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Начало / Албуми / Nashville, fall 1993 Opryland 45
Дата на добавяне / 2020 / февруари
- ADAPT (826)
"We sympathize with your plight here," Golden told ADAPT members. Anderson said he hopes to learn more about the organization and its goals. "The first step of the education is learning," Anderson said, adding that he sympathized with the group. "By the grace of God she isn't out there," Anderson said after the meeting with ADAPT. Becky Anderson suffered severe head injuries in the wreck. She has since recovered but suffers from some lasting brain damage. Auberger said ADAPT made a name for itself during the trip to Nashville. "I'd say it has been very successful," he said. "When the public starts understanding issues, change comes." Auberger also said Nashvillians are more understanding of the disabled and who they are. "I think people of Nashville have a better perception of people with disabilities. They'll no longer think of us as helpless or pitiful." The meeting with the country artists was a "postive way" to end ADAPT's trip to Nashville, Auberger said. "We got some assurances from them that they're really interested in learning more," he said. "Our next stop will be Las Vegas, when AHCA has its next national convention." [Subheading] No room for pity Members of ADAPT do not mind if their protest tactics offend. Their newsletter is named Incitement, and many wear T-shirts bearing a defiantly anti-pity slogan. "Our strategy flies in the face of the stereotype that disabled people are helpless, dependent and pitiful. In fact, we are strong, determined and powerful," says Diane Coleman, leader of Tennessee's ADAPT chapter. - ADAPT (827)
[Headline] Disabled activists think tactics work By Jeff Woods and Rob Moritz Banner Staff Writers At the height of this week's clash between police and disabled-rights activists at Opryland Hotel, one enraged protester shouted, "It's Apocalypse Now!" As a police helicopter swept across the sky, the throng of demonstrators charged into out-numbered security guards at the hotel's entrance. Before the battle ended, over-turned wheelchairs littered the roadway, one protester sprawled on the pavement with blood pouring from his head, and police arrested 97 others on charges of criminal trespass. The bleeding demonstrator was not seriously injured. But if the scene bore any resemblance to Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam War movie, protesters were gleeful. They are front-line fighters for America's newest civil rights movement--the crusade for equal rights for people with physical disabilities. "I just want to say, you all kicked ass. It was one hell of an action," protest organizer Bob Kakfa told a victory rally Wednesday before the demonstrators began leaving Nashville. "You guys. knock down barricades better than any battering ram," Kafka yelled from his wheelchair as the crow cheered, then chanted "Free Our People!" The protesters belong to ADAPT (American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today), a 10-year-old, Denver-based organization practicing the politics of confrontation around the country. ADAPT members stage rallies, occupy offices, blockade buildings and force mass arrests [Please see B-3] (unavailable at this time) [Headline] ADAPT: Group doesn't care if others see tactics as violent, offensive [Continued from page B-1] (unavailable at this time) in order to gain the media spotlight for their cause. [Subheading] CMA protest averted Three noted country artists met with the disabled activists Wednesday and said they "sympathize" with their goals. The meeting with the artists was part of a compromise that prevented any possible ADAPT-sponsored disruption of the nationally televised Country Music Association Awards. The group had threatened such an action after 97 protesters were arrested Tuesday for trespassing at the Opryland Hotel.. "we are here to try to help and help you every way we can. We want to bring attention to your cause and your fight," Grand Ole Opry member Porter Wagoner told about 150 members of ADAPT. "These people need to be heard. We hope we can bring people's attention to it," Wagoner said. Wagoner, Bill Anderson and William Lee Golden met with the protesters in a parking lot on Music Valley Drive across from the Opryland Hotel. The three country artists each were presented with an ADAPT T-shirt and a list of the group's goals and objectives. "These people do have a reason for what they're doing," Wagoner said. "They should be heard." Golden, a former member of the Oak Ridge Boys, specifically was requested by ADAPT when the offer was made by Opryland to call Wednesday's meeting. - ADAPT (831)
