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Home / Album / Tag civil disobedience 36
- ADAPT (278)
Jim Naubacher disabled In Detroit [column] Drawing of a man's head Title: He’s got access -—— to anger Before the week even started, I was teed off. The American Public Transit Association was coming to Detrolt and so were American Disabled for Accessible Puplic Transit. APTA versus ADAPT. There was insensitivity to handicappers on the part of city officials; apathy and collaboration by local handicappers nervous about ADAPT's presence, and a general lack of commitment by anyone other than ADAPT to the principle of public transit for all, accessible buses for all. I wrote a column in mid-September outlining the approaching confrontation. lt had happened in other cities. ADAPT, an outgrowth of an independent living organization in Denver called Atlantis, had fought for and won a commitment from the City of Denver for total accessibility on its main buses. ADAPT wanted the American Public Transit Association, at its 1983 Denver national convention, to take a similar public stand. lt did not, and ADAPT promised to appear each time APTA convened and protest that decision. Then I turned the story over to others, since I knew I could not be impartial. They covered the story with words and pictures, but let me tell you about some of the strange, ironic, disappointing and disturbing things that took place beginning Oct. 3 in Detroit. SAD BUT perhaps not unexpected was the reaction of city officials. In many ways, the city acted like any other city would react. It had wooed and won the APTA and promised APTA officials a safe and peaceful convention in the face of expected ADAPT protests. APTA had faced challenges from ADAPT in Denver, Los Angeles, Washington, San Antonio and Cincinnati before the Detroit convention. City officials were pretty sure they knew what to expect. What would ADAPT do? They would "do" civil disobedience. They would block buses that were not lift-equipped for wheelchair users. Wheelchair users would try to crawl onto some of these inaccessible buses. But while putting the best face possible on a woefully inadequate mass transit system, the city put the worse possible face on its position toward a mass translt system that is accessible to all. Just before the APTA delegates arrived, Mayor Young announced that the City of Detroit was buying 100 new buses. He emphasized that the service-poor city would use its own money. Thls point was notable, since Young made no mention of the new buses' accessibility. Federal regulations require non-discrimination toward handicapped riders and require communities to develop a plan to make their systems accessible. Michigan law requires that each bus bought with the aid of state money must be lift-equipped. ln response to questions, city officlals said that perhaps as many as 20 - one of five — of the new buses would be lift-equipped. NOT COINCIDENTALLY, the City of Detroit had entered into an out-of-court settlement 14 months earlier in a federal lawsuit brought by four handicappers against the city on a variety of complaints of non-compliance with federal law regarding non-discriminatlon and accommodation of handicappers. in that settlement, the city had agreed to maintain the lifts on buses and to train drivers in their proper use. But little has been accomplished. Young's announcement that the city had bought at least 80 percent inaccessible buses underlined the city's position regarding access. it also reminded handicappers that the settlement had not committed the city to providing future accessible, well maintained buses. In the meantime. efforts were under way to neutralize ADAPT. The Detroit City Council denied the group a parade permit. ADAPT had contacted Rosa Parks, the Detroit woman whose refused to move to the back of a Montgomery, Ala., bus in 1955 gained national attention and sparked protests during a different civil rights struggle. Her representatives said she would not lead a parade, but would hold a news conference. She later said she might attend a press conference, but did not. CBS reporter Ed Bradley from "60 Minutes" delivered a keynote speech at the APTA convention Oct. 6. Bradley said he had investigated ADAPT found their complaints "didn't hold water." FORD MOTOR CO. allowed a [bus] full of APTA delegates to use its private property to gain access to a coctail party site that ADAPT members planned to barricade. The Southeastern Michigan Transportatlon Authorities (SEMTA), which has committed itself to total access of its bus systems by the end of decade, loaned the Detroit police an accessible van so they could [take] ADAPT protesters to jail. Frank Cl[-]one of the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit against Detroit, provided sensitivity training to Detroit police officers who were expected to be arresting ADAPT wheelchair users. But the training only extended [so] far. Although there was no "arm twisting or head-beating," as a [police] representative described it, police were unable to appropriately house protesters and provide medical necessities, food and bedding to some who were arrested. On Oct. 7, Detroit Recorder's [County?] Judge George Crockett felt compelled to issue a writ of habeas corpus, freeing them because of these conditions.J As ADAPT members went home Oct. 8-9, I was still teed off. This will not be the end of the debate on transportation access in Detroit and across the country. - ADAPT (267)
THE PLAIN DEALER, THURSDAY, MAY 22; 1986 page 19-A PHOTO by AP: Four policemen in their fancy police hats are "rolling" a man (Rick James) up a 150 degree (ie. almost vertical) "ramp" into a van. Rick is sitting with his hands up by his chest. His hat is missing and his hair is flying out in all directions. His expression is a mix of amazement, disgust and resignation. Caption reads: Cincinnati policemen push Rick James of Salt Lake City, Utah, up a ramp into a van after he was arrested outside a downtown hotel as part of a demonstration by American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation. Title: Cincy arrests disabled in protest of bus access By BILL SLOAT STAFF writer CINCINNATI — Police arrested l7 disabled people yesterday after they blockaded the entrance to a downtown hotel or chained themselves to the doorway of an adjoining office building that houses Queen City Metro, this city’s public bus service. Eleven of them refused to post bond and were in Hamilton County Justice Center under cash bonds ranging from $1,500 to $3,000. Five were released late yesterday on personal bonds. One pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct and was found guilty. Sixteen were in wheelchairs from polio, paralyzing spinal accidents, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy and amputations. One was blind and walked carrying a white cane. The arrests were made during a non-violent, noon demonstration that challenged lack of access to city buses here and around the nation. Chants of “We will ride" and “Access now” came from about 52 demonstrators outside the Westin Hotel. Some removed footstands from their wheelchairs and banged on metal barricades. Police stood behind the barricades and refused to let the demonstrators into the hotel. All 17 taken to jail said they were members of a national handicapped rights organization called American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation. “This is a civil disobedience action," said Wade Blank, 47, a Presbyterian minister who helped organize yesterday's protest. Blank, who now lives in Denver, was involved in anti-war demonstrations at Kent State University in the 1960s when he lived in Akron. Several of the people loaded onto vans and hauled away to the Hamilton County Justice Center on disorderly conduct charges compared Cincinnati to Selma and Montgomery, two Alabama cities where civil rights activists were jailed by authorities in the 1960s. “The message needs to be sent out that we can’t ride a bus because we're handicapped,” said Glenn Horton, 46, of El Paso, Texas. "It's discrimination it’s segregation and it’s appalling that it could still be happening in this country." Horton said he had been confined to a wheelchair since age 9, when he fell and broke his back. Bill Bolte, 54, of Los Angeles, said handicapped people needed mainline bus service to get to jobs, movies, dates, shopping, banks and anywhere else they might want to go. “We're already in prison," said Bolte, who had polio 51 years ago. “We're going to see that what few rights we have are not going to be taken away. Our rights to public transportation are being deprived, and we will not sit for it." Organizers of the protest said they took to the streets because about 600 executives of public and private transit companies in the eastern United States and Canada were attending a convention in the hotel that ends today. Protesters said the convention should adopt a resolution supporting the installation of wheelchair lifts on all public buses in the nation. Many came from Denver, which has such lifts in use on its bus fleet. The demonstration also came a day after the U.S. Department of Transportation announced in Washington, D.C., a new regulation that allows transit authorities to establish alternative services for the disabled instead of putting lifts on regularly scheduled buses. Demonstrators complained the rule meant that buses, subways and rail lines wouldn't be made accessible to people in wheelchairs. Police Chief Lawrence Whalen said the comparisons with Alabama in the 1960s were unfair when it came to the police. Police in the South during the civil rights era often brutalized protesters. Whalen yesterday said, “Our officers handled themselves very admirably. The group has had their chance to protest and get their point across." He said the police assigned to make arrests had attended special briefings on how to handle disabled people and were instructed to ask the people in custody the best way to lift them into vans. “We wanted to be sensitive to their special needs." Whalen said. Three of those arrested yesterday were out on $3,000 bond after incidents Monday when two climbed aboard city buses, paid fares and refused to leave when ordered off by Queen City Metro officials. The third interfered with a bus. The three, Robert A. Kafka, 40, of Austin, Texas; George Cooper, 58, of Irving, Texas; and Michael W. Auberger, 32, of Denver, were charged yesterday with Criminal trespassing when they chained themselves to the entranceway of Queen City Metro's offices. Police Capt. Dale Menkhaus told his men to use bolt cutters to get them out of the building. Kafka, Cooper and Auberger had been ordered Tuesday not to set foot in Cincinnati by a Municipal judge at the time they posted bond, but another Municipal judge lifted the banning order shortly before yesterday's protests started. Police Chief Lawrence Whalen said 14 others were charged with disorderly conduct for their activities outside the hotel. Bond was set at $3,000 each, a Hamilton County Municipal Court official said. Before the demonstration began, the group gathered in a Newport, Ky., motel for a strategy session on civil disobedience. They agreed not to carry anything but identification with them when they confronted police in downtown Cincinnati and they voted not to post bail. None of the people arrested were from Ohio. The 11 who refused to post bond and were in jail last night are: Bolte; Bob Conrad of Denver; Joe Carle of Denver; Auberger; Horton; Jim Parker of El Paso, Texas; Cooper; George Roberts of Denver; Earnest Taylor of Hartford, Conn.; Lonnie Smith of Denver; Kafka. Kelly Bates of Denver pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct, was found guilty and sentenced to 30 days in jail, which she is to start serving tomorrow. Those released on personal bond are Ken Heard of Denver; George Florman of Colorado Springs, Colo.; Frank Lozano of El Paso, Texas; Rick James of Salt Lake City, Utah; and Arthur Campbell of Louisville, Ky. - ADAPT (264)
