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- ADAPT (1122)
This page continues the article from Image 1123. Full text available under 1123 for easier reading. - ADAPT (1553)
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the National Governors Association, NGA, by a vote of the membership and the Executive Committee supports the following: A) The current long term services and support system has an institutional bias that must be reformed through a cooperative effort by the federal government, the states and the disability/older community including those who use services; and B) The long term services and support system must include the principles that home and community services and supports are the first priority and that support services should be provided in the most integrated setting; and C) No person with a disability or older American should be forced into a nursing home or other institution because of the lack of integrated home and community options; and D) People with disabilities and older Americans must have full inclusion in the design, implementation and review of the long term services and support system; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the NGA supports the passage and funding of the Medicaid Community Attendant Services and Supports Act, MiCASSA (currently S971-HR 2032) and legislation that include the Money Follows the Person initiative (currently S.1394-HR 1811); and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the NGA work with the individual states to assure that the Supreme Court's Olmstead decision is aggressively implemental and that the measure of this implementation be, in a year, how many people have gotten out of nursing homes and other institutions and how many people have been diverted from nursing homes and other institutions; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the NGA work with the states to assure that any 1115 waivers submitted by a State should have statewide public hearings before development and submission to HHS, and that the 1115 waiver process should not be used to undercut current community Medicaid services and federal protections; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the NGA supports reform of the long term services and support system that does not result in block granting, capitating or otherwise reducing or eliminating funding to the states or the removal of the current national Medicaid protections. Passed this day ___ July 2004 [logo of ADAPT Free Our People] - ADAPT (1751)
- ADAPT (1423)
- ADAPT (746)
Ragtime [Headline] Coming of age in the movement ADAPT has come of age. That was apparent in Chicago this past May, when the group took its protests to the home of the American Medical Association. To diffuse the issue, spokespersons for the AMA had met with ADAPT the Thursday before the protest, trying unsuccessfully to dull the edge by insist-ing that it agreed with ADAPT's demands. AMA spokesman Arnold Collins would later tell the Chicago media, as nearly 300 ADAPT activists held its headquarters at State and Grand hostage, that the trade association of the nation's doctors had no quarrel with the group. Of course, said its director of geriatric health, Joanne Schwartzberg, it was true that the AMA would not be taking before its membership ADA.1)7 s demand that doctors divest themselves of all financial interests in nursing homes and institutions. The issue is only partly about getting the AMA to change, though and those who do not understand that do not understand that, at its most basic, ADAPT is about power the power of disabled people to change society. It may be this power that will eventually fuel the change in the health care debate in this country. "Part of the health care reform agenda in this country must be to define "health" in ways other than the medical model," says Gordon Bonnyman, a lawyer who works with Medicaid issues in Tennessee and who watched, somewhat amazed, as Tennessee ADAPT spearheaded a direct-action effort that saved the state's $1.1 billion Medicaid pro-gram this past spring (see story, page 16). "The people who are best able to carry that message are the people in ADAPT. They say, 'don't tell me I have to go into a nursing home and get 24-hour-a-day care when all I want is somebody to provide attendant 'services' — not 'care.' "A lot of people are still locked [boxed quote] "A movement is driven by anger and its quest for liberation. And that's what ADAPT is." [text continues] into the mindset that 'health care' equates with 'medical," he continues. "If we take a lurch in the wrong direction — and the smart money would say we're more likely to go in the wrong direction than the right one — it will foreclose some options for the disability community," Bonnyman continues. "Nobody else is going to attend to that agenda if the disability community doesn't." ADAPT realizes this, at least on some level. "Chicago was our wake-up call to the AMA," says ADAPT's Wade Blank. "And Sullivan is just a symbol." What ADAPT hopes to achieve, he says, is a national understanding that "every citizen has a right to in-home