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Hem / Album / Orlando, fall 1991 29
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Photo by Tom Olin: Five police men in helmets, with guns and other accoutrements on their belts and on their legs, hold up a folding table as a barrier to the ADAPT folks. A horse's head is in the foreground. A woman (Anita Cameron) is laid out on the ground by two other police men who appear to be arresting her. One of the policemen is holding her arms above her head, possibly handcuffed. Two other police walk by through the foliage in the background.
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Orlando Sentinel Weds October 9, 1991 Photo by Joe Burbank/Sentinel: Elizabeth Dole standing at a podium smiling broadly, and beind her on a huge screen is a reversed picture of her smiling. Caption reads: Like Elizabeth Dole, ADAPT members had their say at civic center. Title: Protesters testify outside convention by Mary Brooks, of the Sentinel Staff Disabled activists talked of being beaten and coerced into abortion as they continued their protest Tuesday outside a convention of the nursing home industry. While about 100 members of ADAPT — Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs -— gave testimonials outside the Orange County Convention and Civic Center, 73 of their colleagues who had been arrested in protests Sunday and Monday were preparing to be released early from the Orange County Jail. Two of the protesters were released Monday night. The group has been demonstrating before the annual convention of the American Health Care Association, which represents nursing home operators. ADAPT members say they want a fourth of the $23 billion Medicaid is spending on nursing homes and other institutions to go toward programs so people can get the help they need at home. Some of the protesters — many disabled by cerebral palsy or auto wrecks -— related the degradation they said they experienced in health institutions. Perhaps the most moving story came from Theresa Monroe, 30, of Atlanta, who said she was coerced into having an abortion when she was five months pregnant. “I was 18 and I fell in love and got pregnant. They said the baby wouldn’t be ‘right’ and that I had to have an abortion. I didn’t know what an abortion was," said Monroe, who spent four years in an institution. The protesters rallied in front of the Peabody Hotel and the convention center on International Drive. By 7 p.m., all of the protesters had been released from jail. They had said they would not post bail that had been set at $1,000 apiece, and jail officials had said they would not be released until Friday. But attorneys for ADAPT reached an agreement with Judge Jose Rodriguez to release the protesters for time served, as long as they agreed not to try to bar the entrances of the convention. Also, those who could afford to must pay $100 within 90 days to help cover the costs of additional law enforcement. The day's convention activities started quietly with a speech by Elizabeth Dole, president of the American National Red Cross. Deputies had expected a conflict since Dole had refused to meet with ADAPT when she was U.S. Secretary of Transportation, but protesters did not arrive until after she finished. Dole told convention-goers that America’s graying population is prompting a new set of medical challenges, especially for people in need of long-term care.
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The Socialist November 1991 [Headline] Campaigning From Jail By J. Quinn, Socialist Party Candidate for President Shortly before I flew to Florida on the afternoon of October 4, I received by first printed campaign literature, some palm cards with Bill Edwards' and my name on them along with some highlights of the 1992 Socialist Party platform. By the afternoon of October 6, I had joined more than seventy demonstrators for the rights of the disabled in the Orange County, Fla., jail, where we stayed for the next three days. Thus I joined the grand tradition of Eugene V. Debs, who spent his entire 1920 campaign in Atlanta Prison for his opposition to World War I, and of Norman Thomas, who was jailed during his 1936 campaign for helping CIO organizers fight for free speech in Boss Frank Hague's Jersey City. It is tradition I would rather honor in the breach than in observance, but sometimes a candidate has no choice. The police arrested me for trespass just outside the front door of the Peabody Hotel in Orlando. I was with nearly 300 other members of ADAPT, American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, who were trying to present our views to members of the American Health Care Association staying at the hotel. AHCA is the lobbying group for the big nursing home chains, which have become enormously profitable since the enactment of Medicare legislation in 1965. AHCA is currently suing Louis Sullivan, Bush' secretary of health and human services, to get more money distributed through the states to