ADAPT organizers aimed this week's protests not a the Opryland Hotel, but at the hotel's guests--the American Health Care Association, which was holding its annual convention here. As the nation's nursing home industry lobby, the association is ADAPT's archenemy. ADAPT is demanding that the United States provide more health care for disabled people in their own homes by redirecting more than $5 billion in Medicaid funds from nursing homes. The activist group says 1.7 million institutionalized citizens could live independently at home if these services were offered. What's more, the group says it would cost less-- $8000 a year for each patient receiving in-home care compared to $30,000 for nursing-home care. The nursing home industry opposes ADAPT and makes millions of dollars in political contributions to ensure its voice is heard in Washington. ADAPT claims profit is the motive for the industry's opposition. ADAPT demonstrators have laid siege to the previous two association conventions. In 1992 at San Francisco, more than 100 ADAPT members were arrested, and 75 went to jail in 1991 at the convention at Orlando, Fla. ADAPT members have been in Nashville since Sunday to protest and try to meet with the American Health Care Association, which is having its annual convention at the Opryland Hotel. The group is demanding that 25 percent of all Medicaid dollars be diverted from nursing homes to home health care. ADAPT protesters demonstrated Sunday at the entrance to the Opryland Hotel before being told they'd be able to meet with AHCA officials Tuesday. - ADAPT (815)
This article continues from ADAPT 816 and the full text is included there for easier reading. - ADAPT (833)
[Headline] ADAPT's good cause deserves calm debate There is a tremendous difference between getting attention and getting results. Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, or ADAPT, received plenty of attention last week. Whether that attention translates to results will depend in large part on whether the group focuses in the future more on its message than on its manner. ADAPT's message is that this nation's health care system is skewed too heavily toward nursing home care. It argues that many people with disabilities who could live independently at home are forced into nursing homes because home health care isn't adequately funded. It specifically asks that 25% of the nation's Medic-aid money be funneled into home health care instead of nursing homes. ADAPT's basic premise is sound. While its demand for a particular figure of 25% of Medicaid money is debatable, there is little debate that a new focus on in-home-care, not just for people with disabilities but for many other people who have long-term illnesses, would stretch health care dollars and increase quality of life. But last week, ADAPT's manner over-shadowed its message. ADAPT brought its crusade to Nash-vile last week because the American Health Care Association, a lobbying group for the nursing home industry, was holding a convention at the Opryland Hotel. On Sunday, an ADAPT demonstration blocked the entrance to the Opryland Hotel for nearly two hours. On Monday, ADAPT members lined the halls of the state Capitol, demanding to meet with Gov. Ned McWherter, who was in Germany. [Subheading] Group should make its pitch to government! On Tuesday, when a meeting between ADAPT and AHCA didn't come off as scheduled, ADAPT members attempted to storm Opryland Hotel. Ninety-seven of them were arrested for trespassing. The real pity is that ADAPT can and should be making a serious contribution to this nation's health care debate. Per-aps its members sincerely believed that the only way they could draw attention to their cause was through protest. But even then, they were protesting to the wrong people. AHCA and ADAPT are both advocacy groups. ADAPT shouldn't be taking its case to AIWA. It should be making its pitch to Congress, the Clinton administration and state legislatures. But in order for ADAPT to achieve results, government officials need to view . ADAPT as a serious, responsible advocacy group. ADAPT's cause is too just, too necessary, and too immediate to be lost in a confusing shouting match. People can hear ADAPT's message much more clearly when its members talk, not shout. - ADAPT (820)
PHOTO: People are packed in facing a doorway inside the Capitol with their back to the camera. A man [Verlon McKay] has a poster on the back of his chair that reads "Move $$ to Community Services." Back by the door is a camera person filming. Two police officers stand in the doorway talking. Verlon and the person next to him have their fists raised and all the others show with their posture their intense interest in the doorway. Erik von Schmetterling is sitting to Verlon's right and is signing a chant in ASL [Erik is deaf as well as a wheelchair user.] - ADAPT (830)