services if they have a function limitation. Period." Though it may seem a loosely organized ragtag group, ADAPT probably understands more about power than most groups today. This stems in part from its own understanding about what makes people commit to a cause. The people committed to ADAPT give the group its resilience and strength. ADAPT's Stephanie Thomas was explaining this when she said, "I know when I go out on an action, I like Rick James being next to me; I like to see Paulette going down the middle of the street. That's a leadership thing to me. It helps me move; it helps me do what I need to do." The power comes from other people being with you, she says. "I wouldn't be able to do it without the other people. I get a hell of a lot from them. "That's a kind of leadership that's not valued very much in our society," she continues, speaking to other ADAPT organizers. "And I think that sometimes we don't recognize it in ADAPT. That's one of the things that gives us strength, though. It's all of one piece; all a cloth that is woven together. We need leaders and people up at the front of the room, and people to talk to the media; but that is a small part, and it ignores the biggest part of what makes ADAPT ADAPT, of what makes us work — and work more confusingly than other organizations." 32 THE DISABILITY RAG JULY/AUGUST, 1992 How ADAPT works does confuse people. If its leadership seems concentrated, the perception is misleading — and it has mislead police trying, unsuccessfully, to defuse ADAPT demonstrations by picking off the perceived leaders. "They seem confused when that doesn't work, and we just keep on," said one by-stander who watched Chicago cops try just that tactic to little avail. Blank put Thomas's remarks into context. "I'll tell you what the real secret of ADAPT is. ADAPT is not in its structure — because we have a lot of different structures. The secret of ADAPT is the people in its leadership roles." Blank talks about people in ADAPT being "driven by anger and an understanding of what to do with that anger." "If your group is not having success in its local community, it's not, in my opinion, because of its structure," Blank tells one group. "It's because it hasn't gone to the bare bones of the issue. "You can have one person go to an inaccessible restaurant, and lie down in front of it. And every disabled person in the community will see that. That will ring a bell in them. And that's how they'll come to you, by the magnet of you saying `this is what your anger is, too. I'm acting out your anger for you. Here's my number. Call me.' "And you'll find that people will call you. It won't be the people who work for independent living centers, or the quads who work for Easter Seals. It will be the people who have absolutely no voice at all. If they reach out, grab `em when they reach out. Say, 'come down tomorrow and lie down there with me.' "That's what a movement is. That's the difference between a movement and an organization. A movement is driven by its anger and its quest for liberation. And that's what ADAPT is." That power was first apparent to many in the movement who had taken only scant notice of the group they often termed "militant" and "fringe" when over 100 ADAPT protesters massed in the Capitol Rotunda in March, 1990, to demand the leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives move swiftly to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was at the time in danger of being substantially weakened by amendments. ADAPT members held a "chain-in" — locking wheelchairs together in the Rotunda — the likes of which had never been seen from any protest group; 104 were arrested that day (see the May/June, 1990 Rag). As a result of that show of power, [boxed text] "Unless we show the Jerry Lewis images aren't the only ones out there, we will continue to be bound by them." [article resumes] many now concede, the law passed essentially unscathed. Indeed, in a number of materials put out by middle-of-the-road organizations chronicling their work in passing the ADA, the photos that accompany the text are of ADAPT activists. ADAPT cut its organizing teeth on the issue of lifts on buses. Before ADAPT began its ten-year fight with the American Public Transit Association, the trade lobbying group for the nation's public transit operators, the law requiring lifts on buses had been defeated in court and replaced by "local option," which ADAPT called "the ol' states' rights ploy all over again." Before the ADA had passed, ADAPT had won court battles requiring lifts on buses. The ADA public transportation requirements are strong and took effect immediately, unlike other sections of the law. In taking on the issue of attendant services, ADAPT has gone back to its roots, said Blank. The group started in Denver a decade ago when Blank got people out of nursing homes. That story was chronicled in the made-for-TV movie, "When You Remember Me." The current battle will be harder than the lifts-on-buses fight. The AMA and the American Health Care Association, trade group of the nation's nursing home operators, won't hesitate