nursing homes in order to warehouse more disabled and elderly persons. [image] [image caption] Orlando police arresting a disability activist. Photo by Tom Olin [text cut off] 1.6 million severely disabled people can live independently at home, work-ing at whatever jobs are within their capacity, and providing pay for the family members and friends who are their primary care givers. AHCA and the Bush administration have no use for programs which would interfere with the publicly-funded private profits of the nursing homes. More than half the ADAPT members in Orlando were attending their first public protest. They are a politically varied group. Some are still grateful to Bush for signing the Americans with Disabilities Act last year, which climaxed a battle for accessible public transportation and access to buildings. Of course Bush signed it reluctantly, and his predecessor Reagan worked very hard to prevent its passage. It is ADAPT and similar militants who deserve credit for the act. The first demonstrations against inaccessible buses began in 1978 in Denver, where ADAPT is still centered. Some of you may recall the article I wrote for The Socialist about the deaf-blind and wheelchair-bound Socialist Dennis Schreiber and his Chicago group, Dis-abled Americans Rally for Equality. DARE and other groups of disabled led off the 20th anniversary March on Washington in 1983 at the invitation of Coretta King. Dennis and several comrades from that march were with me in Orlando, continuing the militant Socialist tradition of Helen Keller. Most of the ADAPT members liked the Socialist platform highlights I showed them. We are, of course, for equal rights regardless of disability, for a complete socialized health care system, and for a restructured housing industry which would make it easy to modify living space for the disabled. Our foreign policy planks are appeal-ing to those who became disabled while fighting senseless wars to protect foreign profits. Although anyone can suddenly find themselves in the ranks of the disabled, the poor and disadvantaged are disproportionately victims of industrial accidents, random violence, a deteriorating environment, and preventible disease. Unlike the reforms advocated by the major parties in order to stifle dissent, our demands are in-solubly linked and interdependent be-cause of our basic socialist message. Perhaps a few of those I talked to are beginning to understand that. Nothing radicalizes a group faster than a brutal and stupid opponent, and we had that in Orlando. The police bugged our meeting rooms, studied tapes of previous ADAPT demonstrations so that they would know which leaders to arrest, and tried to arrest as many able-bodied attendants as possible in order to immobilize the rest of the group. ACHA devoted five out of six hand-outs in their press kit to attacks on us, nearly all of them lies. Orlando has become the fastest growing metropolitan area in the country through the tourist and convention business engendered since the opening of Disney World in 1970, and the chamber of commerce was obviously leaning on the police to see that AHCA had an incident-free convention. This conspiracy did not succeed. Our arrests made for some of the most spectacular television since Bull Connor's, Birmingham. A vigil, of our comrades continued outside the jail for the entire time that we were inside. Demonstrations outside the AHCA meetings in the Orange County Convention Center also continued. We were released after three days ready to demonstrate again. A court order threatening arrest for any of us who stepped outside our hotel stopped our last attempt to reach the AHCA delegates who were meeting with their legislative friends, but we were able to show our symbol of a wheelchair chained on a cross to a press conference anyhow. The jail was unequipped to handle so many disabled persons. It took them 14 hours to process us. The over-crowded women's section never had enough bottom bunks. Needed medical treatments were unavailable or behind schedule. Guards and trustees bent the rules for us, allowing me writing materials and the use of my cane, for instance, but even the jailers most ashamed of themselves were unable to revolt against the system of which they were a part. We were given no chance in court to defend our actions. The judge allowed us to plead no contest, sentenced us to time served plus $100 court costs apiece, and warned us not to be outside agitators again in his jurisdiction. This jailing was nowhere near so rough as some of those I endured in the South during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and it made a spectacular opening for the 1992 campaign, but it seemed downright unfair for me to be jailed while George Bush, who was in Orlando the week before, got to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Disney World by shaking hands with Mickey Mouse. Of course he and Quayle look more natural doing that sort of thing than Bill Edwards, my running mate, and I do.