OHIO DIGEST 5/86 Title: Disabled to protest in Cincy ASSOCIATED PRESS CINCINNATI — About 100 people in wheelchairs plan to disrupt city bus service for four days starting tomorrow because they say public transportation is frequently not available to the handicapped. The action by Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation, or ADAPT, a Denver-based organization, is timed to coincide with a meeting of transportation industry officials here, said Michael Auberger, an ADAPT community organizer. An estimated 800 to 1,000 members of the American Public Transportation Association, the nation’s major public transportation association, begin a five-day regional conference downtown today. “We have not decided upon specific strategy, but some type of civil disobedience will be taken, Auberger said. “We might inconvenience the public, but the fact is, we can’t even get on the bus.” Judith Van Ginkel, a Queen City Metro spokeswoman, said police and the company were prepared for a protests and that a disruption in service was possible. - ADAPT (255)
8B The Cincinnati Post, Monday,May19,1986 Title: Disabled activist group faces arrest By Edwina Blackwell, Post staff reporter Cincinnati police will arrest members of a national handicapped activist group today if they fulfill a vow to block and chain themselves to Queen City Metro buses to protest the inaccessibility of buses to the handicapped. Michael Auberger, community organizer for American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation (ADAPT). said the group's civil disobedience will take a more disruptive turn as the week progresses. “Whatever it, takes to disable the bus, that's what we'll do to show that the bus is inaccessible," Auberger said during a Sunday protest by the group at the downtown Westin Hotel, where public transit officials are meeting. However, Police Capt. Dale Menkhaus said extra officers will patrol the downtown streets where protesters say they will block buses and chain themselves to bumpers while the buses are stopped for traffic lights. “We're prepared to do whatever necessary to protect them (the protesters) and the general public. If they elect to violate the law, they will pay the consequences," Menkhaus said. About 85 ADAPT members - who have been arrested during similar protests in other cities — made their way Sunday afternoon from the Newport Travelodge to the Westin Hotel, where the American Public Transit Association is meeting. With most of its members confined to wheelchairs, some of the protesters relied upon able-bodied members to push them through the streets. Several of the protesters were draped with chains and locks that they plan to use to chain themselves to buses. Extra Cincinnati police officers guided the march and some were waiting for the group at the Westin, where the protesters were greeted with barricades at each of the hotel's entrances. The demonstrators arrived at the Westin and picketed in front of the hotel's entrances on Vine, Fifth and Walnut streets. “We will ride!“ they chanted. There were no arrests Sunday, although police warned pickets they would be arrested if they blocked the hotel's entrances. Menkhaus met with the protesters Sunday and cautioned that they would be arrested if they disrupted bus traffic. Auberger, a former Cincinnatian who now lives in Denver, was pleased with Sunday's protest. Leaning back in his wheelchair with a lock and chain around his neck, he said, "I think we made a strong statement to APTA and Cincinnati that disabled people aren't powerless." Murray Bond, assistant general manager for Queen City Metro, said the city-owned transit company has been working with police for several weeks in anticipation of protests by ADAPT. Members of ADAPT, a Denver—based organization, arrived in Cincinnati to coincide with the eastern education and training conference of the APTA. Nearly 600 transit officials are attending the five-day meeting, which ends Thursday. The convention's general session was to begin this morning. U.S. Rep. Martin Sabo. D-Minn., will give the keynote address. On Wednesday, the conference will address the transportation needs of the disabled during a 2 p.m. workshop. Auberger said the risk the group's members take shows how important it is to them to be able to use public transportation at will. "The point is so vital to make," he said. Bond said Queen City Metro knows of the tactics used in other cities. “Our chief concern is for the safety of the people and our riders," he said. In Cincinnati, ADAPT wants Queen City Metro to operate the wheelchair lifts currently soldered into place on 87 buses. The group also wants all buses purchased in the future to be equipped with wheelchair lifts. At present, 19 vans are used to pick up handicapped individuals in Cincinnati through a contracted service called Access. Judith Van Ginkel, director of communications for Queen City Metro, said the service was recently expanded to include three more neighborhoods and [unreadable] for those who don't need wheelchair lifts. She added it would cost Queen City Metro $350,000 to make the lifts on the 87 buses operational. Albert Engelken, APTA deputy executive director, said money problems being faced by transit systems are at the root of transportation for the handicapped. "We don't see this as a civil rights issue," he said. "We see this as a funding issue." ADAPT disagrees. Jerry Eubanks lost his legs to gangrene as a child. On Sunday, he served as a group cheerleader pushing for what he sees as a civil right for the handicapped. "When you make transportation, it's public. It's for everyone," said Eubanks, a Chicago resident. “We're only fighting for what's already here. " - ADAPT (246)
THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER Wednesday, May 21, 1986 [This article continues in ADAPT 245, but the entire text is included here for easier reading.] [Headline] Handicapped bus protests to continue [Subheading] Judge offers three protesters choice of jail or leaving city BY DAVID WELLS and JAMES F. McCARTY The Cincinnati Enquirer and ENQUIRER WIRE SERVICES The issue of handicapped people and their accessibility to mass transit reached a peak Tuesday locally and nationally, sparking protests that were expected to go on today. In Cincinnati, a judge ordered three handicapped protesters who had been arrested to leave the city or go to jail. One of the men, a native Cincinnatian, chose to ignore the edict, and his bail of $3,000 was revoked late Tuesday. In Washington, D.C., the Department of Transportation issued long-awaited criteria for making the nation's public transportation systems more accessible to 20 million handicapped people. Neither decision was well received by the handicapped community. The Rev. Wade Blank of ADAPT (American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation) said late Tuesday that a dozen or more of its members were planning an act of civil disobedience in Cincinnati today that he expected would get them all arrested. “We decided that to leave Cincinnati under the present atmosphere of basic human rights violations, would be to ignore our moral obligations," Blank said. George Cooper, who was arrested Monday said, “I thought my hometown of Dallas was conservative, but Cincinnati is more conservative." Cooper arrested Monday with two other members of ADAPT on charges of disorderly conduct during a demonstration at Government Square. Hamilton County Municipal Judge David Albanese imposed the sentence on the the ADAPT protesters. Late Tuesday, police spotted ADAPT member Mike Auburger, a former Cincinnatian who lives in Denver, driving a car through the -- city—an apparent violation of Albanese's order to leave the city. Cooper and Robert Kafka, Austin, Texas, were arrested after they crawled up the steps of a Queen City Metro bus, paid their fares and demanded the right to ride. Auburger was arrested when he tried to grab a wheel of the same bus as it pulled away from the stop. Metro's Assistant General Manager Murray Bond said disabled persons were not permitted on regular coaches because the company does not think it is safe. Metro provides wheelchair lifts on Special Access buses. but Bond said the cost of installing wheelchair lifts on regular buses would be prohibitive. Defense attorney Joanie Wilkens said after Tuesday’s hearing that she considered Albanese's order unusual but that ADAPT did not have the time or resources to fight it in court. ADAPT members were in Cincinnati to protest policies of Queen City Metro and the American Public Transit Association, which is having a convention at the Westin Hotel. In Washington, DOT's issuance of a final regulation requiring transit systems to provide reasonable alternative transportation for the handicapped contained no surprises. Many transit systems have been moving for several years toward providing alternatives such as van service or a taxi voucher system for handicapped passengers. But ADAPT and other national disability rights groups, dismayed by the new rule, almost immediately filed federal lawsuits against DOT to block the move. Handicapped representatives said the new rule fell far short of carrying out the law. A federal court in 1981 ruled that a federal requirement that all transit systems be accessible to the handicapped was too much of a financial burden. It told the Urban Mass Transportation Administration to develop new requirements that would assure that the handicapped are provided service. Under the final rule announced Tuesday, a transit authority must establish some alternative services for the handicapped if the regular bus or rail service can not be made accessible. Other members of ADAPT continued to picket in their wheelchairs in front of the Westin Hotel on Tuesday. The group suspended a wheelchair from a wooden cross. It symbolizes how the disabled are being crucified," said Bill Bolte, who helped to hoist the chair. PHOTO -- The Cincinnati Enquirer/Fred Strau: Two protesters hang a wheelchair on a large wooden cross. One man in a cowboy hat and plaid shirt (Joe Carle) steadies the cross and the chair from below, while a second man (Jim Parker) stands and pulls the manual wheelchair higher. Behind them several other protesters (including Joanne ____) watch and stand by extensive police barricades in front of the APTA convention hotel. Caption reads: Joe Carle, left, and Jim Parker chain a wheelchair to a cross Tuesday outside the Westin Hotel. The two were among several members of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit demonstrating against City Metro and the American Public Transit Association which is meeting at the Westin. - ADAPT (109)