to play hardball. That was apparent in May in Chicago. Sources say the AMA spent weeks trying to figure out "who ADAPT was" and how they operated, and made efforts to keep the group's actions out of the paper and off television screens. That failing, they tried to diffuse the issue with their "we support their demands" ploy. The battle may be harder. But ADAPT has seasoned, too, impressing others with skill that many other social change groups today only wish for. Chicago Tribune reporters Christine Hawes and Rob Karwath wrote that ADAPT was "extremely skilled in using the media" and called them "a group of vociferous activists savvy in street action." No other protest group in the last few years had gotten as much cover-age from Chicago media, said Ora Schub, a member of the National Lawyers' Guild in Chicago, who noted that protests against the Gulf War and more recent anti-abortion protests went mostly unremarked on by the city's press. In contrast, JULY/AUGUST, 1992 THE DISABILITY RAG 33 ADAPT garnered substantial news coverage every day of its action. • The pressure for change, for "de-medicalizing care," is coming from many quarters. Though ADAPT is leading the street fighting, groups like the World Institute on Disability and the National Council on Independent Living have long worked to forge a national attendant services policy. Several health care reform bills now in Congress contain an attendant services component. None of the bills is likely to pass and the chief sponsors of two of them are retiring from Congress. Long-term health care reform advocates like Sen. Edward Kennedy (D.- Mass.) know the attendant services rhetoric; Kennedy held hearings last sum-mer on the issue. Blank believes will happen ultimately — and what ADAPT would like to see, though their public protests hammer at Sullivan to redirect 25 percent of the Medicaid budget and for doctors to "reduce nursing home referrals by 25 percent the first year" is to get a law passed that will establish attendant services as a right for anyone who needs it. What this does is put the issue of attendant services into a context of rights. Whether that is where it belongs is something some people like John Hockenberry (see story, page 30. ) question. But that ADAPT can succeed in doing it no-body in the movement is much questioning anymore. • ADAPT may only be the most visible manifestation of a kind of sea change which seems to have occurred in disabled people and their rights movement in the past year. One can find manifestations of it everywhere. When National Public Radio re-porter John Hockenberry found himself so angry that he had been thrown out of the Virginia Theater in Manhattan before a performance of "Jelly's Last Jam" this past April that he found himself seriously considering torching the place, some-thing had changed. Hockenberry, who uses a wheelchair, decided in-stead to write an op-ed article, which appeared a few days later in the New York Times. He did that, he said, for the pragmatic reason that that was the only way he figured he could ever get to see the show. He figured, rightly, that, once it appeared, management would feel bad about hav-ing thrown him out for insisting that ushers carry his chair up to allow him to sit next to his date (something the manager said they "were not permitted" to do. But, his consciousness raised by that act, he realized, when the offer of free tickets came, that he could not let himself accept them. [boxed text] If you try to live the independence model and pretend everything is getting better, you end up denying reality, says John Hockenberry. Larry Carter, who is involved in the animal rights movement, has felt the change, too. A poster child him-self for the United Fund in 1972, Carter said he had become activist only recently; and that seeing poster child techniques used to support an-imal research — ("where people say, `you don't want to be like that!' ") was his wake-up-call. "Unless we are able to tell people that the Jerry Lewis images aren't the only things out there, we're going to continue to be bound by those." To Carter, the sea change has to do with what he calls "in your face" activism. He, like others, is realizing that "a quick way to do that is to be aggressive, to be, assertive, to not take it any longer — to be in peoples' faces, plain and simple — because that's not the image that people associate with disability." • Why the sea change? Why the sense of power? Is it because the Americans with Disabilities Act exists? Hockenberry is frustrated that rights laws are needed. The "civil rights construct" as he calls it, "encourages an exclusively adversarial notion"; that instead of working on "outcomes," laws like the ADA put disability issues, deci-sions on how to make communities accessible into what he calls "litigation mode." He finds this frightening. As long as the debate is focused on rights, he says, "the disability debate slides into the same kind of face-clawing, self-immolating sorts of adversarial conflicts and meaningless debates that have characterized gender and race issues in America." Even if that's