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主页 / 相册 / Wade Blank - Founder of Atlantis Co-Founder of ADAPT 89
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[Headline] Blank opened many doors for people in wheelchairs The nation has lost a tireless advocate for human rights with the untimely death of Wade Blank, the Denver activist whose work helped to spark the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Blank, 52, who drowned this week while trying to rescue his 8-year-old son from heavy surf off Baja California, had spent the past 20 years working to make public facilities more accessible to people in wheelchairs and to help the developmentally disabled lead more independent lives. A former Presbyterian minister, he co-founded the Atlantis Community in Denver in the mid-1970s and later organized wheelchair protests that forced the Regional Transportation District to install lifts on all its buses. His latest work had been aimed at getting Congress to recognize home health care as a basic right and to provide attendants who would enable the handicapped to live by themselves instead of in nursing homes. Blank, who was able-bodied, always insisted that society should adapt to the needs of the disabled, rather than vice versa. For that, he will always have a place of honor in the hearts of those who understand the true meaning of the words freedom and equality.
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The Handicapped Coloradan / Page 15 & 16 [This article continues in ADAPT 1786, but has been completely included here for easier reading.] Title: "If heaven isn't accessible God had better Watch out!" Photo: Waist up picture of Wade Blank with his below shoulder length blonde hair and round tinted glasses. He is smiling and wearing a vest. Caption reads: Wade Blank ADAPT founder dies in Mexico. Wade Blank went down to Baja, California, in February and drowned there trying to save his eight year old son Lincoln. He was there vacationing with his family. The money for the trip came from Wade’s share of a legal settlement in San Francisco when bad guys violated the civil rights of ADAPT demonstrators. He couldn't afford that kind of trip on his own. He never made more than $16,000 in his life. Lincoln was in the water swimming. An undertow got him and Wade went in after him. He had to know there was very little chance either one would survive. Some fisherman from a nearby village fished Wade’ s body from the water. His wife Molly brought his body home and they covered the coffin with an American flag. Only the stars on this flag formed a wheelchair. Lincoln’s body was never recovered. A few days before he left on that vacation, I told him to skip Baja and its treacherous waters for the calmer seas off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Wade said he’d think about it but we both knew he wouldn’t alter his plans. Wade Blank liked to be where the action was. Many of the 1100 people who filled the ballroom at the Radisson Hotel on Sunday, Feb. 21, to say goodbye to their fallen comrade had accompanied him into battle. “If heaven isn’t accessible,” one of them warned, “God better watch out!” Wade founded the Atlantis Community in 1975 when he helped several disabled people move out of a nursing home and into their own apartments. Then he went on to help organize protests against RTD for not having wheelchairs lifts on its buses, a move that later led to the creation of ADAPT, which then stood for American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (“The hard part is getting the acronym right,” he told me at the time.) I asked Tom Olin who was going to replace Wade. “No one,” he said. “Wade was into empowering disabled people. It’s a tribute to him that we’ll just keep on going.” Maybe. But it won’t be the same. People like Wade Blank don't come along very often. A writer for Westward once called Wade the nearest thing to a saint he had ever met. But Wade wasn’t perfect. After all, he was a Cleveland Browns’ fan. He had it so bad that on game day he’d call home to his folks in Ohio and have them put the phone next to the radio. He was president of the Cleveland Browns Fans in Exile Club. A small part of him died when Elway found Jackson in the end zone in the 1987 AFC Championship game. He was a devoted father who had a vasectomy reversed after he married Molly. He called me soon after the operation and bitched about having to lie still to prevent the tubes from severing again. It was the only time I knew him to stay still. The time spent was worth it. He loved Lincoln and Caitlan just as he loved Heather, his adopted daughter. He instilled in them special values. A neighbor recalled a time when she came home and observed Lincoln in front of his house directing some other kids. They weren't playing cowboy and Indian or war or any of the usual childhood games. They were playing rally. “All right,” Lincoln said. “United we stand, never apart.” Wade was a Presbyterian minister whose language would make a coal miner blush. I quoted him a lot on these pages over the past ten years or so but I never quoted him accurately. He used four letter words the way other people use punctuation. Someone made a TV movie about the events at Heritage Nursing Home and Wade said it was close to the truth. But the actor who played Wade didn’t quite capture his style. Wade wore his hair long and looked a little like a construction worker who took a wrong tum back in the 1960s. He once asked me if I wore ties. “I own one,” I said. “It keeps my sleeping bag rolled up.” He liked that. He hated ties. At the memorial service, those few men who showed up wearing ties were asked to remove them—out of respect. By then I owned a real tie. You can‘t go to a funeral