The Denver Post Friday, Dec. 18, 1981 [Headline] Handicapped Will Protest RTD Wheelchair-Lift Ban By George Lane Denver Urban Affairs Writer The board of directors of the Regional Transportation District Thursday made it official – there will be no wheelchair lifts on 89 high-capacity buses expected to be delivered in 1983. The board actually decided a month ago there would be no lifts on the new buses, but they have been hedging on finalizing that action because of objections voiced by the area’s disabled community. Following the vote on the lifts, Wade Blank, co-administrator for the Atlantis Community for the disabled and organizer of the protest against the RTD action, told the transit directors that members of the handicapped community view the action as a violation of their human rights and they will respond to that violation Jan. 4. Blank later said members of the disabled community will be in “training for civil disobedience” between now and Jan. 4. He said beginning Jan. 4, 10 disabled persons in wheelchairs will stage a sit-in in the office of L.A. “Kim” Kimball, RTD’s executive director and general manager. “Everyday during the month of January, 10 disabled people will be occupying Kimball’s office,” Blank said. They won’t have any able-bodied people with them – and if they’re arrested they will be replaced by 10 more. At the conclusion of the board meeting, Kimball told the directors that the RTD staff will take steps to try to prevent this action, but he doesn’t think it proper to discuss those steps at this time. The RTD board during its Nov. 19 meeting voted to save more than a million dollars by not ordering the lifts on the new buses. The RTD staff recommended this action because they said the lifts are expensive (more than $12,000 per bus) and difficult to maintain. The staff proposal was to use the articulated buses on high ridership bus routes, freeing regular buses with wheelchair lifts to provide better service for the handicapped. A delegation from the handicapped community objected to this proposal, with arguments that RTD officials had promised several years ago that 50 percent of the district’s bus fleet would be made accessible to wheelchair-bound riders and all new buses would be ordered with lifts. About 25 disabled persons from Atlantis staged a wheelchair-bound sit-in following the November meeting until Kimball and three board members promised to attempt to get the entire board to reconsider the action. Thursday’s vote was the outcome of that promise. - ADAPT (206)
Village Voice, March 4, 1986, p.27 [Headline] NAT HENTOFF: America’s Apartheid [This was part of a series of articles Mr. Hentoff wrote for the Village Voice on disability issues and people with disabilities in our society.] PHOTO in center of page, Photo credit Michael Rondou / Press - Telegram: A slight man (Bobby Hartwell) in a somewhat rickety manual wheelchair sits in front of a large city bus [number 4405]. Through the windsheild a very beefy uniformed man, perhaps the driver, stands arms resting in front of him. Behind and to the side of this first bus is a group of three police men standing and conferring. Behind them a couple of other wheelchair riders are blocking a second bus. Behind that bus a third is barely visable. Text box above the photo: “Anatomy is not destiny and never has been.” The photo caption: A demonstrator holds a bus hostage In Long Beach, California: Because of the way the bus is built, the demonstrator can't get on. [Italicized] A “caste” of. . . persons has been created [in America]. Members suffer a stigma of abnormality, inferiority, and dependency, are provided with separate facilities and programs, and are encouraged to interact only with others of the same caste. [Italicized ends] —Robert Funk, Director/Attorney, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, Inc. [Italicized] Black people started a movement when they were forced to sit in the backs of buses. We're not even allowed on the buses. [Italicized ends] – Julie Haraskin, during a nonviolent direct-action demonstration in Los Angeles by ADAPT (American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit) Barry Giddings is a citizen of the United States who lives in Philadelphia. In 1981, he was shot in the neck and became a quadriplegic. The only way he can get around is in a wheelchair. Until December 10, 1985, he and his brother lived in his mother's home. On that day, Mrs. Giddings and her family were evicted. She went to Philadelphia's Division of Adult Services to get shelter for herself and her sons. Mrs. Giddings was told that she and her nondisabled son would be provided shelter, but Barry Giddings would have to provide for himself. Why? Because he was disabled. The apparatchiks tried to make Mrs. Giddings understand that they had no choice in this matter. Taking care of her disabled son's needs, they explained, would cost more money than was being spent on the average homeless soul in the city's shelters. Then there were the costs of additional insurance premiums to cover the city if this quadriplegic were taken in. Then where should he go? Was this man to be thrown out into the street to lie there until he died? Not our problem, said Philadelphia's Division of Adult Services. Lest you think that the decision to wholly abandon this disabled man was made by some low-level employee devoted to the increasingly popular notion that inconvenient people should be terminated, the person who sent Barry Giddings into the night was following the policy of Philadelphia's Division of Adult Services. A relative arranged to have Giddings taken into Jefferson Hospital for the night because the staff there, unlike the folks at Adult Services, could not bear leaving him without shelter. They put him in the emergency room. The next day, he was removed to Magee Rehabilitation Hospital, although he did not require hospitalization. What he required, was a place to stay, and Magee Rehabilitation Hospital couldn’t keep him because providing shelter wasn't its' function. Barry Giddings, with the help of Stefan Presser, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney, took the city of Philadelphia to court. The class action suit charged that the city policy discriminates against homeless people who are disabled, and thereby violates their Constitutional right to equal protection under the law as well as their rights under Section 504 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973. That statute forbids discrimination against the handicapped in any program receiving Federal funds, and Philadelphia's Division of Adult Services, as part of the Department of Human Services, does receive Federal money. The city of Philadelphia quickly caved in, placed Giddings in a temporary shelter and said it would find permanent housing for him and his mother. As Stefan Presser points out, a particularly shocking thing about the case was that although the city had been engaged in a vigorous campaign to get the homeless into shelters, it had this firm policy of shutting out the disabled among the homeless. "There's no telling," Presser told me, “how many disabled people have been turned away until we got the policy changed, and who knows what happened to them? Some of the organizations for the disabled inform me that from time to time they've had phone calls from people who have been refused shelter because they're not able-bodied, but when they got to the phone booth from which the call was made, there was no one there." Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man could have a counterpart in the experiences of the nation's disabled for many, many years. As Robert Funk, Director of the Disability Rights, Education and Defense Fund, wrote in 1981: “American society, under the guise of humanitarian efforts, has developed a record, with respect to treatment of disabled persons, that is a history of isolation and discrimination inflicted upon them because of their ‘handicaps.’ This history, manifested in the attitude of ‘out of sight, out of mind,' carried out through policies of custodialism, has resulted in an ostracized, invisible minority denied access to organized society." This year, in his part of a forthcoming book, Images of the Disabled/Disabling Images, Funk makes the corollary point—— and see if any of this applies to you ---- that "the general public does not associate the word 'discrimination' with the segregation and exclusion of disabled people. Most people assume that disabled people are excluded from school or segregated because they cannot learn or because they need special protection. So too, the absence of disabled coworkers is simply considered a confirmation of the obvious fact that disabled people can't work. These assumptions are deeply rooted in history. Historically, the inferior economic and social status of disabled people has been viewed as the inevitable consequence of tho physical and mental differences imposed by disability." I know a young woman whose disability is athetosis, a form of cerebral palsy, which affects her speech and the way she walks. She is a first-class writer --- a published writer --- and a graduate of Harvard Law School. Currently in Hartford, she specializes in state regulation of automobile and homeowners’ insurance. Her name is Lisa Blumberg and she wrote me recently: "If nondisabled adults spent more time talking to disabled adults, they would learn that anatomy is not destiny and never has been." But because many disabled adults are segregated from the rest of the population, misconceptions about them, along with ignorance of who they actually are, continue to create more discrimination. For instance. Michael Landwehr of the Council for Disability Rights in Chicago, born with spina bifida, was disabled during surgery when he was 12. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois. Landwehr watched with great interest when in 1973 Congress enacted Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act forbidding discrimination against the disabled in any programs or activities that receive Federal funding. So what has Michael Landwehr's life been like since 1973? “I have been denied an apartment based on my disability," he says. “Last year I was uprooted from home when the commuter train I took to work refused to let me continue riding without an attendant. I was told I could not buy a ticket in the first-class section of an airliner unless I also purchased a ticket for an attendant. I have been denied jobs and promotions on the basis of my disability. Every day I am denied access to public transportation. [He is in A wheelchair.] “Hundreds of thousands of disabled persons remain incarcerated in nursing homes and institutions, isolated from every aspect of community life, denied their right to vote, denied the right to education and employment. Disabled people remain the most unemployed and underpaid group in the country. For every dollar earned by a nondisabled white male, a disabled white male earns 52 cents, a disabled minority male earns 25 cents, and a disabled minority woman earns 12 cents." But the disability rights movement is gathering momentum and has already brought about some changes. Accordingly, by the end of this decade, there is likely to be a stretching of public consciousness concerning this form of American apartheid that has largely been ignored during the rise of all the other movements for equal protection under the law-—blacks, women, Native Americans, homosexuals and lesbians, Hispanics, et al. Future columns will include an exploration of the nonviolent direct-action arm of the disability rights movement, which is currently the most vigorous continuation of the Martin Luther King-Saul Alinsky legacy. The series will also go into the history of legislation and court action concerning the disabled; the seemingly infinite ways in which the disabled are distorted, sentimentalized, and underestimated by the press, television, and films; a battery of very specific legislative recommendations by the disabled; and a good deal more. One of the underlying themes is a comment by Vassar Miller, who has published eight volumes of poetry, one of which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. In her early sixties now, she was born with cerebral palsy. “What handicaps me far more than my physical condition," she says, “is the reaction society has to it. And, no less important, my reaction to society's reaction." Vassar Miller has edited a new book, Despite This Flesh (University of Texas Press), an extraordinarily illuminating collection of short stories and poems about the disabled. If public television had any imagination, a striking series could be made from Despite This Flesh. It ranges from pungent, poignant, and sharply funny evocations of childhood to a resoundingly erotic poem about a paralyzed man, "Seated Nude" by Richard Ronan. In her introduction, Vassar Miller tells of how, when she was a child, before there was ever such a thing as special education or mainstreaming, her stepmother “had tried to enroll me in a private school. ‘They just looked at me and started talking about God!