true, it appears that the framers of the Americans with Disabilities Act were on target when they recognized that the ADA was needed as much to make us sense our right to inclusion as it was to make a statement of Congress sanctioning that inclusion. And if that's true, this power in the wake of the ADA is something that's permeating many disabled people on many levels; it's not just something that has come through ADAPT. Still, ADAPT seems its 34 THE DISARM ITY RAG JULY/AUGUST, 1992 most visible manifestation, a place where it can incubate and be nurtured. Hockenberry thinks "there are profound disincentives to mobilize ing as a movement." One of them has to do with the fact that clips are taught that "if you're angry, you're dysfunctional." But another, he believes, is that many disabled people "just don't think they have anything in common with each other." He recalls a recent trip to a "physically disabled ski festival." "They had a big lobster feast at the end, and damn if the arm amputees didn't sit with the arm amputees, and the leg amputees sit with the leg amputees, the paras with the paras and the quads with the quads, the blind with the blind, the deaf with the deaf all of them sitting there tearing limbs off lobsters and eating them. "And I realized, `that's it. There's no "move-ment" in this room there's a lobster feast.' " What Hockenberry saw is what most of us still see when we look across the spectrum of what we, perhaps wishfully, choose to call the "disability rights movement." Despite the power some of us are beginning to identify, other people have yet to feel it. "I was caught in that trap for a long time, thinking that the disability in me was something I had to get away from," says Carter. That, he says, comes from "the whole telethon thing — that looking for a cure; that stuff Paul Longmore says, that we're accepted by society to the ex-tent that we want to be 'normal.' " Carter now says of his recent change in attitude, "it has been a great source of strength for me to say, `this is who I am. And I have cerebral palsy.' " Carter says he's not looking for a cure. "Not looking for a cure" is another sea change that has occurred with many disabled people. Carter says a cure "is not anything I need to make my life complete — and there's the assumption in society that this is what I need. "When people say, 'if there were a cure for cerebral palsy, would you take it?' my question to them is, `what would I have to give up?' And then, if I would have to give up the understandings and the insights though it hasn't been easy a lot of the time — then they can have their `cure.' "And this is something I wouldn't talk about for a long time, because I myself didn't understand it, didn't know if other people would under-stand it. But I identify myself as [boxed text] To Carter, the change h to do with "in your face activism. [text continues] someone with cerebral palsy. It is part of my identity. You take away that, and you take away a part of me." Getting to that understanding "has been quite a process," says Carter; a process that he thinks a lot of people in the disability community haven't yet done; that their disability is something they have not yet "come to embrace. " You've got to come to a point where you say, 'yeah, this is it.' And be proud of it," he says. "Until we do that, we're not going to have the empowerment, we're not going to have the confidence, we're not going to be able to accept ourselves and therefore push for the changes that we require. Until we feel that sense of pride, we're not going to feel on some level that we deserve rights." The mason this is slow in coming, and still doesn't exist for the majority of us, Hockenberry thinks can be attributed to the rehabilitation system and its focus on "independence" as the route to returning to "normal." "Rehab teaches you to be independent — but in a ritualized way," he say. Don't live too far from the mall or be a computer programmer. "Choose your ritual for independence, and then pretend it's true independence, that it isn't a cage. Rehab teaches you to never go near the edge of the cage" — and then you'll behave in a way that lets you pretend the cage isn't there. The problem, says Hockenberry, is that "if you take them at their word on the independence question, you're going to get nothing. It's a lie." Like it has done with African Americans, Hockenberry says, the system values "the person who copes, individually, amidst the adversity." This was the "value you were taught to have," he says: that of a person who copes. "You were allowed, intellectually, to sort out the egregious abuses of your freedom from the silly ones — what you weren't allowed to do was to question the fact that you were committing yourself to a system that required you to live near a mall." Society gives you strokes for coping, says Hockenberry, and it will say you have courage. But you should not make the mistake that this had anything to do with you having courage. It has to do with JULY/AUGUST, 1992 THE DISABILITY RAG 35 nondisabled people's need to be told everyone has courage, he says. "The