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A-18 The Orlando Sentinel, Thursday, October 10, 1991 The Orlando Sentinel FOUNDED 1876 633 N. ORANGE AVE., ORLANDO, FLA. 32801-1349 407 420-5000 HAROLD R. LIFVENDAHL, President and Publisher L JOHN HAILE JR. Vice President and Editor • STEPHEN R. VAUGHN, Executive Editor WILLIAM B. DUNN, Managing Editor JANE E. HEALY, Associate Editor JAMES P. TONER, Associate Managing Editor MANNING PYNN, Associate Managing Editor • Deputy Managing Editors MICHAEL W. BALES GEORGE C. BIGGERS III STEVEN L. DOYLE DANA S. EAGLES [Headline] Get realistic about Medicaid Disabled activists attracted considerable attention this week in Orlando with their attempts to disrupt a convention of nursing home operators. They, in turn, countered with slick press packages and media briefings. How inane did the rhetoric get? Well, the disabled called for an end to all nursing homes. And conventioneers painted ridiculously rosy pictures of life in a nursing home and criticized the protesters for refusing to negotiate with them on Medicaid spending. How absurd. The nursing home lobby may be powerful, but it is still the job of government officials to negotiate Medicaid spending. And that's where these demonstrations should have been directed a lawmakers. For despite all the grandstanding this week, both have legitimate concerns that Mate and federal leaders need to address. Nursing home operators, for example, are right to demand that loopholes in Medicaid eligibility be tightened so that more tax dollars can be spent to care for those who truly need it. As for the disabled, they certainly have a worthwhile cause in fighting for cost-effective assistance programs that can help them stay at home instead of in government-funded nursing home beds. Clearly, the Medicaid system is headed for collapse if lawmakers don't start adopting more innovative means to contain sky-rocketing health care costs. Spirited debate and rational ideas are needed to help pull America from the brink of this crisis. Enough rhetoric. Let's all focus on real issues and reasonable answers. [Headline] Job well done Despite the madness and mayhem at the convention center, two organizations are to be commended for the way they conducted themselves this week: The Orange County jail and the sheriffs office. Both groups carefully planned and pre-pared themselves for handling the disabled protesters. Because deputies studied previous protests, they were able to minimize illegal disruptions. More important, they underwent special training and added extra staff and equipment so that the disabled could be properly aired for while in their custody. Looks like a job well done.
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Photo: ADAPT members sit in a group facing the Orlando Convention Center. On the front of the building is a large sign reading "Welcome AHCA American Health Care Association. The two people closest to the camera have signs on the backs of their wheelchairs; one reads: Disabled and proud to live in my own home, the other: A nursing home is not a home to me. Between the protesters and the building is a wall of police barricades with offices spaced along them chatting together. [Brooke ___ sits with a yellow ADAPT back pack, beside her ius Loretta Dufriend, behind her with the nursing home sign is Larry Ruiz. Standing next to Loretta is Carl Gage; Standing at the front in a white shirt is Bill Scarborough. ]
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This story starts on 671 and continues on ADAPT 670 but the entire text is included on 671 for easier reading. Photo by Tom Olin: Three Orlando police officers lift a thin woman [Rona Schnall] up to sholder height as they load her into a vehicle. One officer has her leg, another has his arm between her legs in her crotch.