in my small hometown without one. I left it at home for Wade. He didn’t have the eloquence of a Martin Luther King. He didn't need it. He wasn’t interested in grabbing the spotlight for himself. He taught his friends that their wheelchairs were a weapon and if they used them right, the whole world would take notice. RTD took notice. Denver became one of the first cities in the U.S. to adopt accessible public transit. Wade helped carry that message to countless other cities. He showed people how they could make a statement by going to jail and then he went out and raised the bail money. Eventually, in a parking lot in Atlanta, the feds gave in. Accessible public transit would be the law of the land. Wade wasn’t about to rest on his laurels. He turned his attention to an earlier cause. ADAPT changed the acronym to American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today and took on the nursing home industry. Wade knew that the disabled warriors who took on the federal government over accessible transit and got themselves arrested scores of times were strong enough to live in their own homes. He vowed to force the federal government to take money away from the nursing homes and make that dream a reality. That battle goes on. His friends at ADAPT are planning a memorial service in his honor in Washington, D.C. this May. At the same time, they’re going to make sure Bill Clinton honors his promises to provide funds for such attendant care. It's a fitting memorial but you can find plenty of monuments to Wade Blank in this country. There one at every street comer where there’s a curb cut and one on every bus equipped with a lift. And every time someone who is exploited because of a physical disability raises a fist in defiance and fights for his or her freedom and humanity, you’ll see Wade’s image in their eyes and his dream in their hearts. So long, Wade. If it’s really heaven, there won’t be a dress code. Written by Tom Schantz
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ACCESS USA N E W S TM [Headline] Tragedy takes life of disability rights leader [Subheading] ADAPT co-founder Wade Blank drowns trying to save son Gary Bosworth It is surprising how seemingly senseless acts of fate can shakeup ones neat, tidy world. That happened to me with an event that shook the disability community to its very soul. Everything around me seemed to be progressing around me in a steady fashion. My hometown of Desert Hot Springs and the Desert Hot Springs Breakfast Rotary had received a joint award of appreciation from the State of California for their joint co-operation on providing access to persons with disabilities in Desert Hot Springs. A London magazine called asking for photos I took in San Francisco at an ADAPT national action, for use in a story they were publishing about the disability rights movement and the politics of the Clinton administration. There was the surprise phone call from Austria from a dear friend telling me she had decided to come for a visit this summer. To cap off the week, over the week-nd I received the latest copy of Access USA News, which listed the top news events of 1992 affecting persons with disabilities. The top three/four listed were all events I considered myself lucky even to be involved in at the scene, with fellow activists from ADAPT. The world around me seemed in order. The worst problem I was facing was trying to find a speaker for the corn-ing Breakfast Rotary meeting. Suddenly, the deck of cards crumbled. That Mon-day evening I received word of the unthinkable. Reverend Wade Blank, founder/leader/guiding light of Atlantis Community and ADAPT was dead. Wade, 52, was killed in a valiant, but futile attempt to save his 8-year-old son Lincoln from drowning in rough seas off a beach at Todos Santos, Mexico, on February 15,1993. Wade, his wife Molly, and their two children were vacationing. Lincoln got caught in an undertow. Wade swam out to save him but they both drowned. Immediately the phone lines across the country lit up as the horrible, unspeakable news spread to every corner of the dis-ability community. Everybody had known many close friends that had died before in the movement, so death was no stranger in our community, but Wade's death was in-comprehensible. So much of what we have can be traced directly to the personal efforts and convictions started by Wade. in 1974, Wade, [boxed text] In Wade's eyes the disability rights movement really symbolized the ultimate in civil rights movements [text resumes] with a small group of nursing home survivors started the second independent living center for persons with disabilities the world. Named for the fabled lost continent, Atlantis Community was for the rebirth of the lost lives of adults with disabilities neglected and discarded by society. Nobody was too disabled to join Atlantis. In a precedent setting $32 million lawsuit by Wade and those survivors against the nursing home that had incarcerated them, it was finally established that even nursing home residents had some civil rights. When public transit refused them, ADAPT, the activist arm of Atlantis was formed. Wade called on his experience of working with Martin Luther King Jr. during the 60's in the south, and the turbulent years of Kent State, where he was pastor of a local church, for his inner guidance. A two-prong offensive was started in both the federal courts and what became the highly honed IN-THEIR-FACE style of non-violent civil disobedience ADAPT became famous for in their dozen year battle that worked towards public transit accessibility and the ultimate passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act - something unthinkable to even the most far reaching idealist just few short years earlier. Wade saw in