‘" her stepmother said in dismayed tones when she came home. By the time the 1980s are over, a picket line of the disabled might elbow God aside and change the admissions policies of a school like that. The pressure is rising inside the disabled to break out of their caste, to be visible, to be part of whatever the hell's going on that they want to be part of. Consider ADAPT (American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit). In a number of cities around the country, its members have been demonstrating and getting arrested in protests against the lack of lifts on buses and the absence of ways of enabling the disabled to use other forms of public transportation. On October 6 in Los Angeles, a march of some 280 disabled ended at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, where the American Public Transit Association was holding a convention. This was the scene, as described in The Disability Rag (Box 145, Louisville, Kentucky): "Attempts by ADAPT members to descend to the main lobby of the Bonaventure on the one elevator connecting the lobby with the street level were met with police resistance. Security forces turned off the elevator and escalators. Police blocked doors to prevent other disabled people from entering the hotel. Chants of ‘We Will Ride!‘ filled the Bonaventure from protesters inside and out. A number of ADAPT marchers, determined that conventioneers would not be able to use the escalators either, tried to block the escalator entrances or to throw themselves down the steps....By Monday, the Bonaventure had become a police-held fortress.“ I bet you never thought disabled people could do anything like that. It's just the beginning. As an ADAPT organizer yelled at a crowd of the disabled in Los Angeles, “We've got to get over our slave mentality!" - ADAPT (205)
[Headline] NAT HENTOFF:“No Wonder God Punished Her by Making Her Blind!” Village Voice, March 18, 1986, page unknown. PHOTO in center of page. Photo credit, DAVID STONE/MAINSTREAM: MAGAZINE OF THE ABLE-DISABLED: A group of police officers in dark short sleeved uniforms standing and looking at one another. On the floor at their feet, a man in white clothes (Chris Hronis) lies on his side arms behind his back, apparently handcuffed. Through the legs of the officers you can see someone else (Edith Harris) sitting on the floor also apparently handcuffed. At the edges of the frame you can see a couple of people's faces and at the bottom, the back of someone's head. Above the picture is a text box that reads: "I am tired of being closed away." Photo Caption reads: Disabled activists commit civil disobedience in Las Angeles to make public transit accessible: “We will ride." [Italicized] New vocabulary must be developed. Racism and sexism are words known to every schoolchild, but there is no word to describe bigotry against persons with disabilities. [End italicized] – Lisa Blumberg, Hartford Courant, June 24, I985 [Italicized]... it is absolutely essential to understand that the pain and "tragedy" of living with a disability in our culture, such as it is, derives primarily from the pain and humiliation of discrimination, oppression, and anti-disability attitudes, not from the disability itself. [End italicized] — Michelle Fine and Adrienne Asch, Carasa News, Committee for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse, June/July 1984 [Italicized] Public transportation is a tax-supported system. The handicapped pay taxes. It's as simple as that. How would the average taxpayer feel if he was denied access to a facility he paid for? [End italicized] – Wade Blank, a founder of and organizer for ADAPT (American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation), Denver Post, October 6, 1985 In the spring of 1982, a woman in a wheelchair went into a clothing store in the Bronx and was told by the guard that he was required by store policy to turn away people with wheelchairs. Shs wrote a letter of complaint to the head of the chain and received an apology, along with a $50 gift certificate. Off she went to cash in the certificate, and guess what happened? That's right. A guard turned her away from the store. The woman sued; the store settled the case by giving her a check for $10,300. I had been about to write that a disabled lawyer had handled her case, but he — Kipp Elliott Watson—corrected me. “I am a lawyer with a disability," he said. In Jim Johnson's "Shop 'Talk" column in the February 22, 1986, Editor & Publisher, there is a guide for copy editors and reporters concerning accuracy of language in stories about those with disabilities. It was put together by more than 50 national disability organizations. One illustration: “Perhaps the most offensive term to disabled people is ‘wheelchair-bound' or ‘confined to a wheelchair.’ Disabled people don't sleep in their wheelchairs, they sleep in bed. Call them 'wheelchair users.'" Also, "labeling of groups should be avoided. Say ‘people who are deaf' or 'people with arthritis’ rather than ‘the deaf' or ‘the arthritic.’ . . . One of the problems with eliminating insensitive terms is the, lack of a clear policy that reporters and editors can follow. A reporter cannot change a paper's policy by himself. The first time a reporter writes 'person who is arthritic,’ a copy editor is sure to change it to ‘an arthritic’ to save words.” And I would particularly recommend the next correction to the vast majority of the reporters and editorial writers who have covered Baby Doe cases: “Afflicted [unintelligible] a negative term that suggests hopelessness. Use disabled. Also to be avoided are deformed and invalid." The guide is especially useful because more and more of those with disabilities are going to be making news-in–lawsuits, individual acts of resistance against discrimination, and in collective demonstrations. For instance, in Los Angeles last October, during a nonviolent direct-action protest against the American Public Transit Association (which is resisting making all its buses accessible to the handicapped), there was this report by George Stein in the October 7 Los Angeles-Times: “During the procession, 131 wheelchairs, stretching more than a block, carried people with disabilities ranging from spina bifida, cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy to snapped spinal cords, congenital defects and post-polio paralysis. “Many had the withered limbs and lack of body control that the more fortunate usually try not to stare at. “But not Sunday. Motorists slowed to watch the sight. Some honked in support. One of the demonstrators was Bob Kafka, a spokesman for ADAPT (American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit) "This is beautiful,” Kafka said as he wheeled along “I am tired of being closed away." Carolyn Earl, who uses a wheelchair, tried to make a reservation at the Harrison Hotel in Oakland, California. The clerk wouldn't take an advance deposit. Suppose there's a fire, he said. The hotel would be liable. But call back, he said. She did. Ain't that a shame, there are no rooms with baths, and she'd asked for a room with a bath. Okay, the woman said, I’ll take a room without a bath. The clerk said that for her, there were no rooms, period. Just like it used to be with blacks and Jews. It happens, however, that according to Section 54.1 of California's Civil Code, it is as unlawful to discriminate in public accommodations against people with disabilities as it is to exclude racial and ethnic minorities. Carolyn Earl went to court. In December 1984, the hotel agreed to pay her damages and to sign an agreement pledging never again to refuse lodging to anyone who is disabled. In Louisville last fall, Steve and Nadine Jacobson, who are blind, were on trial. The charge: disorderly conduct. On July 7, they had been sitting in exit-row seats on United Airlines Flight 869 to Minneapolis, where they live. Airline personnel and security employees from Standford airport ordered the Jacobsons to get out of those seats. In the event of an emergency, the Jacobsons were told, they, being blind, could jeopardize their own safety and that of others. The rationale for the policy, it came out at the trial, was a “test” some time back during which – now get this – sighted people were blindfolded two hours before a mock evacuation and it turned out that these “blind” people had trouble opening emergency exit doors as well as dealing with other evacuation procedures. On the basis of a test that used fake blind people to find out how real blind people might act, the Federal Aviation Administration—long known for its stunning brilliance—issued an advisory circular suggesting to airlines that they keep blind folks out of those emergency exit rows. As they were trying to get the Jacobsons to move, United Airlines personnel kept insisting that a "Federal regulation" said they had to get out of those seats. The Jacobsons, however, had just come from a convention at which that very advisory circular had been discussed. They knew there was no rule. And so they sat. And sat. Irritated passengers offered to trade seats with them. Another yelled that the Jacobsons were holding everybody else up. "How can you be so selfish?" And another, speaking from the heart, pointed to Nadine Jacobson, and said to a neighbor: “No wonder God punished her by making her blind!" Eventually, the Jacobsons were removed from the plane and charged with disorderly conduct—not with violating the alleged “Federal regulation." At the trial, Steve Jacobson told the jury: “All through my life, there were things I was told I couldn't do because I was blind. In college, they said I couldn't take math." (Mr. Jacobson is a computer analyst for 3M.) He went on to say that he kept ignoring all the advice about all the things he couldn't do because he was blind. “I just had to go on," he said. Where he works, he was told not to use the escalator. He could get hurt. He uses