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[Headline] Disabled Group Protests Disrupt AHCA Meetings by Allen Hogg A spokeswoman for the American Health Care Association (AHCA) charged that an organization for people with disabilities demonstrating at its meetings seems to have as its goal "creating confusion and getting publicity. An organizer of American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT) said she is half right. ADAPT co-founder Mike Auberger acknowledged that publicizing a cause is a primary reason why members of his group have been protesting at AHCA meetings around the country. These protests, which have been taking place throughout 1991, reached a peak at AHCA's annual meeting in Orlando, FL, in early October. Seventy-six of the more than 300 ADAPT members who went to the Orange County Convention Center were jailed for three days after blocking facility entrances, chaining themselves together by the neck, carrying signs and shouting slogans. Demonstrations such as this, said Auberger, result in "a lot of media attention and a lot of people all of a sudden understanding the issue." The issue, as Auberger presents it, is that too much federal money is being spent on long-term care at nursing homes, and not enough for health care provided at home. "We don't want to keep funding nursing homes," he said. "We want to redirect 25 percent of the nursing home Medicaid budget into personal assistant programs." ADAPT, which was founded in 1983, had been called Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation while lobbying for the Americans with Disabilities Act. It adopted its new title after that law was passed. "We moved to this issue because it's probably the single largest issue right now for people with disabilities," Auberger said. He expressed his belief, however, that the redirection of resources ADAPT is advocating would give all taxpayers more bang for their bucks. "Care can pretty typically be pro-vided in the home with a higher level of quality and more economically," he said. "I don't know of anybody that wants to go to a nursing home. Most people have a sense that this is where you go to die." AHCA vice president of public relations Linda Keegan, whose group represents 10,000 non-profit and for-profit nursing homes, of course disagrees. According to Keegan, taking money from nursing homes is hardly a way to deal with "a dramatically expanding population in need of long-term care." "To assume that everybody in a nursing home could be better cared for at home is just unrealistic," she said. "We make choices available." Keegan said it's particularly unfortunate that ADAPT protests disrupt AHCA meetings at which the group's members are trying to learn how to offer better care. "Any deterrent to people trying to get an education is a shame," she commented. In order to quell the protests, AHCA has had meetings with ADAPT representatives several times over the past year at which AHCA has attempted to reach a compromise with the protestors. But to Keegan, ADAPT leaders have seemed uninterested in putting together a position that might lead to real public policy change. "I'm not sure that was ever their objective," she said. Auberger countered that ADAPT does want public policy change, and would be glad to work with AHCA -- if that group agreed that less federal funding should be given to nursing homes. "If they were to support the issue that would be great," he said. In the meantime, he sees little hope of ADAPT members having the clout in Washington that professional lobbyists do. "Grassroots disability people can't afford to pay for lobbying," he commented. Thus the protests at AHCA meetings will continue in the hopes of getting media attention and swaying public support. Auberger said plans to demonstrate at the group's October 1992 meeting in San Francisco are already underway. "When we get to the final end, we'll be victorious," he vowed.
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Photo by Tom Olin?: Shot through horizontal bars down and dark cinderblock hallway, a cameraman stands shooting footage of a few protesters rolling out of the hall into the sunlight. In front of them a couple of other camera men and some other people in wheelchairs are waiting for them. It is the ADAPT folks being let out of jail.
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New York Times, National, Monday October 7, 1991 PHOTO by Phelan M Ebenack for the New York Times: A mass of people in wheelchairs and standing work to get through police barricades and tables set sideways as barricades. In the center top Carolyn Long looks down at a protester. To her left two standing men struggle over a barrier. To her right and in front, on the far right a woman stands in an ADAPT shirt, and beside her a woman in white shorts (Babs Johnson) stands behind an older man in a scooter (Ben?) A second scooter is just visible behind him. In front of them in the center of the picture a woman with some of her hair missing (Karen Greebon) is making a power fist in her electric wheelchair. In the foreground three people in wheelchairs struggle with a table barricade; Doug Chastain is in the middle, the other two are looking away from the camera. The caption reads: Advocates for the Disabled Protest At Nursing Home Convention. More than 300 advocates for the disabled yesterday stormed a hotel in Orlando, Fla., where representatives of the nursing home industry were holding a convention. Some wheelchair-bound demonstrators tried to break through barricades; 50 were arrested on charges of trespassing. The protest was part of a campaign to redirect Federal money toward in-home care and away from nursing homes.