the disability movement something unique, the grand equalizer - DISABILITY. Becoming disabled could happen to anybody, at anytime without warning. Disability did not play favorites No matter a person's social standing, culture, race, religion, wealth, politics, intelligence, gender, sexual preference, morality, age, whatever; disability could come crash-ing down destroying one's neat little world. In Wade's eyes, the disability rights movement really symbolized the ultimate in civil rights movements. It pained him that the disability movement throughout the decades has steadfastly been shunned and ignored by every other civil rights movement. The ultimate slap in the face came when Rosa Parks, of the AfroAmerican civil rights movement, cancelled a paid speaking engagement with ADAPT because of ADAPT being too controversial. However, Wade turned even that into an asset of organizing. If the disability community was to get civil rights, they must fight for it them-selves, in the trenches, no matter what the cost. The letter of rejection from Ms. Parks hangs on the wall of ADAPT's national headquarters as a constant reminder—this is our fight alone. [image] [image caption] Wade Blank and his son Lincoln (left) joined ADAPT co-founder, Mike Auberger (far right), at the dedication of the monument honoring the disability rights movement. The dedication was on the second anniversary of the signing of the ADA, July 26, 1992. [text resumes] Always mindful of the importance of self-determination, Wade was proud that over 75% of the employees of Atlantis Community have a severe disability, including every major leadership position. Every regional ADAPT activist leader also has a severe disability. Wade, like all the other great leaders, never asked anyone to do something he was not willing to do himself. He spent an untold number of days in jail, alongside his wheelchair warriors of ADAPT, sometimes over 100 people at a time Wade declined personal publicity himself, preferring the larger message of injustice being told by persons with disabilities themselves. Justin Dart, Chairperson of former President Bush's Commission on Employment of Persons with Disabilities would many times refer fondly of the 'army of ADAPTas being the truepatriots of the dis-ability movement just like the early patriots who threw tea into the Boston Harbor'. Last year, Wade traveled to Czechoslovakia, at a joint invitation of the Czech government and the Bush Administration to help them in the drafting of their brand new democratic constitution, so that the rights of persons with disabilities would be included. As powerful as these accomplishments are, they do not tell the whole story. Wade was a gentle soul who always had time for anybody, anytime of the day or night. We were all members of his family. We must remember not only the larger things, but also the seemingly small things that gave glimpses to the inner soul of the person we all loved. In Orlando, Wade was arrested in the middle of a radio inter-view, as he was being taken to the paddy wagon, one of his wheelchair warriors furiously wheeled next to him holding a cellular phone to his head so Wade could continue the on-the-air interview all the way to the paddy wagon. That day, 73 wheelchair warriors were arrested fighting against the inhumanity of incarceration in nursing homes, when attendant services are cheaper and more humane. Several were taken to jail in the back of moving vans commandeered by police. During an action against the Social Security Administration national head-quarters in Baltimore, three persons in wheelchairs instinctively peeled off and captured a public bus that wandered a little too close to the protest. Wade ran over to get them to release the public bus, since they were not the target of the day's actions. Coming back to the rest of the protest he calmly said with a touch of humor "buses are like (all habits) once you have one bus you can't stop". There were the times, out of no-where, I would suddenly get a phone call from Wade saying he had just run across something I had written and he had to call to tell me his thoughts on the article. During an action in San Francisco, when he was told the police were setting over a fleet of paratransit vehicles to do mass arrests, Wade responded with, "So-what do you expect us to do, make reservations (for transportation to jail)?" There were also the intimate times of those special ADAPT weddings Wade conducted at some of the national actions. It was a special way, special couples could share the [boxed text] Wade saw in the disability movement something unique, the grand equalizer --DISABILITY [text continues] joy of their love with the only family that understood-ADAPT. One wedding took place just hours after everybody, including the couple to be married, were released from jail. There are the images of Wade the gentle soul, together with fellow fighter, wife, and pillar of strength Molly Blank, and their children on the protest trails with their extended family of ADAPT. Everybody was important; everybody was equal in the end. The national offices of Atlantis Community & ADAPT was really one big massive room with no walls to create artificial barriers within the movement. The lack of walls symbolized Wade's view on life, civil rights, and equality of all people. He gave meaning to the saying, 'DISABILITY PRIDE.' In his memory, ADAPT shall never forget Wade as the fight for freedom continues with even more vigor and sense of purpose than ever before. [image] [no image caption] [Subheading] Wade Blank Memorial Fund A memorial fund has been established in Wade Blank's honor to continue the fight of defending disability rights. Contributions to the WADE BLANK MEMORIAL FUND can be sent to: WADE BLANK MEMORIAL FUND FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF DENVER 300 SOUTH FEDERAL BOULEVARD DENVER, CO 80206 [boxed text] Tribute to Wade Blank at Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. set for May 9th Before he died, Wade planned a series of demonstrations for personal assistance services to be held in Washington, DC, on May 9th, 10th, and 11th. These will go forward in his honor. There will be a tribute to him on Sunday, May 9th, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. [ADAPT logo] Join together in memory of Wade-on May 9th, today, tomorrow, as long as life remains-to continue his struggle for a truly humane society. [boxed text ends]