The Tuesday meeting, however, never materialized and angry ADAPT members stormed the hotel in protest. The 97 members who were arrested were charged with criminal trespassing. They are to appear in court at the Metropolitan Davidson County Detention Facility on Harding Place today. Opryland Hotel officials, trying to avoid further violent protests, contacted ADAPT leaders Wednesday morning "to see if there wasn't any way to do something that was more positive than what happened Tuesday night," ADAPT co-founder Bob Audberger said. Tom Adkinson, an Opryland spokesman, said the meeting was called "to accommodate" the ADAPT protesters. "We really have tried to be accommodating all week," he said. "We want to create a good event rather than anything else. I think the staging of this event is a positive sign." Protest organizers say they were not displeased that the association chose Nashville for this year's gathering. Tennessee is home to four of the nation's largest nursing home chains, and the state provides in-home health care service for only about 400 people. [Subheading] A question of freedom ADAPT says many disabled people leave Tennessee for states with more in-home services. Their only other choice: Join the 33,000 patients in Tennessee nursing homes. LaTonya Reeves, who is blind and has cerebral palsy, says she left her family and home in Memphis for Denver so she can live independently. An attendant visits her apartment every day. "I miss my family, but I don't miss worrying about losing my freedom," Reeves says. I'd rather die than go to a nursing home. At Wednesday's rally at the hotel where the 350 ADAPT members stayed during their Nashville visit, protesters passed around a microphone to tell of their triumphs. They described how they faked injuries to distract police while their friends barged into the hotel. Some said their abandoned their wheelchairs and proudly crawled toward the association's meeting room. It was the 22nd arrest for Coleman, a diminutive woman of 39 who suffers from a degenerative muscle disease. She makes no apologies for her organization's brashness. "We fought for years to change things through normal channels without success," she says. "Older people and disabled people should not be stuck away in warehouses to die. This is a civil rights issue, and it's time to take it to the streets." - ADAPT (818)
PHOTO: A police officer stands in a doorway of the Capitol with his arm across the doorway and a stern look on his face. Under his arm you can see the back of someone in a wheelchair with a sign on their back. In front of him are two other protesters in wheelchairs; one has a poster that reads "Security, Safety, Choice, Quality, My Home" and below that is a bed pan. The other protester is leaning his head back to look at the policeman and he has on a helmet. - ADAPT (814)
Photo by Nashville Banner: ADAPT folks marching in their wheelchairs single file into the Tennessee Capitol building via the bunker like street entrance. Above and partly obscured, is the Greek looking above ground part of the capitol. Caption reads: ADAPT protesters enter the State First Street, across the Woodland Capitol after marching from North Street Bridge and through downtown. Title: Disabled-rights group now demands results By Rob Moritz Banner Staff Writer Disabled-rights activists are hoping for results as they meet today with American Health Care Association officials and next month with the governor. “What we've got now are meetings. What we want are results,” local disabled-rights organizer Diane Coleman said Monday outside the governor's office in the state Capitol. “The meetings are a first step, and that's good, but we do want results,” she added. Today’s 3 p.m. meeting with AHCA's executive board will be held at Opryland Hotel, where the nursing home group ia holding its annual convention. More than 200 members of Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs Today from 28 states protested at the hotel’s entrance Sunday before being granted a meeting with AHCA. ADAPT wants to divert 25 percent of all Medicaid dollars from nursing homes to home health care. On Monday, the same protesters — in wheelchairs — occupied the state Capitol for nearly six hours before being assured of an Oct. 11 meeting with Gov. Ned McWherter, who is on a two-week trade visit to Germany and Japan. The activists demonstrated at the state Capitol because they hadn’t received a response from a letter Coleman sent to McWherter earlier this month. The protesters blocked several offices, chanted and generally disrupted the afternoon work schedule for many