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New York Times, National, Thursday October 10.1991 Title: Militant Advocates for Disabled Revel in Their Roles as Agitators by Steven A. Holmes, special to the New York Times [compare with ADAPT 673] Boxed text: Forcefully trying to change images of the nation’s disabled. ORLANDO, Fla., Oct. 6 — The melee‘ at a meeting of nursing home representatives here was, in many ways, a typical for the demonstrators: After smashing their wheelchairs into police barricades and blocking a hotel entrance, 73 of them were arrested, creatmg front page headlines and a successful day's work for Adapt, the militant advocacy group for the disabled. The aim of the action today at the Peabody Hotel in this resort city was to focus attention on the organization's call to divert Federal money from nursing homes to a form of in-home care. But the means the group uses, like Sunday's chaotic demonstration, have often exasperated its allies as much as its adversaries. But even those who criticize Adapt acknowledge that the searing images of people with physical limitations engaging in civil disobedience often succeed in shattering stereotypes of how meek and pliant “cripples” are supposed to act, stereotypes often held by many disabled people themselves. “Adapt is about the issue," said Mary Johnson, editor of the Disability Rag, a weekly magazine that is devoted to disability issues. “But it is also about showing you that though you are disabled you have power already. For people who feel they don't have any power, who are often dependent, that is such a liberation." The Denver-based group's style has drawn its share of criticism from other advocates for the disabled. These critics note that the group played little part in the negotiations that led to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act and that their methods had often antagonized allies in the stniggle. “I think they do get attention," said a Washington-based disabled advocate who asked not to be identified. “But that's true when they are playing to an audience that is not politically sawy. For people out in Middle America, sitting in front of the TV, seeing people in wheelchairs demonstrating is something new. But to folks in Washington who are used to sit-ins, it's passe." [Subheading] An Effective Weapon But leaders of Adapt, which originally stood for Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation, say it is `groups` like theirs that push others to press forcefully ior expanded rights for the disabled. “l think that even for the people with disabilities who don't participate directly in Adapt, we give them heart," said Diane Coleman, an Adapt organizer from Tennessee. And even those who sometimes criticize Adapt acknowledge that it is an eiiective weapon. lt is a role Adapt readily takes on. "We make all the other `groups` seem real rational," said Mike Auberger, one of Adapt’s founders. The group was begun in I983 in Denver by people who worked to persuade the city to make all local buses accessible to people in wheelchairs. Over the next few years they held protests over the issue of accessible public transportation in Cincinnati, St. Louis, Phoenix; Detroit and Atlanta. In addition to picketing, the protesters often would lock their wheelchairs together in front of city buses or chain themselves to a bus’s bumper. Early on, Adapt made a prime target the American Public Transit Association, a group representing mass transit systems. The protesters disrupted meetings and harassed officials of the group. “You have to have a bad guy in political organizing, somebody you can go after," said Mr. Auberger. These days that role is filled by the nursing home industry and Louis W. Sullivan, Secretary of Health and Human Services. After Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act last year, requiring that all new buses be equipped with hydraulic lifts for people in wheelchairs, Adapt began protesting for Federal subsidies for personal attendants, individuals hired by those with physical impairments to help them with basic everyday needs. Adapt wants 25 percent of the more than $20 billion paid to nursing home operators under the Medicaid program to be diverted from nursing homes to help the disabled pay for personal attendants. Though many mainstream proponents of help for the disabled have endorsed the goal of government subsidies for attendants, the diversion of funds sought by Adapt is opposed by the American Health Care Association, the trade group for nursing homes, and by the Bush Administration. As a result, Adapt has spent the last few months harassing the nursing home association and “Mr. Sullivan. This spring they blocked his car during a visit to Chicago and heckled him in a speech in Washington. in August, a handful of Adapt members rolled their wheelchairs along side Mr. Sullivan and harangued him as he took part in a fitness walk on Martha's Vineyard. Whether such methods will achieve Adapt‘s stated goals is uncertain. But leaders of the group say that when they first began to put pressure on the public transportation industry, no one felt their methods would bear fruit. "You have to give complete and utter credit for that to Adapt," said Evan Kemp, Jr., the head of e Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