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Mainstream Magazine, April 1993 issue [This article continues in ADAPT 1974, but is included here in its entirety for easier reading.] Photo: Wade Blank, in sneakers, jeans and an ADAPT T-shirt over a long sleeved shirt, walks with other ADAPTers in a march down a city street. Beside him is George Roberts, behind George is Diane Coleman and behind her is Anita Cameron. Behind Wade's left side is Chris Hronis, and behind him Bill Henning carries a banner. Caption for picture reads: Wade Blank takes to the streets of San Francisco with ADAPT in October 1992 Title: Wade Blank, 1940 to 1993 Co founder of Adapt [sic] Pursued A Vision Of Justice For People With Disabilities By Laura Hershey When a college friend dared Wade Blank to march with Martin Luther King. Jr. in Selma, Alabama. Wade didn't know what to expect. However, the experience imbued him with a vision of civil rights which he would never forget. Later. working in the youth wing of a nursing home, he understood clearly that the same issues, freedom. equality, and justice, were at stake for people with severe disabilities. Throughout his life, Wade Blank strove to obtain independent living opportunities and equal access for people who had lone been denied these basic civil rights. Wade died at age 52 on Feb. l5. I993. in a swimming accident in Todos Santos, Mexico, where he was vacationing with his family. He was trying to save his 8 year old son. Lincoln. An undertow made the rescue impossible; both Wade and Lincoln drowned. Wade is survived by his wife, Mollie; his daughter. Caitlin, 6; and his adopted daughter, Heather, 22, who has a disability. All members of the Blank family were actively involved in the disability rights movements that Wade helped launch. On Feb. 2l. a memorial service drew 1,100 people to Denver's Radisson Hotel. the site of the first national protest by American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, or ADAPT. the grass roots, direct action disability rights movement Wade co-founded. Wade and Lincoln were remembered as spirited, loving people committed to social change. A neighbor remembered Wade helping her fix a broken lock late one night; she recalled Lincoln leading other children in a rousing chant during a make-believe demonstration on his front porch. Wade's colleague Shel Trapp quipped. “lf Heaven is inaccessible. God is in big trouble." Wade believed in the leadership potential of even the most severely disabled activists. He pushed his followers to take charge of the movement, even when it would have been easier to dominate it himself. His ability to alternate between a directive role and a supportive role from manager to attendant. from mentor to messenger kept Wade close to his people. lt also had a tactical value: At a 1991 demonstration in Colorado. police were vainly searching for someone to hold responsible for several dozen unstoppable wheelchair wielding protesters. An officer asked Wade. “Are you in charge here?" "No." Wade answered. “I just help people go to the bathroom." Drawing on his background as a pastor of a diverse and active parish, Wade taught the value of community. He brought people together across disabilities, classes, races, ideologies and other differences. ln ADAPT. Wade created a true community. welcoming anyone committed to the movement's vision of justice. During national actions, people from across the country exchange experiences and expertise. offer each other encouragement and strength, meet friends and even start romances. Just getting to the sites of national protests requires enormous energy expenditures and a myriad of logistical details for people with disabilities, many of whom use wheelchairs. On long. grueling caravan drives across country. Wade met those needs with humor and gentleness. He drove tirelessly, navigated, did attendant care, pumped gas, made fast food runs, hauled suitcases and battery chargers, repaired wheelchairs, even brought coffee to everyone’s rooms in the mornings. When we grew exhausted and short-tempered. he buoyed us with affectionate teasing and terrible, recycled puns. He kept the troops moving, both on the road and during protests. with encouragement, bad jokes. and calm confidence. Protests will be tougher without Wade's bold creativity, irrepressible sense of humor, and reassuring presence. But the movement won’t die with Wade. He knew that. “King‘s organization’s mistake was that they hung it all around his neck,” he told an interviewer last November. “What happened to the movement? It lost its definition. King gave it its definition. If I would get knocked off tomorrow or die of a heart attack, it wouldn’t slow us down a bit. We know what we’re about, and the movement would go on with the same intensity.” In 1971, Rev. Wade Blank arrived in Denver after 10 years of preaching and organizing in the Midwest. He had graduate degrees in divinity and was an ordained Presbyterian minister. But his radical activities had gotten him in trouble with the church authorities