the escalator. That day at the airport, “To move from my seat would reinforce all that I've worked not to have happen. To move would say to the other people on the plane that I am less capable than any sighted person to open that emergency door. And that isn't. the case. It just isn't.” As for Nadine Jacobson: “I was scared. I had never been arrested before. I felt really bad that people were angry and upset, and that the plane was being delayed." But still she wouldn't move. “Many times people make assumptions about what we [blind people] can do and can't do. I knew that if I moved from that seat, everyone would think that anyone else was more competent than me. It's an issue of self-respect. I'm a citizen of this country, and a blind person, and I feel I have a right to travel in this country, and if I get assigned a seat, I have a right to sit there." Would the jury have been convinced solely by what the Jacobsons said? I don't know. But I expect they listened with much interest to testimony by Mark D. Warriner of Frontier Airlines, who said his company had stopped discriminating against blind people as a result of a March 1985 evacuation drill by World Airways, which showed that blind people—real blind people—got out during an emergency faster than sighted passengers. The Jacobsons were acquitted. The verdict, said Nadine Jacobson, was “a step forward for blind people all over the country." Footnote: None of the police officers or the security personnel involved in arresting the Jacobsons would give them their names. Without the names, the Jacobsons could never identify them, ho-ho. But an attorney sitting in front of the Jacobsons on the plane handed them a piece of paper with one of the names, and that led to others being revealed. The stories about the Jacobsona and the woman trying to get a hotel room originally appeared in The Disability Rag in somewhat different form. There is nothing like that paper in the whole country. It covers the whole disability rights spectrum—from what‘s happening in the courts to the directions being taken by groups of nonviolent resisters. It publishes memoirs, jeremiads, parodies, and material for which there is no category. It is the liveliest publication I know. It has grace and beauty and fury. It costs $9 a year, from The Disability Rag, Box 145, Louisville, Kentucky 40201. You have a choice of print, cassette tape, or large-print edition. We shall be getting back to public transit, along with education, jobs, and stereotypes of people with disabilities in movies and television as well as in print. The importance of access to buses and other forms of transit has been distilled by Wade Blank of ADAPT: “Jobs and education don't mean much if you can't get a bus to take you there. Accessibility to public transportation—moving from one place to another—should be a right, not just a consumer service." Recently, Wade Blank was telling me how, because of ADAPT and the pressure it keeps putting on, 78 per cent of the buses in Denver, where ADAPT is based, are now accessible. Soon, with 200 new buses on order, all of them with lifts, people with disabilities will be able to ride 90 per cent of the Denver buses. Already, Blank said, this access means a lot. “I know a man with cerebral palsy," Blank continued. “He has no use of his legs or arms. He can't speak. But now, with the buses accessible, he can ride around and see the sights and come to our offices. He can move where and when he wants to in the Denver community." He's no longer closed away. In Dallas, Kataryn Thomas, 57, was arrested last month during an ADAPT demonstration against the recalcitrant Dallas Area Rapid Transit Authority. She was born with spina bifida, uses a wheelchair, has worked as a receptionist, and when she was busted, a bright orange flag connected to the back of her chair fluttered in the breeze. The words on it were: “Free Spirit." “l don't have to climb any mountains," Kataryn Thomas told the Dallas Times Herald. “I just want to ride the public transit.” - ADAPT (219)
Denver Post, Issues, 10/6/85, no page number [Headline] Transit leaders to face protests from disabled By Jack Farrar Special to the Denver Post The American Public Transit Association will run into some political street theater when it rolls into Los Angeles today for its annual meeting. Waiting for the group will be a militant cast of handicapped individuals, including members of a Denver organization called Atlantis, who want full accessibility to the nation's public transportation system. As APTA delegates convene at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, more than 100 people in wheelchairs – members of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit – will be “marching” single-file from MacArthur Park, more than a mile away, to begin a week-long series of demonstrations. They won't have a parade permit. They haven't asked for one. Through such acts of civil disobedience, the demonstrators hope to force the APTA, public officials and the news media to think about what they consider to be the most pressing issue facing the handicapped: access to public transportation. One contingent of protesters will be led by Wade Blank, a 44-year-old Denverite who cut his activist teeth in the 1960s, marching with blacks in Alabama and peaceniks in Ohio. Access 'a right'[boldface] Blank is the founder and executive director of Atlantis, one of ADAPT's most militant member organizations. “Jobs and education don't mean much,” Blank argues, “if you can't take a bus to get there. Accessibility to public transportation – moving from one place to the other – should be a right, not just a consumer service.” For the past three years, ADAPT, largely under Blank's leadership, has demanded that APTA adopt total accessibility for the handicapped as an official policy rather than as an objective. Transit association officials have responded by citing numerous improvements made in service for the handicapped – improvements that the handicapped have applauded – and contends that total accessibility is financially impractical. “We have not ignored the handicapped,” says APTA Deputy Executive Director Albert Engelken. “Accessibility is a compelling issue. But total accessibility is an enormous undertaking, and with federal dollars shrinking, our resources are limited. In any case, it is not the role of an association like ours to establish policy.” Disabled activists, however, believe the costs of accessibility are distorted by the transportation industry. Moreover, they argue, the issue is civil rights, not economics. “Public transportation is a tax-supported system,” Blank says. “The handicapped pay taxes. It's as simple as that. How would the average taxpayer feel if he was denied access to a facility he paid for?” Long regarded as a quiet minority, disabled individual recently have added a more confrontational approach to their struggle for equality, and the man frequently in the front lines of that movement is Blank, whose long blond hair and granny glasses evoke the image of the 1960s activist. He encourages the handicapped to take to the streets when they feel their demands are being taken less than seriously. Members of Atlantis have made headlines locally and nationally with their tactics in Denver – chaining themselves to seats of fast food restaurants, occupying intersections that don't accommodate wheelchairs, and blocking the entrances to buildings with architectural barriers. Rules watered down [boldface] Progress in making public transportation available to the handicapped can be traced to the Urban Mass Transit Administration's adoption of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act in 1979. [sic] Section 504 generally made it illegal to exclude any individual, by reason of handicap, from any program receiving federal dollars. UMTA's regulations stated that all new buses purchased with federal money must include wheelchair lifts and aimed for 50 percent of peak-hour accessibility on regular bus routes. RTD standards strict [boldface] The Regional Transportation District in metropolitan Denver has adopted accessibility standards that are more stringent than required. Even after Section 504 regulations were softened in 1981, RTD's board chose to maintain its commitment to provide 50 percent peak-hour accessibility on all routes, and 100 percent off-peak accessibility. And RTD will soon become the first public transit system in the United States to introduce wheelchair lifts on its larger, regional commuter buses. Despite such advances, Blank will not be satisfied until disabled individuals throughout the United States can board and ride a bus whenever and wherever the able-bodied do the same. “We simply want APTA, as the association which speaks for the public transportation industry, to declare its intention to make the system accessible. We know it will take time. But isn't this the country that put a man on the moon?” - ADAPT (228)
Los Angeles Times 10/7/85 [This article continues on ADAPT 227 but the entire text of the story is included here for easier reading,] 3 photos by Rick Meyer/Los Angles Times: photo 1 is of a section of the march with men and women of various ethnic backgrounds and disabilities walking, rolling and pushing others' chairs. There is a sense of energy in the group and many wear buttons and carry signs reading "Access Now", "Restore 504", and "Our Time has Come -- CAPH." Caption reads: Disabled move eastward down Wilshire Boulevard toward downtown in protest parade. Photo 2 is another picture of the march, taken from above. The crowd is loosely organized, many in the front are looking up and smiling. There are children with disabilities, people in neckties, people with headbands. In the crowd you can see Bill Bolte, Bob Kafka, Gil Casarez among many others. Some carry signs on sticks reading "APTA oppresses", as well as "Transit for All" and one about ADAPT. Caption reads: Signs are carried along Figueroa Street by disabled protesters. Photo 3 (much smaller) is of a police officer pushing a man in a manual wheelchair (Jim Parker) to the side of the street while another officer seems to be stopping a car. Caption reads: Police officer wheels disabled protester out of traffic lanes. [Headline] Disabled Stage Protest Parade; 8 Arrested Oppose Transit Group Policy Against Mandating Bus Chair Lifts By GEORGE STEIN Times Staff Writer The halt and the blind converged on a public transit conference in downtown Los Angeles Sunday, parading through streets without a city permit and blocking entrances and stairways at the conference hotel in an effort to make the point that the disabled are denied the access to transportation available to the general public. Eight activists for the disabled were arrested on charges of failing to disperse an unlawful gathering and intefering with a police officer. The arrests —“a distasteful necessity," police said -- took place in and around the Bonaventure. They came after Los Angeles police had relented to an earlier stand to make arrests if any tried to parade along Wilshire Boulevard from MacArthur Park to the conference. “Listen, how could we arrest all these people?" Capt. Bill Wedgeworth said. During the procession, 131 wheelchairs, stretching more than a block, carried people with disabilities ranging from spina bifidia, cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy to snapped spinal cords, congenital defects and postpolio