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Times Herald Record, Friday October 11, 1991 p. 36 Title: Heros for the handicapped? Militant group for disabled revels in its role of agitator The New York Times [compare with ADAPT 674 - the NYT clipping] ORLANDO. Fla. — The melee at a meeting of nursing home representatives here was in many ways a typical demonstration by members of Adapt. After smashing their wheelchairs into police barricades and blocking a hotel entrance, 73 members were arrested, creating front page headlines and a successful day’s work for the militant advocacy group for the disabled. The aim of the action last Sunday at the Peabody Hotel in this resort city was to locus attention on the organization's call to divert federal funds from nursing homes in a form of in-home care. But the means the group uses, like Sunday’s chaotic demonstration, has exasperated its allies often as much its adversaries. But even those who criticize Adapt acknowledge that the searing image of people with physical limitations engaging in civil disobedience often succeed in shattering stereo-types of how meek and pliant "cripples" are supposed to act - stereotypes often held by many disabled people themselves. “Adapt is about the issue," said Mary Johnson, editor of the Disability Rag, a weekly magazine that is devoted to disability issues. "But it is also about showing you that though you are disabled you have power already. For people who feel they don't have any power, who are often dependent, that is such a liberation." [Subheading] Antagonizing allies The Denver-based group’s style has drawn its share of criticism from other advocates for the disabled. These critics note that the group played little part in the negotiations thai led to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act and that their methods have often antagonized allies in the struggle. “l think they do get attention," said a Washington-based disabled advocate who asked not to be identified. "But that‘s true when they are playing to an audience that is not politically savy. For people out in Middle America, sitting in front of the TV, seeing people in wheelchairs demonstrating is something new. But to folks in Washington who are used to sit-ins, it's passe." Leaders of Adapt, which originally stood for Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation, say it is `groups` like theirs that push others to press forcefully for expanded rights for the disabled. “I think that even for the people with disabilities who don't participate directly in Adapt, we give them heart," said Diane Coleman, an Adapt organizer from Tennessee. And even those who sometimes criticize Adapt acknowledge that it is an effective weapon. It is a role Adapt readily takes on. “We make all the other `groups` seem real rational," said Mike Auberger, one of Adapt's founders and advocate who helped persuade the city to make all local buses accessible to people in wheelchairs. [Subheading] Drastic means to a questionable end Over the next few years they held protests over the issue of accessible public transportation in Cincinnati, ST Louis, Phoenix, Detroit and Atlanta. In addition to picketing, the protesters often would lock their wheelchairs together in front of city buses or chain themselves to a bus's bumper. Early on, Adapt made a prime target the American Public Transit Association, a group representing mass transit systems. The disabled advocates disrupted meetings and harassed officials of the group. "You have to have a bad guy in political organizing, somebody you can go after," said Auberger. These days that role is filled by the nursing home industry and Louis W. Sullivan, secretary of Health and Human Services. After Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act last year, requiring that all new buses be equipped with hydraulic lifts for people in wheelchairs, Adapt began protesting for federal subsidies for personal attendants, individuals hired by those with physical impairments to help them with basic everyday needs. Adapt wants 25 percent of the more than $20 billion paid to nursing home operators under the Medicaid program to he diverted from nursing homes to help the disabled pay for personal attendants. Though many mainstream advocates for the disabled have endorsed the goal of government subsidies for attendants, the diversion of funds sought by Adapt is opposed by the American Health Care Association, the trade group for nursing homes, and by the Bush administration. As a result, Adapt has spent the last few months harassing the nursing home association and Sullivan. This spring they blocked his car during a visit to Chicago and heckled him during a speech in Washington. in August, a handful of Adapt members rolled their wheelchairs along side Sullivan and haranged him as he participated in a fitness walk on Martha's Vineyard. Whether such methods will achieve Adapt’s stated goals is uncertain. But leaders of the group say that when they first began to put pressure on the public transportation industry, no one felt their methods would bear fruit. "You have to give complete and utter credit for that to Adapt," said Evan Kemp. Jr., the head at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
