid, the entitlement program developed in 1965 to provide health coverage to low-income Americans. The Affordable Care Act allowed states to opt in to an expansion that brought more Americans into state Medicaid programs, and both the American Health Care Act (AHCA) and BCRA threaten to roll back that expansion.

At the same time that Trumpcare will kick millions people off Medicaid, contributing to a spike in the uninsured rate in America, it’s also promoting block granting as a funding model. Republicans say block grants, in which states receive a bulk disbursement of federal funds to spend on health care, increase flexibility. In one sense, they do: They allow states to decide what they want to stop covering, and to severely limit the availability and nature of Medicaid coverage to residents.

This is worrying for low-income people with complex health care needs – and with 27 percent of disabled people living in poverty, that means a disproportionate number of disabled Americans. ADAPT isn't just concerned about whether disabled Americans will be able to access health care services, however. The group also believes that Medicaid austerity will push disabled people into institutional settings for care. It’s fitting that this protest coincides with the anniversary of 1999's groundbreaking Olmstead v. L.C., the Supreme Court case that affirmed disabled people have a right to live in the community.

The fight for deinstitutionalization has been a core of disability rights activism for decades. Disabled Americans argue that being able to decide where you live should be viewed as an intrinsic civil right. Historically, people with complex needs have been forced into residential facilities by bureaucratic policies that limited coverage for so-called home and community-based services (HCBS). Medicaid, for example, would refuse to provide coverage for aides and other supports in the community, while still paying for nursing home care. People who couldn't afford this care on their own had only one choice: Disappearing into an institution.

"If you have a car accident ... if something happens to you," says Darling, "Do you think it's appropriate for the government to say you shouldn't have the same right to life and liberty?"

Aside from being a question of human rights, this is also a question of cost, something that should appeal to budget-conscious Republicans. According to 2012 analysis by the National Council on Disability, a nonpartisan federal agency, it is substantially less costly to allow disabled people to live in their communities. In some states, it can cost over $300,000 annually to institutionalize a single disabled person – and that person could get community-based care for as little as $21,000.

Disability justice and fiscal conservatism, in this case, have a lot in common. This is also an issue much bigger than disability. Drastic cuts to Medicaid will hit seniors hard as well, and they'll cause drastic changes at many community hospitals. Medicaid funding is also used for activities like supporting education for disabled students, indirectly improving education for all students.

Over coming days, argument over the language in the bill surrounding Medicaid reform may be fierce. Changing the structure of this entitlement program could save the federal government billions of dollars in the short term, but only at great cost to society.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-disability-rights-activists-stormed-mitch-mcconnells-office-w489441

TrumpCare Protesters, Some With Disabilities, Forcibly Removed From Sen Mitch McConnell’s Office

Capitol Police prepare to remove a man from a sit-in of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's office, as he and others protest proposed caps to Medicaid Thursday, June 22, 2017, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on Senate Republicans' health care bill (all times local): June 22, 2017 - 1:30 p.m.

U.S. Capitol Police are arresting dozens of people who are protesting cuts to Medicaid in the Senate Republicans' health care bill.

The protesters have filled a hallway in one of the Senate office buildings, outside the office of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Some of the protesters are being escorted individually. Others are much more reluctant to leave and it's taking four or five officers to carry them out.

The protesters are yelling "no cuts to Medicaid" as they are being led away.

One protester says he's with the disability rights group ADAPT. Phillip Corona says he traveled from Wisconsin to make his voice heard. Corona says Medicaid helps his son Anthony get out of bed every morning. Phillip Corona fears that changes to the program "would possibly mean putting him in a nursing home."

Alison Barkoff — director of advocacy for the Center for Public Representation — helped organize the protest. She says the protesters rely on Medicaid to help them live and she says the health bill amounts to "tax cuts for the wealthy on the backs of people with disabilities."
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HUFFPOST 

Police Haul Off Protesters, Some With Disabilities, From Mitch McConnell’s Office

Capitol Police forcibly removed protesters gathered outside Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office on Thursday, with at least one photo showing drops of blood on the hallway floor.

The crowd was protesting the health care bill that Senate Republicans had written in secret at McConnell’s direction. Judging by photos and video from reporters, the senator’s staffers didn’t appreciate their presence.

Police reportedly arrested more than 20 protesters, many of whom were in wheelchairs and on respirators

A draft of the health care bill, released this morning, shows Republicans intend to dramatically cut back on Medicaid and other safety nets, then funnel that money to the richest Americans.

The information posted is a portion of an article by  Ryan Grenoble for HUFFPOST , for the FULL article with many photos; CLICK HERE

Disability Advocates ADAPT Protest Senate Leader Over Cuts to Medicaid for Elderly and Disabled Americans

The following is a June 22, 2017 press release from our colleagues with ADAPT.
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Right now, members of the national disability rights organization ADAPT are staging a die-in at Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell's office. The activists are protesting McConnell's Senate healthcare bill, demanding he bring an end to the attacks on disabled people's freedom we expect to see.

The Medicaid caps proposed in this bill and the resulting cuts can only lead to two outcomes for the disability community: people being forced into nursing facilities and other institutions, and people dying because they cannot get the services they need. The fact that this terrible bill is being released on the 18th anniversary of the Olmstead decision is an even further affront to the disability community!

Millions of disabled Americans will be harmed if this terrible law is enacted. McConnell seems intent on pushing the legislation through regardless of the cost to our community, so we need your help to fight it! We have fought too hard for our freedom to do nothing as the Majority leader and his cronies plot to take it away from us.

Please join the fight by doing the following:

* Call the press and urge them to cover this story! Tell them about the ADAPT action, but more importantly tell them why Medicaid and healthcare are so important to you. Get them to report on all of the ways this bill will restrict our freedom and limit our lives.

* ADAPT has put out a press release: CLICK HERE

Please feel free to use this as a template for a press release on behalf of your CIL or organization!

* Call Senator McConnell's office and demand an end to any legislation that caps or cuts Medicaid! The phone number for his DC office is: (202) 224-2541 Fax: (202) 224-2499

* Call your Senators and demand they not support any legislation that caps or cuts Medicaid! You can get a hold of them through the Capitol Switchboard here: (202) 224-3121

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ADAPT is a national grass-roots community that organizes disability rights activists to engage in nonviolent direct action, including civil disobedience, to assure the civil and human rights of people with disabilities to live in freedom.