state employees before Metro police and Capitol police arrived. No arrests were made. Metro police blocked off Charlotte Avenue near the Capitol during the demonstration, causing traffic tie-ups for downtown commuters. After nearly six hours of demonstrating and chants such as, “the people united will never be divided," and “up with attendant care, down with nursing homes," the group finally was told it could meet with the governor next month. “So far, Tennessee has chosen human warehouses over in-home services,” Coleman said, adding that more than 35,000 disabled people are in Tennessee nursing homes. “Put human rights over state rights," she said. Coleman says the letter she sent to the governor contains three requests: * That the governor establish a task force to study home care services for the elderly and disabled. * That he make a commitment to reverse what they believe is an institutional bias in long-term services funding in the state. * That he make a commitment to promote ADAPT’s goals at the National Governors Association. President Clinton's health care reform calls for the expansion of home care programs, Coleman said. Meanwhile, a Capitol cleaning crew worked - overtime Monday night to clean up trash left by ADAPT protesters. - ADAPT (834)
THE TENNESSEAN LOCAL NEWS FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1993 B Briefs 2B Deaths 5B Weather 6B [Headline] With ADAPT protest over, Opryland to drop legal fight By KIRK LOGGINS Staff Writer Opryland USA officials say they will not pursue legal action against a group of disabled-rights activists, now that the group has ended pro-tests aimed at a nursing home convention at the Opryland Hotel. "This cost our company and Nashville a considerable amount, to be the unfortunate site of some-body else's dispute," ,Opryland spokesman Tom Adkinson said yesterday. But, Adkinson said, "That's something that we will just have to absorb." Fifty-two people pleaded no contest yesterday to charges that they committed criminal trespass during a demonstration at the hotel Tuesday. Davidson County prosecutors agreed to give the protesters suspended 30-day jail terms, on condition that they not stage any more group actions at Opryland. Forty-one of the protesters approached a makeshift judge's bench yesterday in wheelchairs. Some had difficulty speaking, and many had assistance in signing court documents. Attorney Vance Cramb, sitting as a special General Sessions Court judge, fined each protester $50, plus court costs averaging $138, but suspended most of the fines and court costs at the request of the protesters' attorney, Christine Freeman. Most protesters said, in response to questions from Freeman, that their only income is government assistance. Aides to District Attorney General Tory Johnson agreed yesterday to retire trespassing charges against 44 other protesters who were arrested at the hotel Tuesday but have since returned to their homes in other cities. Court personnel arranged a hearing yesterday in the gymnasium at Correction Corporation of America's Metro Detention Facility near Harding Place, where the protesters were taken after their arrests. All protesters arrested Tuesday were processed and released by early Wednesday, but they were ordered to return to court yesterday. The protests were organized by American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, called ADAPT, which has demonstrated at earlier conventions of the American Health Care Association, a national nursing home group that was meeting at Opryland Hotel. Diane Coleman, a Tennessee ADAPT organizer, said yesterday that the group's four days of protests here succeeded in focusing attention on the need for more public funding for in-home health-care services as an alternative to nursing home care. "For one thing, we have a meet-ing scheduled with Governor Mc-Wherter on Oct. II to talk about attendant services in Tennessee," Coleman said. "That holds the potential for significant progress." - ADAPT (825)
Nashville Banner Tuesday, September 28, 1993 Local & State B [Headline] POLICE BEAT By Glenn Henderson [Subheading] On a roll : They came, they sat --and they appear to be conquering. None have been arrested--yet--even though members of Americans with Disabilities for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT) stopped traffic at a major intersection and trashed the state Capitol building, leaving garbage and ADAPT stickers in the governor's hallways. The organization protested Sunday at the American Health Care Association's annual convention, blocking McGavock Pike near the Opryland Hotel for hours. The group wants federal money currently going to AHCA--a nursing home lobbying association— to be rerouted to care