paralysis. Many had the withered limbs and lack of body control that the more fortunate usually try not to stare at. But not Sunday. Motorists slowed to watch the sight. Some honked in support. “This is beautiful. I am proud to be a disabled person. I am tired of being closed away," said Bob Kafka, as he wheeled along. Kafka, from Austin, Tex., a spokesman for the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, has a broken spinal cord. He was among those arrested later. Once inside the hotel, the group headed for the reception area in an attempt to reach delegates to the annual conference of the American Public Transit Assn. However, police kept the demonstrators bottled up near the entrance, one floor above the main reception area. "Access now! Access now!" the demonstrators shouted. The crowd, which came from a spectrum of disabled activist groups in and out of California, targeted the transit convention because the organization opposes a national policy mandating wheelchair lifts on buses. The American Public Transit Assn.'s position is to let each transit agency deal with access for the disabled as a local decision. In Los Angeles, the Southern California Rapid Transit District, with 2,445 buses, has wheelchair lifts on 1,691 and is retrofitting another 200. The RTD hopes to have lifts on all buses in five years, which, according to a spokesman, would probably make it the first major urban bus system to be so equipped. After the demonstrators blocked hotel escalator wells for almost an hour, Wedgeworth told them their gathering was illegal. The actual arrests were an odd orchestration of defiance and cooperation. Escalator Well George Florom, a member of the disabled group from Colorado Springs, Colo., began thrashing as police tried to remove him from an escalator well. It took three officers to subdue him. “He began kicking and trying to bite me, so he had to go," Lt Ken Colby explained. One of the demonstrators grabbed an officer's gun, police said. Florom, lay quietly once handcuffed, and police gently placed him in his wheelchair and wheeled him to a lift-equipped van that had been arranged for the occasion. Trained medical personnel also were on hand. Edith Harris of Hartford, Conn., had earlier failed in an attempt to get arrested, tearing up American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit literature and throwing it on Figueroa Street. "Arrest me,“ she screamed to ‘no avail from her motorized wheelchair. The police only moved her to the sidewalk, and an officer went back to [unreadable] trash. Her wish was granted later, after she tried to herself down one of the blocked escalators. Then she calmed down, gratefully accepting a drink of water from a police officer, while waiting for a stretcher to arrive. Unhandcuffed, sitting upright, she was placed in the van. Her wheelchair was carefully handed in after her. Taken to Station The arrestees were taken to the Central Division station for processing. The seven men were later booked at County Jail, where bail was set at $500. Harris was booked at Sybil Brand Institute. Some police worried that the department's image would suffer from Sunday's action. “We look bad, no matter what we do," Sgt. Bill Tiffany said. After the arrests, a spokesman said, “It must be stressed that the Los Angeles Police Department has repeatedly tried to meet with demonstration leaders in the attempt to provide legal alternatives to accomplish their objectives and avoid the distasteful necessity of arresting handicapped citizens.” The police were not alone in their concern. Five months before the convention, according to Mark Johnson, 34, of Westminster, Colo., an organizer for the disabled group, RTD board member Jack Day flew to Denver to try to talk the organization out of civil disobedience. Negotiations foundered on an demand by the disabled group that the RTD introduce and support a proposal that the American Public Transit Assn. reverse its stand and back mandatory wheelchair lifts on buses, Johnson said. He said the disabled activists will be in town through Wednesday. The American Public Transit Assn. is a lobbying and policy organization. The five-day convention began Sunday. - ADAPT (195)
Handicapped Coloradan, vol 7 no 5, December 1984 [Headline] ADAPT HEADS FOR SAN DIEGO The executive board of the American Public Transit Association (APTA) has agreed to vote on a resolution calling upon the nation’s transit systems to provide accessible mainline bus service. That vote will take place when the executive board meets in San Diego Feb. 9 or 10. Wade Blank, a spokesperson for the group pressuring APTA to endorse the resolution, said he expects that the APTA board will summarily vote it down. Two years ago the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) put such a resolution before the national convention of APTA when it met in Denver. While APTA allowed the presentation, it refused to vote on the resolution. Twenty-eight ADAPT members were arrested for civil disobedience outside the convention hall when APTA met in Washington, D.C., in October 1984. Following that convention, ADAPT asked new APTA chairman Warren Frank, director of the Syracuse, N.Y., transit system, for a meeting to discuss accessibility. Frank responded by reiterating his opposition to mandatory accessibility. “The transit industry has thoroughly studied the matter and as a result strongly endorses current federal requirements which provide the flexibility for each local community to meet the needs of their handicapped citizens with specialized services or full accessibility or a combination of both," Frank said in a letter to Blank dated Nov. 2. Blank wired this response: “Your letter . . . is a sign of your bad faith and lack of moral resolve when it comes to the rights of disabled people. To offer us a statement of APTA's policy toward the disabled citizen and indicate your unwillingness to be flexible is no different than Governor Wallace standing in the doorway to prevent blacks from integrating." The telegram concluded with a warning that ADAPT would show up at the Western Regional Convention of APTA in San Antonio, Tex., April 20-24. Frank finally agreed to meet with representatives of ADAPT in Chicago Dec. 6. Frank was accompanied by APTA attorney Robert Batchelder and executive vice president Jack R. Gilstrap. Gilstrap, who runs the daily APTA operations, has been the target of a number of vocal attacks by ADAPT members. "For the first time Jack Gilstrap actually shook my hand and smiled at me," Blank said after returning from the Chicago meeting. APTA agreed to allow ADAPT to make a 20-minute presentation of the merits of accessibility at the San Diego board meeting. APTA further agreed to provide the names and addresses of board members so that ADAPT could lobby them in advance of the meeting. ADAPT has said it will cancel the demonstration in San Antonio in the unlikely event the APTA board supports mainline access in all cities. In the meantime, ADAPT has continued working on plans for the San Antonio convention. Organizers believe the smaller nature of that regional convention will make it easier for them to disrupt it. Blank said ADAPT intended to be at every APTA meeting until they agree to total accessibility. ADAPT is still working with Rep. Pat Schroeder's (D-Colo.) office on a fundraiser to help pay the bond money for the 28 demonstrators arrested in Washington during the October APTA convention. The Washington chapter of ADAPT has pressured the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) board of directors to establish a policy that all newly purchased buses will be equipped with wheelchair lifts. WMATA was to vote on that resolution Jan. 10. - ADAPT (188)
Dallas Times Herald, Saturday Nov. 24, 1984 [Headline] Wheelchair activist adopt radical tactics Los Angeles Times WASHINGTON — It was a scene reminiscent of the 1960s civii rights demonstrations as angry protesters chanted slogans, picketed the White House and stopped traffic before they were finally dragged away by police. And the series of confrontations that ended with 27 arrests last month all seemed to come down to a similar central issue —- the right to sit on a bus, to have full access to public transportation. There was one striking difference, however. Unlike Rosa Parks and the black civil rights activists who battered down the Jim Crow barriers in the South, these protesters were in wheelchairs, and their goal was equal access for the physically handicapped. "It's a civil right to be able to ride public transportation," says Julia Haraksin, a wheelchair-bound Los Angeles resident who participated in the demonstrations. Organizations representing handicapped persons long have urged Washington to require that all new buses and rail systems built with funds from the Department of Transportation's Urban Mass Transportation Administration be equipped to accommodate handicapped riders. But Haraksin and other handicapped individuals are beginning to press the old arguments with more radical tactics. Frustrated by years of negotiating, lobbying in Washington, going through the courts and staging non-confrontational protests, some handicapped activists now are resorting to confrontations and civil disobedience. Thus, early in October, 100 members of a newly formed coalition called American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit confronted a national meeting of city transportation heads here, using the kind of civil disobedience tactics used 20 years earlier by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Protesters were arrested when they blocked entrances and buses of those attending the American Public Transit Association convention. “The strategy was to physically be a barrier because handicapped people have to face barriers all their lives," Wade Blank, a founder of Denver-based ADAPT, said. Calling the protests here “our Selma," leaders of ADAPT claimed a public relations victory and promised their struggle has only begun. They already are focusing their efforts on what they hope will be a larger demonstration at the next meeting of the American Public Transportation Association a year from now in Los Angeles. But their cause may be in for a tough battle. Their opposition comes from the Reagan administration, from many city governments and even from within the handicapped community. And as public attention focuses on the underlying budget choices involved, the opposition may swell with the addition of taxpayers concerned about the possible costs of a national full-access program. ADAPT argues a legal right to full access for the handicapped already exists. Federal law states Urban Mass Transportation Administration funds — which account for about 80 percent of the costs of the equipment in most municipal transportation systems —- cannot be spent on programs that discriminate against, or exclude, the handicapped. The law does not make clear, however, whether handicapped persons must be provided with access to regular bus lines or whether they can instead be provided with alternative transportation systems. Nor does it indicate who should make that decision. Current Department of Transportation policy, which is strongly supported by the American Public Transportation Association, allows each city to make its own decision on what type of transportation it will provide for the handicapped. This is in sharp contrast with Carter administration policy, which