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The Orlando Sentinel, Thursday, October 17, 1991 ORS [Headline] ADAPT protesters' firm stance did alI disabled people proud Last week,' disabled protesters disrupted the Southern chard of Orlando, "The" City Beautiful." Some called the protesters derelicts, others said they were nothing more than a ragtag bunch. I call them soldiers. They are activists in a civil rights movement, and the banner they, fight under is ADAPT (American Disabled for Attendants Programs Today.) Their action is for freedom of choice for people with disabilities. They believe that those who are not completely independent (including those disabled by age) should have the right to stay in their homes with the help of an attendant -- a non-medical helper who provides personal care at the disabled person's direction. ADAPT members estimate that millions of people are in nursing homes rather than living independently That's because nursing homes have always been the sole solution to helping people who were not totally self-sufficient. ADAPT's forces want to change that. Some of the disabled activists I met during the four days of protests in Orlando were not pretty. Others were beautiful and handsome and could have been movie stars. Most were severely disabled. Some had able-bodied helpers, without whose assistance the disabled protesters could not have gotten out of bed in the morning. Many had bodies that bore witness to the power of disease or accident. Some were paralyzed. A few struggled to get each word out, fighting against the problems that short-circuited their voices and limbs. They were men and women, old and young, black and white, rich and poor. Despite their disabilities, they possessed the same determination and diligence to fight for freedom that Americans have traditionally given their lives for. I thought of patriots at Valley Forge, Martin Luther King Jr. and the yellow-ribbon heroes of Desert Storm. I smiled at how different, yet how similar, all these activists are. One woman said the disabled protesters were just trying to get attention and they had nothing else to do. As a disabled person, I know her argument is false. Severely disabled people usually attract far more attention than they want or deserve. And most disabled people keep very busy just trying to survive. Someone else said that instead of disrupting the peace, the activists should negotiate and work in committees to make decisions about home care and other important issues. I will admit that as a lifelong advocate for people with disabilities the committee [image] [image caption] Beverly Chapman. Accessing Life approach always made sense to me. I felt that the way to create change was to learn the system and use it. And I have done that many times. Sometimes it works. Other times it doesn't. Fifteen years ago, lift-equipped public transportation was a big issue disabled people fought for. I sat on advisory committees with other disabled and able-bodied people. We deliberated the pros and cons of making transit buses accessible to people with disabilities. Ultimately we recommended the local transit authority purchase all new buses with lifts. The Orlando City Council voted that city money could be used only to buy buses with lifts. But despite that, transit officials found a way to order buses without equipment to help disabled travelers. In that case, we used the system. And even though we won battles, we lost the war. That experience taught me that too often committee decisions aren't followed because they don't conform to the wishes of those in power. Perhaps ADAPT's methods make some of us uncomfortable. And perhaps in a perfect world, the needs of disadvantaged people would be met, simply because all Americans have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But the members of ADAPT by their existence, demonstrate that this is not a perfect world. And they follow their consciences to confrontation because they believe in their cause. The late Robert Kennedy often often quoted Dante when he said, "The hottest places in hell are reserved for people who at times of adversity sit on the sidelines and watch." If that's true, some day the members of ADAPT may look down on all of us from a heavenly place, comfortably entrenched with the rest of humanity's heroes.