at home. They regularly protest at AHCA conventions. "We were very lenient with them Sunday night," Metro police spokesman Don Aaron says. Aaron was so concerned with the potential media coverage of police arresting the disabled protesters that he called a meeting prior to the AHCA convention — a meeting with newspaper editors and TV news directors. Kind of a pre-protest damage control meeting. And the next day, police held a training class at the South Sector precinct to teach officers safe ways to subdue and arrest disabled protesters. "The week isn't over," Aaron says. "The word has been conveyed to them that in the future, if they are told to leave or clear a roadway and they refuse, we're going to arrest them." There is irony here: Metro prepared to deal with them at Opryland, but state police have jurisdiction over the Capitol. - ADAPT (819)
PHOTO: A large group of marchers stretch back as far as you can see. Some are in wheelchairs, some are walking. Two posters are visible one says "Give us Freedom" and the other "Attendant Services is a Civil Right. The group fills the frame of the photo. - ADAPT (817)
Nashville Banner Tuesday, September 28, 1993 Local & State B [Image] (Banner photos by Larry McCormack): A police officer stands at the center with one arm holding a man in a black cowboy hat [Billy Montalvo], who is standing way off balance. The policeman, with his other hand, is holding a wheelchair push handle of someone totally obscured by another officer with his back toward the camera. Over the other officers shoulder is the face of a woman. In front of the officer on the floor by his feet is a female protester with her arm raised up and in front of her, also on the floor another person is raising a white cane in the air. A man [JT Templeton] in a motorized wheelchair wearing a National Civil Rights Museum sweatshirt is in front to one side, and from that same side someone is reaching toward the cane. They are in a doorway. [Image Caption] Tennessee State Trooper Harold Gooding moves disabled-rights activist Billy Montalvo away from a door leading to Gov. Ned McWherter's office during Monday's protest on Capitol Hill. No arrests were made. Banner photos by Larry McCormack [Headline] Activists call meetings '1st step' - ADAPT (811)
3 B Tuesday, September 28, 1993 —— THE TENNESSEAN PHOTO by Rick Musacchio, Staff: Two police officers stand over three protesters in wheelchairs, two of whom are holding hands. [Caption reads] Tennessee Trooper Amos Claybrooks, left, and Capt. Paul Tackett try to keep protesters from entering a door to the governor’s office. [Title] Disabled demand to see governor By REAGAN WALKER, Staff Writer About 300 members of American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, or ADAPT, lined the first floor of the state Capitol yesterday demanding to talk with Gov. Ned McWherter. The national organization is in town to bring attention to the lack of Medicaid funding for home health care. The group follows the American Health Care Association, the nation's largest lobbying group for nursing homes, to its annual convention each year to protest a system that group members say unfairly dumps disabled and elderly people into nursing homes. The healthcare association is meeting this week at Opryland Hotel, and its executive board will meet with members of ADAPT today. Last week ADAPT asked to meet with McWherter this week. But he was already scheduled to be in Germany, where he met with officials of Mahle GmbH yesterday regarding plans for an expansion of its Morristown plant. Mahle Inc. is the U.S. arm of Mahle GmbH, one of the world's major suppliers of pistons. Even knowing the governor was out of the country, the group began crowding into the first floor hallway of the Capitol shortly after noon yesterday demanding Mcwherter talk with them by phone about their concerns. McWherter did not call, but his staff set up a meeting with the group for Oct. 11. Diane Coleman, a member of the Tennessee chapter of ADAPT, declared the protest successful about 5 p.m. “We call upon Governor McWherter to put human rights before state rights, to put people ahead of profits," Coleman said. The group said McWherter's health-care plan, TennCare, does not address long-term care. The state also does not pick up the Medicaid option to provide some money for those people choosing home health care. Because Tennessee doesn't provide that Medicaid option, LaTonya Reeves, 29, said she moved from Memphis to Denver. Colorado provides Medicaid coverage for home health care. “My choice was to either move or go into a nursing home," Reeves said. - ADAPT (832)
[This page continues the article from image 846. Please refer back to image 846 for the full text].