biggest joke played on me," he says; "is that I thought that by accepting no limitations, I'd live in a world of no limits. And just the opposite has happened." For a long time, he says, he believed there was no comparison between his life and the lives of "op-pressed people." "I thought that what essentially defined me was not the disability, but my background and talents — and to assume that I had something in common with African Americans was to deny them their unique history. And so I left it alone." This, he says, "is the classic crip reason we don't get involved in activism." He tells of working at a home for developmentally disabled people where everyone would insist, "we are people first!" Hockenberry says he thought, "that's the classic rehabilitation model: we are`people first,' as though deep inside us there's this 'person.' " In America, what this really means is "that inside everyone there's this normal white person,"he says. Now inside me I actually could find a white person," he says. But other people didn't see him as normal, he goes on to say. Being "convinced that my wheelchair wasn't part of me, and that deep inside I was `just a person,' " didn't change anything; in fact, it made things worse: "Because in this inane struggle to go here, go there, and do everything" — proving that he was "just a person" "I was denying actual reality." If you try to live the independence model and pretend everything is getting better, "you end up deny-ing most of your existence," he says. Hockenberry has come to these realizations only gradually. But they're realizations more and more disabled people are reaching. They are finally allowing themselves to see the walls of the cages, maybe for the first time. These explanations go a long way toward explaining the strange dance occurring between Jerry Lewis and his Orphans, led by Cris Mathews of Chicago. Mathews, who is the first to admit her group is loosely orga-nized and small, finds herself baf-fled at the effect last year's protest of the Labor Day Telethon continues to have — most of it, truth be told, stirred by Jerry Lewis and MDA themselves, who refuse to let the [boxed text] These explanations go a long way toward explaining the strange dance occurring between Jerry Lewis and his Orphans. [text continues] debate die and act in the true para-noid fashion that make them such perfect targets. Case in point: the first that Mathews and her Chicago cohorts even knew that Lewis had planned a trip to Chicago last spring was when the Chicago Sun Times columnist Iry Kupcinet wrote April 17 that "Jerry Lewis is cancelling all personal appearances [in Chicago] because of the picketing and physical attacks by Jerry's Orphans, a dissident group that is bitterly critical of his alleged patronizing of disabled children." Lewis had coincidentally planned to be in Chicago at the time of ADAPT actions; no one in ADAPT or Jerry's Orphans knew anything about it. The Tuesday before ADAPT was due in Chicago, Lewis had MDA officials and some "Jerry's Kids" fly to Denver to meet with ADAPT in a misguided attempt to persuade them to like the group, an attempt that could do nothing but backfire. ADAPT had had no intention of picketing Lewis's Chicago nightclub act — mainly because they didn't know it was happening. If they had known it, it's still doubtful they'd have done much, since their efforts were aimed at other targets. But MDA's fear of the group seems almost palpable. This is power. Bonnyman explains the power this way: "ADAPT says,`we're going to name the evil. We're going to point a finger. And we're going to stay, and speak truth to power, as long and as loudly as we need to. And we're not going to be bought off.' " Bonnyman says ADAPT is skilled at "taking what people perceive as a weakness and using it as a strength. ADAPT is very sophisticated about understanding that people in wheel-chairs protesting is a very powerful image." If ADAPT are proving to be the wheels of the movement, rolling over opposition, then surely the telethon issue, with activists rolling out under the name "Jerry's Orphans," commands its soul. In our next issue:The Jerry Lewis thing: what's so electric about it? 36 THE DISABILITY RAG JULY/AUGUST, 1992 - ADAPT (863)
THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON April 29, 1994 Greetings to everyone gathered in our nation's capital to voice your support for providing health security to all Americans. I am delighted that so many of you have come together for this exciting event. Now is the time to act on our awareness that disabilities are a natural part of the human experience. Having a disability does not diminish one's right to participate in any aspect of mainstream society. With the shared strengths of all those participating in this rally, you send a powerful message —— the key to improving the quality of life for millions of Americans with disabilities and their families is passing a comprehensive health care plan that meets the needs of each one of our citizens. The active participation of groups like ADAPT, the National Council on Independent Living, and the Consortium of Citizens with Disabilities is essential in meeting this crucial goal. I commend you for working toward making health care reform a reality. Your knowledge and expertise are helping to advance the rights of and services for all Americans, especially those persons with disabilities, and I thank you for your leadership and dedication. Working together, we can build a health care system that moves our nation from exclusion to inclusion, from dependence to independence, and from paternalism to empowerment. Hillary joins me in extending best wishes to all for a successful rally. [signed] Bill Clinton - ADAPT (1677)