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Photo by Tom Olin: A woman with thin arms (Diane Coleman) sits holding a sign that reads "attendant services not lip service" and she looks off to her right. Her head is about waist height to a beefy police officer who stands looming beside her looking down with a hostile expression, his had on his hip. Behind them is some kind of barrier and a couple of other protesters. [This article starts on ADAPT 694 and continues on 678 and 670, The entire text of the article is included here for easier reading, but descriptions of the pictures are included on the pages the pictures appear on. 694 is just a picture and the headline of the story.] Title: ADAPT Activists and nursing home operators face to face: We will not stand for it any longer. Let our people go. You operators want to pretend it’s complicated. You raise a-lot of pseudo-issues to disguise the fact that it’s all about your money and your power. You want to pretend you’re trapped in this business, that union contracts prevent such and such... that legal liability prevents so on and so forth... We don’t want to hear any of that. It’s not complicated. It’s very simple. You will let our people go. >> We were arrested the first day, lots of us. They never expected us to come close to their hotel, the place where members of the American Health Care Association were staying while they held their convention across the street. Yes, they knew we were coming to Orlando. They briefed the locals, had the police waiting. So it was all set up in advance, cops on the rooftops, a police booking operation in the basement of the convention center. They were all set to cage us up for daring to interfere. They thought they had it covered. They were smugly going about their business, expecting only a minimum of trouble for a couple of hours. The intensity there — anyone driving by could feel it. The tons of security, the A.C.H.A. people retreating inside the hotel, aghast. It was like: “How dare they spoil our party!” The first wave of arrests was meant to stop us at all costs, keep us out of the convention. That first day, they thought they’d arrested all the “leaders.” But with ADAPT, when folks get arrested, other folks fill in and we just keep going. We will not be moved. It was our intent to send the message that nursing homes have one and a half million Americans locked up. We want the nursing home operators to be publicly accountable for that. Here we are, people who look like the folks the operators lock up at their home facilities. They’re on vacation, but they can’t escape. We are people with disabilities. We are everywhere. The operators were inside having seminars on how to manage the disruptive patient. We were outside holding a seminar with the press on the economics of managing people in nursing homes. Every place the A.C.H.A. people went they had to confront ADAPT people who had been in nursing homes. They can talk all they want about how homelike it is. We know better, firsthand. We are focusing the attention of the Bush administration through U.S. Health & Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan and the whole Health Care Financing Administration. We are focusing public attention on the nursing home operators, the nurses, the families, everybody who had anything to do with our people being locked up. This will be a long struggle; we’re prepared for that. Five or ten years, a long struggle. Unless people like ADAPT are willing to stay focused and targeted, people in nursing homes and state schools are going to be forgotten all over again. We may not win at every action, but we will win the cumulative victory. We make people think about nursing homes. They don’t want to think about that. Put them away, put it out of mind, put it somewhere else. I want to say to people who say they don’t like ADAPT tactics: Do you really want our people out? Or are you sitting home saying, “Oh, those nursing homes shouldn’t do that!” How many people are going to get free because you hold that opinion? What are you doing about it? People are turned off by the arrests, by our confrontational style. “I’m not going to do ADAPT-style confrontations” — we hear that a lot. If you don't want to be on the front lines but you do want to help, there’s plenty to do: raising dollars so we can get to our actions, working with people in your community to make these issues known, forming your own group, bringing some attention to the issues in your own home town. We sure would welcome your help. ADAPT puts the edge on it, sets the margin. This is as far as we go, this is all we will take. We will not be moved. This article is taken from a conversation with Bob Kafka of ADAPT in Austin. The photographer is Tom Olin of ADAPT in Cumberland Furnace, Tennessee. You can reach ADAPT people at either of these telephone numbers: Colorado 303-733-9324 Texas 512-442-0252
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This story starts on 671, continues on ADAPT 678 and ends here on 670 but the entire text is included on 671 for easier reading. Photo by Tom Olin: A huge crowd of people in wheelchairs and walking goes down a suburban road as far as you can see. Motorcycle police and media cameramen are on the sides of the group. In the front row, five people in wheelchairs (left to right: Lillibeth Navarro, Diane Coleman, Jimmy Small behnd her, a woman in a manual being pushed by someone, and Claude Holcomb) fill the front of the frame and are presumably the front of the march. Lillibeth has a sign that reads "Thousands of my people are drugged in nursing homes", and Diane has one that reads " Nursing homes USA Apartheid of older and disabled." They are chanting as are other marchers. including a woman wearing a Life Worthy of Life T-shirt.