in 1979 interpreted federal regulations to mean full access. Members of ADAPT, opposing the separate-but-equal philosophy, argue that paratransit does not meet the needs of the handlcapped and is inherently discriminatory. “lt segregates the disabled people trom the able-bodied community," Mike Auberger, an organizer for ADAPT, said. Because paratransit requires advanced scheduling, sometimes weeks before a ride is needed, he said, “you have to schedule your life according to the transit system." Transit authorities, on the other hand, argue full access can be too expensive, given the low percentage of handicapped riders in many cities. Lift-fitted buses cost an estimated $8,000 to $10,000 more than regular buses. Furthermore, lift systems are often unreliable and time-consuming to operate and maintain, authorities add. In Denver, for example, the transportation district has spent $6.3 million to purchase or retrofit buses with lifts, 80 percent of which was paid for by the federal government, according to spokesman Gene Towne. Since it started mainline access in 1982, the district has spent close to $1 million in maintenance of the lifts and expects to spend an additional $900,000 this year. Yet only 12,000 of the district's 38 million riders use the lifts, according to Towne. ADAPT counters the issue is not cost but civil liberties. "In America, we have a way of hiding our prejudices with pragmatism," said Blank, a Presbyterian minister and veteran of the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s who now supports handicapped activists. Across the country, cities are using a variety of approaches to the problems of providing mass transit for the handicapped. ln Los Angeles, mainline access is required by state law. Although 1,850 of the Southern California Rapid Transit District's 2,400 buses are fitted with wheelchair lifts, some local advocates charge that broken lifts, drivers who do not know how to use the equipment or refuse to do so and an overall lack of commitment to providing access limits the system. [Bottom of the page is torn so missing text is included in brackets, as it is just a guess.] In Seattle, 570 of 1,100 buses serve the handicapped, providing about 5,900 rides a month. [The] Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle also contracts with groups to supply paratransit [vans] and half-fare cab service, [providing] 8,400 rides a month. In Denver, 432 of the [city's] buses are lift- or ramp-[equipped] providing more than 1,00[0 rides] per month. The city also [uses] vans and small buses in a transit system that provides [x number of] rides a month. None of Chicago's 2,400 [mainline] buses is fitted with lifts. [Instead] the city provides 42 [paratransit] buses, which offer 12,000 [rides per] month. - ADAPT (148)
Name of newspaper illegible Los Angeles Times? November 19,1984 Handicapped Stage Protests to Publicize Transportation Needs by Miles Harvey, Times Staff Writer PHOTO: Mary Frampton / Los Angeles Times A tidy looking woman in pants and a vest, with a slight smile on her face, sits in a manual wheelchair on a bus. She is sitting in the accessible doorway, the access symbol visible on the side of the doorway. Below and beneath her is a metal panel, like the barrier on some lifts that keeps the person from rolling off the front of the lift. Caption reads: Barbara Trigg rides a hydraulic lift onto a Los Angeles bus. Article reads: Washington -- It was a scene reminiscent of the 1960s civil rights demonstrations as angry protesters chanted slogans, picketed the White House and stopped traffic before they were finally dragged away by police. And the series of confrontations that ended with 27 arrests last month seemed to come down to a similar central issue— the right to sit on a bus, to have full access to public transportation. There was one striking difference, however. Unlike Rosa Parks and the black civil rights activist who battered down the Jim Crow barriers in the South, these protesters were in wheelchairs, and their goal was equal access for the physically handicapped. “It's a civil right to be able to ride public transportation," said Julia Haraksin, a wheelchair-bound Los Angeles resident who participated in the demonstrations. “In the ‘60s, the blacks had to ride in the back—and we can't even get on the buses." New, Radical Tactics Organizations representing handicapped persons long have urged Washington to require that new buses and rail systems built with funds from the Department of Transportation's Urban Mass Transportation Administration be equipped to accommodate handicapped riders. But Haraksin and other handicapped individuals like her now are beginning to press the old arguments with new, more radical tactics. Frustrated by years of negotiating, lobbying in Washington, going through the courts and staging non-confrontational protests, some members of the handicapped community now are resorting more actively to confrontations and civil disobedience. Thus, early in October, 100 members of a newly formed coalition called American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit confronted a national meeting of city transportation heads here, using the kind of civil disobedience tactics used 30 years earlier by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Protesters were arrested when they blocked entrances and buses of those attending the American Public Transit Assn. convention. The strategy was to physically be a barrier because handicapped people have to face barriers all their lives," Wade Blank, a founder of Denver-based ADAPT said. Calling the protests here " Selma," leaders of ADAPT claimed victory and promised that their struggle has only begun. They already are focusing their efforts on what they hope will be a larger demonstration at the next meeting of the American Public Transportation Assn. a year from now in Los Angeles. But they and their cause may be in for a tough battle. Their opposition comes from the Reagan Administration, from many city governments and even from within the handicapped community. And as public attention focuses on the underlying budget choices involved, the opposition may swell with the addition of taxpayers concerned about the possible costs of a national full-access program. ADAPT argues that a legal right to full access for the handicapped already exists. Federal law states that Urban Mass Transportation Administration funds — which account for about 80% of the costs of new and replacement equipment in most municipal transportation systems—cannot be spent on programs that discriminate against, or exclude, the handicapped. The law does not make clear, however, whether handicapped persons must be provided with access to regular bus lines or whether they can instead be provided with alternative transportation systems. Nor does it indicate who should make that decision. Cities Make Decisions Current Transportation Department policy, which is strongly supported by the American Public Transportation Assn., allows each city to make its own decision on what type of transportation it will provide for the handicapped. This is in sharp contrast with Carter Administration policy, which in 1979 interpreted federal regulation to mean full access. Members of ADAPT, opposing the separate-but-equal philosophy of paratransit argue that it does not meet the needs of the handicapped and that it is inherently discriminatory. "It segregates the disabled people from the able-bodied community," Mike Auberger, an organizer for ADAPT, said. Because paratrasit requires advanced scheduling [unreadable] a ride is needed, he said, “you have to schedule your life according to the system. No one else has to do that. That shows the inequality right there." He and other members of ADAPT contend that because of long waiting lists for paratransit, some cities refuse to offer the service to new users - thus cutting off thousands of handicapped persons from any public transportation. Transit authorities, on the other hand, argue that full access can be too expensive, given the low percentage of handicapped riders in many cities. Lift-fitted buses cost an estimated $8,000 to $10,000 more than regular buses. Furthermore, lift systems are often unreliable and time-consuming to operate and maintain, transit administrators say. In Denver, for example, the transportation district has spent $63 million to purchase or retrofit buses with lifts. 80% of which was paid for by the federal government, according to spokesman Gene Towne. Since it started mainline access in 1982, the district has spent close to $1 million in maintenance of the lifts and expects to spend an additional $900,000 this year. Yet of the district's total annual ridership of 38 million, only 12,000 use the lifts, according to Towne. ADAPT counters that the issue is not cost but civil liberties. “In America we have a way of hiding, our prejudices with pragmatism," said Blank, a Presbyterian minister and veteran of the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s who now supports handicapped activists. Variety of Approaches Across the country, cities are using a variety of approaches to the problems of providing mass transit for the handicapped. In Los Angeles, mainline access is required by state law. Although 1,850 of the Southern California Rapid Transit District‘s 2,400 buses are fitted with wheelchair lifts some local advocates charge that the RTD gives only "lip service" to access, complaining of broken lifts, drivers who do not know how to use the equipment or refuse to do so and an overall lack of commitment to providing access. The system provides only about 1,400 rides a month according to the RTD. Handicapped activists charge that the low ridership is attributable to the system's poor management. There were and are people in the operation department (of the RTD) back there who were and are opposed to the idea of access from day one," Dennis Cannon, a Washington-based expert who helped to plan the RTD's access program in the 1970s said. But in the last six months, the RTD has made "a major effort" to overcome the problem, according to RTD General Manager John A. Dyer. The system boosted its fiscal year 1985 budget for handicapped service by $3 million, to $4.9 million, to provide for a program to educate drivers and upgrade the quality of equipment and service. In Oakland, half the city's 800 buses are lift-equipped and all of the Alameda — Contra Costa Transit District's new buses will be lift-equipped. Seattle’s Services In Seattle, 570 of 1,100 buses are accessible to the handicapped, providing about 5,900 rides a month. The Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle also contracts with private groups to supply paratransit bus and half-fare cab service, providing a total of 8,400 rides a month in Denver. 432 of the city's 744 buses are lift- or ramp-equipped, providing more than 1,000 rides per month. The city also uses 13 vans and small buses in a paratransit system that provides 3,200 rides a month. In New York City, where an estimated 35% of all the transit passengers in the country use Metropolitan Transportation Authority vehicles each day. half of the city's 4,333 buses are fitted with lifts. The city has no figures on how many handicapped riders use the system, but one official calls the number minuscule. A new state law calls for $40 million over the next eight years to retrofit “in the neighborhood of 30" subway stops for handicapped use, according to a transit authority official. In addition the law will increase the percentage of lift-equipped buses to 65% of the fleet, as well as provide a paratransit system in the city by 1988. Minneapolis-St. Paul uses 45 paratransit buses and contracts with private cab companies to carry handicapped persons in all, the city provides 40.000 trips a month. None of Chicago's 2.400 regular buses are fitted with lifts. Instead the city provides 42 paratransit buses, which offer 12,000 rides a month. Additionally, 14 of the city's subway stops have been retrofitted for handicapped access and 300 of Chicago's 1,100 subway cars are accessible. If there is a diversity of approaches to the problem, there is also a diversity of views on the militant new tactics used by ADAPT and its supporters. The views of the handicapped people are all over the lot on what type of transport they'd like," Bob Batchelder, counsel for the APTA, said. But transit specialist Cannon, himself a wheelchair user, counters: “I'm talking to disabled people who wouldn't do what ADAPT does ... but who support what they are doing and think it needs being done." Whether ADAPT's controversial style will work remains an open question. While no negotiations are scheduled, ADAPT leaders vow to continue to harass association meetings. But in Los Angeles, the RTD's Dyer indicated that he hopes demonstrations will be replaced at next year's convention with “serious dialogue and discussion of the issues." "It’s a new thing for the disabled to see themselves with power," ADAPT's Auberger said, "but it's also a new experience for the powers that be." - ADAPT (180)