- ADAPT (1609)
- ADAPT (1427)
This page continues the letter from Image 1428. Full text is available on 1428 for easier reading. - ADAPT (1839)
[Headline] Champion of disabled, son drown By Judith Brimberg Denver Post Staff Writer Wade Blank, a Denver resident who use civil-rights tactics to win accessible transportation for the handicapped, has died in a swimming accident in Mexico that also claimed the life of his 8-year-old son, Lincoln. The 52-year-old onetime Presbyterian minister had been vacationing with his family in Todos Santos at the tip of the Baja California peninsula when tragedy struck Monday morning, an associate said. Lincoln was caught in a Pacific Ocean undertow and when Blank went to the child's rescue, he too was sucked under. Blank's body had been recovered, but Lincoln's still was missing as of last night. A Denver resident since 1971, the able-bodied Blank was the spark plug for handicapped activism locally and elsewhere. Recognized by his blond hair worn long the style of the 1960s, the tall, lanky advocate was the driving force behind numerous demonstrations. He led protests in federal buildings and downtown Denver streets to advance independent living for the disabled; in Washington, D.C., to obtain passage of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act; and throughout the nation to liberate the disabled from nursing homes. "He is the one who cut the path through [text cuts off] [image] [image caption] Blank family: Left to right, Caitlin Blank, Wade Blank, Lincoln Blank, and Mollie Blank in a picture taken July 26, 1992. Wade and Lincoln died Monday in a swimming accident in Mexico. Special to The Denver Post. Tom Olin. [text resumes] the jungle to provide opportunity for the disabled and to educate the broader community about their rights," said U.S. Transportation Secretary Federico Pena, who first met Blank in 1982 when Pena ran for Denver mayor. Blank asked Pena whether he would drop charges if the handicapped were arrested for civil disobedience. When Pena hedged, Blank told him: "That's the wrong answer. We want to be treated like everybody else. Don't give us any break." A native of Pittsburgh, Blank received a divinity degree from McCormick Seminary in Chicago. In the late 1960s, he was pastor of a Presbyterian Church in Akron, Ohio, and was involved in the anti-war movement at Kent State University. Admittedly burned out when he came to Denver, Blank worked in the youth wing of a nursing home before helping launch the Atlantis Community for the disabled in 1975. "I decided to move people out of the nursing home and do the care myself," Blank recalled in a recent interview. "You try moving eight people who are severely disabled into their own apartments and be responsible for dressing them, feeding them, bowel programs, bathing them. I think if I were sane, I probably wouldn't have done it, but within the first six months, I'd moved 18 people out. So now I was wedded to the concept." Atlantis today has about 100 disabled people who receive attendant services. From there, it was an easy step to civil rights activism. On July 5, 1978, under Blank's tutelage, 19 handicapped people in wheelchairs blocked two RTD buses for 24 hours to force public accommodations to be made accessible to people in wheelchairs. It was the start of a campaign that tasted victory in 1983 when RTD's first elected board rescinded an earlier action and voted to make 89 new RTD buses handicapped accessible. "That was major turning point in the way RTD responded to Blank's efforts," recalled former RTD Chairman Jack McCroskey. That same year, Blank and his cohorts formed a new umbrella organization--American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation--ADAPT--and began picketing meetings of the American Public Transportation Association. In 1990, to spur passage of ADA legislation, ADAPT organized a massive demonstration capped by 200 handicapped people crawling up the steps of the Capitol building to block the rotunda. "I do not think that was an extreme action," said Justin Dart Jr., chairman of the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped. "Homeless people with disabilities were dying in the streets or were incarcerated in nursing homes or institutions without due process of law." Saddened by Blank's death, Dart said: "I don't think the ADA would have passed as a civil rights law without him." Recently, ADAPT has taken a new name, American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, and