and he had been fired from his parish. His experiences had included hosting meetings of the Kent State chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS); helping Vietnam War draftees flee to Canada; and organizing African American youths to demand community water and sewage systems in conservative Twinsburg Heights, OH. Wade was burned out and not sure what he wanted to do next. He ended up at Denver’s Heritage House nursing home, where he tried to make institutional life bearable for young disabled people. He quickly realized that such confinement could never be acceptable. He was fired from his job, but stayed in touch with several of the young residents. Eventually he helped 11 of them move into their own apartments. At first, Wade himself provided all his clients’ attendant care, until finally the State of Colorado agreed to fund home health care services for people living independently. This was the beginning of the Atlantis Community (named for a forgotten continent), today a thriving independent living center in Denver. Even in their newly won freedom, the Atlantis founders discovered barriers to independence all around them. Public buses were inaccessible, so the community members became activists. One July 5, 1978, with Wade’s support and guidance, 19 disabled people blocked buses overnight in the busy intersection at Colfax and Broadway to demonstrate their demand for lifts on buses. Protests continued until, in June 1983, Denver committed itself to a fully accessible bus system. Last summer, the city laid a plaque at the Colfax-Broadway intersection, engraved with the 19 activists’ names. Characteristically downplaying his own key role in the demonstration, Wade asked that his name not appear on the plaque. Wade once described his role this way: “That’s what my job is, to assist my people in gaining the power to make change." Throughout his years of service to “my people,” Wade worked to build strength and leadership among disability activists. Emboldened by success, the Denver activists carried their demands for bus access to the entire nation. Wade‘s vigorous encouragement and organizing skills had helped to transform a group of powerless nursing home "patients" into a band of effective revolutionaries. Now that same savvy spirit found a warm reception among disabled people who were tired of segregation and exclusion. A new movement was born, with the fitting acronym ADAPT, or American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation. The first national ADAPT protest took place at the Radisson in October, 1983. The nation's transit officials were meeting at the hotel when disabled protesters blocked every entrance. Similar demonstrations throughout the country, involving the blocking of hotels, office buildings, and buses, focused public attention on the fact that access to transportation was a basic civil right denied to people with disabilities. Subsequent protests refined ADAPT ’s brand of protest. With his 1960s civil rights experience, Wade taught his followers how to stage protests that were non violent but direct and confrontational. In the hands of people with severe disabilities, these tactics were astonishingly effective. ADAPT activists baffled police officers, and filled jail cells, in dozens of cities. The public, and ultimately the powers that be, had to respond. The idea of people with severe disabilities, and their allies (including Wade), risking arrest again and again some as many as 20 or 30 times proved not only impressive, but persuasive. After nearly a decade of such protests, ADAPT achieved its goals for the nation’s transit systems. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) included mandates for bus and rail services. All new bus purchases must now be lift equipped, just as Wade and his cohorts had demanded. But before it passed, the ADA became stalled in the U.S. Senate and was in danger of being defeated or weakened by amendments. Wade organized a “Wheels of Justice” campaign that included three days of marching, demonstrating, and civil disobedience. Some 150 people were arrested in the Capitol rotunda. Within a few weeks, the ADA passed the full Senate, and was signed into law by President Bush on July 26, 1990. But Wade and ADAPT spent little time celebrating. They knew there was still much to be done. With over a million people still languishing in nursing homes, ADAPT immediately launched its new campaign, demanding the shifting of federal Medicare/Medicaid funds from nursing homes to in home attendant services that would allow people disabled by birth, accident, illness, or age to live independently. The meaning of the acronym, ADAPT, did just that it adapted. The letters now stand for American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today. The old battle cry, “We Will Ride!,“ was replaced with a new one: “Free Our People NOW!” In a recent interview, Wade said, “My whole commitment in life is to eradicate those nursing homes, to destroy them, bring them down. We will.” He didn’t live to see that goal realized, but he shared that vision with hundreds of others. In the process he helped create a movement that will continue the fight to “Free Our People.” Laura Hershey, freelance writer and poet, is an ADAPT activist. Inserted in box: A memorial will be held May 9, I993 at the Lincoln Memorial as part of an ADAPT action in Washington DC. Contributions may be sent to The Family of Wade Blank Memorial Fund at The First National Bank of Denver, 300 S. Federal Blvd., Denver, CO 80206. A trust fund has also been established in the name of Wade Blank. Contributions can be sent to Atlantis/ADAPT c/o Evan Kemp, 2500 Q St. N.W I21, Washington, DC 20007.
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