THE HANDICAPPED COLORADAN Volume 7, No. 3 Boulder, Colorado October 1984 PHOTO: A man in a leather brimmed hat, long hair beard and moustache down vest and jeans, seated in a motorized wheelchair (Mike Auberger), leans to his right as he is surrounded by abled bodied people. Back to the camera, a man plain clothes is partially in front of him, papers sticking out from his back pocket. A uniformed officer is also back to the camera and is holding Mike's arm which in front of Mike. A second uniformed officer is doing something behind Mike's back while a woman stands up on the sidewalk to his side watching with her hands on her hips. (She was an organizer with National Training and Information Center and was assisting with the Access Institute.) cation reads: D.C. Police Arrest Denver Disabled Protestor MIKE AUBERGER, a community organizer for the Atlantis Community in Denver and a member of the American Disabled for Accessible Transit (ADAPT) is arrested by Washington, D.C., police outside the Washington Convention Center where the national convention of the American Public Transit Association (APTA) was just getting under way. A spokesperson for APTA said that the demonstrations only delayed the start of the convention by a few minutes. Inside the convention hall Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole abandoned her prepared text and said the administration was working to provide public transit for the disabled. Outside the hall, demonstrators branded the secretary's plan as another “separate but equal" scheme and demanded that the federal government require all public transit systems be made accessible to the handicapped. Demonstrators not only blocked the entrances to the convention but also surrounded chartered buses that took delegates from their hotel to the convention center. The disabled activists represented a number of cities, including Denver, Syracuse, N.Y., Boston, El Paso, Los Angeles and Chicago. Additional photo on page 4. 28 Busted in D.C. The 28 disabled activists who were arrested for civil disobedience during the national convention of the American Public Transit Association (APTA) in Washington, D.C., last month are trying to raise $1500 to make their bail money by a Dec. 3 deadline. At the same time, they're preparing to carry their demand that the APTA members buy only wheelchair-lift equipped buses to the transit organization's regional convention in San Antonio on April 20. The Texas contingent from the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) under the leadership of Jim Parker of El Paso has been especially militant in their demands. Taking their lead from an editorial in the September Handicapped Coloradan, a coalition of of Texas disabled groups met in San Antonio and voted to ask transit systems in Texas to withdraw from APTA unless it goes on record supporting accessibility. The Colorado chapter of ADAPT was planning to introduce a similar resolution to Denver’s Regional Transportation District (RTD). APTA's position is that accessibility should be left to the discretion of the local transit provider, Although the Carter administration mandated accessibility in public transit, APTA was successful in getting that ruling thrown out in a l98l court battle. ADAPT maintains that the disabled have a civil right to public transit. Jack Gilstrap, APTA's executive vice president, reiterated that position as wheelchair demonstrators seized buses in front of the White House and hurled their chairs at police lines outside the Washington Hilton and Washington Convention Center during APTA's late September meeting. Gilstrap said that the funds just weren't there to support a mandatory system, adding that the additional burden might jeopardize some transit systems. However, since the convention ADAPT has been approached by APTA's new president, Warren Franks, the director of the Syracuse, N.Y., transit system, who has requested a meeting in Denver with wheelchair activists. "The Syracuse ADAPT group has been pretty active," said ADAPT spokesperson Wade Blank. "Franks must be pretty worried about what might happen there if he wants to meet with us.“ ADAPT was organized in Denver one year ago by some of the same groups and individuals who had been involved in forcing RTD to adopt a pro-accessibility policy when purchasing new buses. That battle too was highlighted by militant demonstrations with wheelers chaining themselves to the doors of RTD headquarters. In contrast, demonstrators restricted themselves to orderly pickets when APTA held its national convention in Denver in 1983. But ADAPT only abandoned its plans for civil disobedience after APTA met its demands to address the entire convention on accessibility. APTA's national staff fought that request and allegedly threatened to pull the convention out of Denver at the last minute, but finally agreed to allow ADAPT to address the meeting after Denver Mayor Federico Pena intervened. There was no question that ADAPT would be offered the same treatment at the Washington convention. Although they didn't get a spot on the agenda Blank said his group made their point by capturing the attention of the capital's media. Even before the convention opened, ADAPT made its presence known by joining forces with local D.C. activists to seize seven Metrobuses and block the five blocks along Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House during the afternoon rush hour. Demonstrators released the buses an hour later when D.C.’s Metro General Manager Carmen E. Turner agreed to meet with Washington disabled leaders to discuss their demands for a fully accessible system. No date has yet been set for that meeting, which ADAPT said marked an historic first in the Washington area. No arrests were made during that demonstration, although Washington police moved several demonstrators out of the street. But on the following Monday and Tuesday 28 demonstrators were arrested as they tried to block buses leaving the Washington Hilton for the convention center and again at the convention center itself. The police threw up lines as picketers arrived but were unable to halt the advance of the demonstrators, who wedged their chairs in the hall's doors or hurled their bodies onto the ground. Mike Auberger, one of those arrested, said the police "were abusive -- there's no doubt of that," but he added that this was probably pretty typical. “Let's face it," he said, "these guys probably have to deal with demonstrators all the time." They don't mess around when they get started. Auberger said he was grabbed by the hair and pulled back so that his chair was resting on its back wheels. Two other demonstrators were thrown from their chairs and taken to local hospitals where they were released after being treated for minor injuries. Police had to bring in special vans with wheelchair lifts in order to cart demonstrators off to jail, where they were fingerprinted and rushed into court. "Only the doorway between the holding cells and the courtroom was too narrow to get our chairs through," Auberger said, "so they had to take us in the back way." Some of the disabled picketers were surprised that the police reacted with such force, according to Auberger. "l think it opened a few eyes," he said. ADAPT filmed the demonstration, and a 20-minute edited version is being shown as part of a fundraiser to pay the bails of those arrested, about half of whom were from Denver. Congresswoman Pat Schroeder (D-Denver) has agreed tn help raise money, but because of previous campaign commitments said she would be unable to participate until after the first of the year. - ADAPT (170)
Rocky Mountain News Fri. Aug. 19, 1993, Denver, Colo. Text box reads: The handicapped group wants the transit association to support equal access for all public transportation riders and lifts on buses. Article -- Pena intervenes in handicapped-transit spat By Burt Hubbard, Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer Mayor Federico Pena’s office is intervening in a dispute between handicapped groups and a national transit association over threatened demonstrations during the association’s October convention in Denver. Kathy Archuleta, an aide to Pena, said she set up a meeting for Friday with Wade Blank, handicapped activist leader, after an official from the American Public Transit Association (APTA) called the mayor’s office expressing concern about Blank’s plans to picket the convention. “We’ll act as facilitators,” said Archuleta. “APTA has called us and now we’re going to talk to Wade.” Blank, one of the leaders of the newly formed American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, said the group is protesting APTA’s refusal to endorse wheelchair lifts on all buses and subways. The group represents disabled associations across the country. Blank also is co-director of Atlantis, a self-help group for the disabled. Blank said the plans call for about 30 handicapped people to picket the convention each day and possibly conduct civil disobedience, such as disabled chaining themselves to the convention’s headquarters at the Denver Hilton. About 3,000 representatives from transit districts throughout the United States are expected to attend the convention, Oct. 23 to 27. Blank said the group wants the convention to support equal access for all transit riders on public transportation and inform bus manufacturers that transit districts will buy only buses equipped with wheel-chair lifts. Jack Gilstrap, executive vice president of APTA, said the organization called Pena’s office just to inform of the planned demonstrations and “expressing the hope that they would be orderly.” “We’re used to demonstrations,” said Gilstrap. He said the protests have not changed APTA’s plans to hold the convention in Denver.