has a new goal, that of making home health care a right so the disabled can live in their own homes. Despite his successes, Blank never collected more than $18,000 a year in salary. "Wade was one of those people you saw going on forever," said Mike Auberger, a paraplegic who is co-director of the Atlantis Community. "He was 52, but he was 18 years old as far as energy and drive were concerned. He kicked us into a whole other gear. He was a real center for the disabled community and a real focus of where disability rights needed to go." Blank is survived by his wife, Mollie; two daughters, Heather a 22-year0old handicapped woman whom he adopted 12 years ago, and Caitlin, 6; his mother Ruth, of Canton, Ohio, and two sisters. Funeral arrangements are pending. - ADAPT (1745)
- ADAPT (1693)
arrests will be made and they will start at this spot. As I look around I don't see anyone that is new to arrest. I take a position where I can video the event. The arrest is a statement that we will not move. I think it is to say that, despite the talk, ADAPT believes strongly in our right to live in the community and that in this we are stronger than AFSCME. I stand with those who are about to get busted, but I doubt I am in much danger of being arrested. Cassie will certainly be arrested. Sue, Frank and Toni, who I just met, are going to jail. My friend and roommate, Mike, is out there to get busted. [subheading] 1:04 pm The arrests are being made. I have to stop with this journal and start with the video and photos. [subheading] 1:18 pm The arrests are made quickly in the back. Everyone cooperated and moved away. I head around to the lobby to see if there will be arrests there. I see Marsha and tell her that I think about 30 people have been arrested. Right after I said that that I see Tim, who got stepped on yesterday at the transit entrance of the Thompson building. He writes on my notepad that he counted 15 arrested. My guesswork and speculation are off today. [subheading] 2:19 pm The arrests are completed and ADAPT is on the Chicago Streets again. I spoke with Randy, who led the march back to the hotel. He said AFSCME does not respect people with disabilities nor its workers. Randy, from Memphis, wore a piece of paper on his chest that read: "I am a man," in reference to the 1968 garbage workers strike. He said that MLK would likely stand with us against AFSCME because of ADAPT's struggle for equality. Indeed, Martin Luther King III spoke at the ADAPT March for Justice in October 2000 where he said: "Our destinies are tied together." The group is festive. People are joking and disorganized. Already, people are telling their "war stories" from the action. [subheading] 2:37 pm On the way back we mingle with the police one applauds us. The single-file cannot even be imagined from the meandering group headed back. We get close to the hotel and the final "big meeting." I miss Bob Kafka. He is not at this action and no one can frame our issues like he can. I feel very strongly about today's action, and I am proud of how ADAPT did not back down. Being out here in the street with everyone I am more certain that we will overcome. - ADAPT (1421)
Incitement Incitement Incitement Volume 19 No.1 A Publication of ADAPT Spring 2003 [Headline] No More Stolen Lives [Subheading] A New "Soldier's" Viewpoint, May 2003 by Jeffrey L. Smith On Sunday May 11, 2003, as I stood lined up in front of the White House in Washington DC with several hundred other protesters I thought to myself "Jeff are you SURE you're ready to GO TO JAIL for this cause? As the police officers gave their third and FINAL warning for us to move away from the President's residence I rather quickly decided to "do what I HAD to do." The members of our organization ADAPT had made it crystal clear to me that possible arrest MAY be a price to pay to show we are serious about our mission. I stood my ground with about 90 other people on the side of the arrest line the cops had taped off. This time no one was actually taken to jail. The police decided to just do on-the spot arrests/citations. In years past the cops have indeed taken ADAPT members directly to jail, wheelchairs and all. On Monday May 12, 2003, as I stood in front of the Department of Justice on a very dreary day in Washing-ton DC my heart swelled with sheer Pride! I stood there with at least 200 other [image] [image caption] ADAPT blocked the of Constitution and 9th sts. an entrance to the freeway. Photo by Anita Cameron [text continues] people that had a variety of disabilities (many in wheelchairs) and was an integral member of an "ARMY fighting a system" to ensure that our CIVIL RIGHTS would stop being violated' I thought to myself ?Man now THIS is POWER!" I was new to all this. Within only the past few months I had started working at an Independent Living Center which launched me on a new journey in life. I had never BELONGED in any way such as this. I was a soldier in an army of our times. This Army was NOT military in nature. No. Its target was a system which unjustly imprisoned people that are "different." I was hearing HORRIBLE stories from people who could live independently on their own with relatively minor services from personal-care attendants, yet their primary means of health insurance - Medicaid — would pay only for institutionalization. Some of these stories I was hearing involved cases of abuse, neglect, and varied other unfavorable elements. The WORST part of this for the individuals was they had NO CONTROL over their own lives. They were in JAIL for NO reason. They had committed NO "crimes" other than that of being different/ Abnormal. I SO empathized with these people. I myself had suffered two mild strokes since 1995 and was fortunate to have Medicare, which paid for ALL my services. Had I had only Medicaid, then I could've too been "relentlessly sucked into the same system." We had the Dept. of Justice blocked off most ALL day. We had major intersections surrounding the property barricaded to where traffic was shut down. The citizens of DC were getting Highly Pissed at us "NUISANCES." We passed out info to curious passers-by. The few that I spoke with agreed that the system had to change. We finally forced a meeting with us from Assistant Attorney General Ralph Boyd, [head of Civil Rights for the Dept. of Justice. He made certain commitments. At this point we aren't really sure whether or not his words were mere "lip service" just to get us off his back. On Tuesday May 13 we engaged in one last "blockade" of a Nurses Association, and on Wednesday May 14 we met with various State legislators. On the 15th I traveled back to my home in Memphis, TN and have pretty much been on a high since. People will talk of our country's MILITARY might, but OUR "soldiering missions" used not a Single GRAIN of gunpowder! I was never able to be accepted into any branch of USA military due to my "medical condition." But I have been TOTALLY and unconditionally accepted into an army of a diffeent kind. I am PROUD to be an ADAPT soldier and ready for action! [two images] [caption for both images] (above) Day leaders Erik, Linda Anthony, & Steve Verriden went to to see if the Nurses were going to live up to their word, but they found the doors were locked. Photo by Mark and Tisha Cunningham (left) The nurses were boasting what a fortress their building was, but ADAPT would not sit down for their underestimation of people with disabilities. Here Billy the Kid demonstrates a rolling crawl technique to get up the steps to a side door of the ANA. Photo by Anita Cameron - ADAPT (1373)
[three small articles] Tuesday October 23, 2001 San Francisco Chronicle [first article] [image] [image caption] Penni Gladstone/ The Chronicle Activists for the rights of the disabled, many of them in wheelchairs, blocked off the streets around San Francisco City Hall yesterday afternoon and halted traffic in the Civic Center area. They also blocked the main entrances to City Hall. They were protesting the city's plan to rebuild Laguna Honda Hospital, its long-term care center. Critics want the hospital closed and public money and emphasis shifted to in-home care and community-operated facilities. The protesters, who numbered more than 100, are affiliated with Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs, the Denver group that is holding its semiannual meeting in San Francisco. [second article] A 18 San Francisco Chronicle Thursday, October 25, 2001 [headline] Rights Protest Parade [image] [image caption] Brant Ward/ The Chronicle Activists from Denver's Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs, in San Francisco for their semiannual meeting, led a protest parade from City Hall to United Nations Plaza yesterday, where they blocked entrances to the Federal Building in a third and final day of demonstrations against the voter-approved plan to rebuild Laguna Honda Hospital. ADAPT favors small-scale, community-based care, but Mayor Willie Brown met with protesters to say he cannot reverse the voters' decision. [third article] San Francisco Examiner Thursday October 25, 2001 [Headline] Sit-in [image] [no image caption] Joann Donnell of Kansas shots: "Our homes, not nursing homes" during a protest outside the federal building at United Nations Plaza in San Francisco on Wednesday. Disabled residents protested living conditions for the third straight day. Karen Vibert-Kennedy/ Examiner - ADAPT (946)
The Nation's Newspaper USA TODAY No.1 in the USA...First in Daily Readers Wednesday, October 25, 1995 [Headline] Michigan Lansing--A crowd of about 500 militia members and United Nations foes rallied at the Capitol against a ceremony marking the world body's 50th anniversary. Opponents fear the U.N. stands for one world government... [text cuts off here] [Subheading] Lansing-- At least four people were arrested and ticketed when about 200 disabled people protested at Gov. Engler's residence. Protesters demanded to talk to the governor about home and community care for the disabled. [Subheading] Tuesday, October 24, 1995 [Subheading] Michigan [Subheading] Lansing About 200 handicapped people crowded the Michigan Republican Party's headquarters, blocking exits for two hours to demand more money for in-home services.