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Beranda / Album / Tags Wade Blank + Bob Kafka 3
Post date / 2015
- ADAPT (537)
The Handicapped Coloradan Small Text Box: If you feel like spending a few days In Washington, D.C. this March, give Wade Blank or Mike Auberger a ring at (303) 936-1110. They've got a tour of the Capitol Building that most travel agencies don't offer. PHOTO (by Tom Olin): Joe Carle, Diane Coleman, Bob Kafka and Mark Johnson, all in wheelchairs and dressed in revolutionary garb lead a march under the leafy trees of Philadelphia's historic district. They have tri-cornered hats, jackets with fancy buttons, ruffled shirts, a fife and drum. Behind the front of the line Ann ___ is visible, as well as other marchers. Diane carries the ADAPT flag and Joe has another dark flag on a tall pole. Caption: Militants could seize capitol rotunda -- Dressed In Revolutionary War garb, several ADAPT members rolled toward the Liberty Bell while the U.S. Court of Appeals was ruling that disabled people have a right to public transit. Many of these same activists are heading for Washington, D.C. on Mar. 10, in an attempt to get Congress to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1989. Protesters intend to leave their wheelchairs and crawl up the steps of the Capitol Building while Congress is in session. Article begins: ADAPT sets roll on D.C. To prod ADA passage Still a mile high following their victory in Atlanta last fall, disabled activists from across the country are planning on rolling on the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., to demand that lawmakers pass the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1989. The act, which grants sweeping civil rights to disabled people (much as the 1965 Civil Rights Act aided blacks), has passed the Senate but is currently bogged down in four House committees, and no one expects a vote earlier than Feb. 28 by the full House membership. Disabled militants, mostly members of the Denver-based American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT), are planning on arriving in Washington on March 10. "If the bill is still in committee at that time, we're going to treat it as if the bill is in trouble," said ADAPT founder Wade Blank, co-director of the Atlantis Community, a Denver independent living health care provider. Blank said that disabled lobbyists in Washington have warned ADAPT to avoid the confrontational politics that it has used in other cities while battling its arch-nemesis, the American Public Transit Association (APTA). The professional lobbyists said it is not advisable to upset Congress, according to Blank. That's too bad, Blank said, because "we're telling them right here and now that we're going in and kicking ass.” Blank expects several hundred will participate in the march on the capitol, with about 125 of the protesters prepared to leave their chairs and crawl upon the capitol steps while other militants sneak in and seize the rotunda itself. If all that works out, it could be ADAPT’s biggest action so far in its seven-year struggle to force transit companies to put a lift on every bus in the country. The federal government unofficially agreed to support that goal in a deal hammered out between representatives of ADAPT and President Bush in Atlanta last October. Part of that deal called upon the President to push for disabled rights in his State of the Union address, which he did, much to the satisfaction of ADAPT, which Blank described as being “very pleased” with Bush. “Now we're going to smoke out a few Democrats," he said. When the agreement was reached in Atlanta, two cities had already started the process of purchasing non-lift equipped buses. Since then Pittsburgh has reversed its position and agreed to buy only accessible buses, while Albuquerque refused to consider altering its plans. “They’ll go down in history as the last city in America to buy lift-less buses," Blank said. In the months since Atlanta, ADAPT has switched its attention to pushing for lifts on intercity coaches. To that end some 45 wheelchair demonstrators were in Dallas Jan. 21-24 to picket a joint meeting of the American Bus Association (ABA) and the United Bus Owners of America (UBOA). Greyhound, the largest intercity bus company, is headquartered in Dallas. Most of those demonstrators were participating in their first action, which Blank said proves that ADAPT is continuing to grow in strength and power. On the first day, pickets blocked the entrance to the conference hotel with relatively little fireworks. But on Monday, Jan. 22, the protesters hit the Greyhound depot where some 29 demonstrators were arrested for blocking buses. Twenty of those were first-time arrestees. Trial has been set for Feb. 12. On the third day, protesters stormed in the exposition hall and interrupted a trade show demonstrating the latest advances in bus design. Most of that design had nothing to do with helping wheelchair riders get on board, Blank said. UBOA president Wayne Smith, who has published articles in the New York Times arguing against the transit provisions of the ADA, decided not to call in the police, and for three hours militant wheelchair protesters engaged in debate with professional transit providers. “It was a very successful happening,” Blank said. He said he hoped that spirit would hold true for the Washington, D.C., action, where he expects to see more first-time protesters. A seminar on ADAPT’S history and tactics is set for Mar. 10 at the Comfort Inn on H Street in northwestern Washington, where neophyte activists are urged to go even if they are planning to stay elsewhere during the action. Although the ADA covers all disabilities, this action, called the “Wheels of Justice," will center on the rights of the mobility-impaired. Blank said he tried to coordinate his action with other groups, including the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), but was rebuffed. “They don't think of themselves as disabled,” he said. “And that’s fine.” (For more on this topic see Homer Page’s column on page 2, “The ADA and the Blind.”) Some blind advocacy groups, including the NFB, have argued that they don't want adaptive devices, such as special buttons on street corners, written into the bill. “We don't need them," said Page, who is vice president of the Colorado NFB chapter. Those people wishing to participate in ADAPT‘s “Wheels of Justice" should contact Blank or Mike Auberger at (303) 936-1110. PHOTO: Medium close up of Wade Blank from the waist up. He is smiling, wearing dark sun glasses and a vest. His below shoulder length blondish hair is parted in the middle. This text covers the article that appears in 537 and 538. - ADAPT (629)
PHOTO: by Tom Olin. A long, single-file line of ADAPT marchers is headed by Lee Jackson (left), Bob Kafka (center), and Terri Fowler (right) being pushed by some one. Lee and Bob have on different ADAPT no steps logo T-shirts. Behind Bob someone is carrying the ADAPT flag, behind that person you can see Claude Holcomb, and a few more people back you can see Wade pushing someone (Paulette Patterson?). They are marching down the street (in front of the Russell Federal Building in Atlanta) A TV cameraman is standing on the sidewalk filming the march, and near him two people in wheelchairs and another person are on the sidewalk. - ADAPT (196)
The Handicapped Coloradan PHOTO 1: Four police officer surround a man (Bob Kafka) in a manual wheelchair. Two are holding his arms behind his back, forcing his head and shoulders toward the ground as he is twisted in his wheelchair. Another officer is putting handcuffs on one of his wrists. Caption reads: BOB KAFAY [sic] is handcuffed from behind by police after being arrested at the Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles this past October. Kafay and other members of American Disabled for Public Transit were demanding mandatory accessible public transit. PHOTO 2: A woman in a power wheelchair, sits in the middle of the front of the bus, stopping it in the street. Someone is standing at the left front corner of the bus beside another person in a wheelchair [possibly Larry Ruiz]. In front of this group another wheelchair user with a lap board sits in the middle of the street. On the side of the road an officer with a radio is standing, and on the near side of the bus a woman also stands and watches. All the faces are in shadow so it is hard to tell who anyone is. Caption reads: TWO PROTESTORS managed to collar a bus during an early action In Dallas, Texas. "The laughed at us. They didn't think a handful of us could stop the buses." continued from p. 16? By January 1986 ADAPT Texas felt sure enough of itself to directly challenge transit providers in Houston and Dallas to reverse their policy on accessibility. Ironically, at one time Houston boasted more accessible mainline buses than any other city in the country. After intense lobbying by the Coalition for Barrier Free Living, the Houston Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) purchased 326 Grumman Flxible 870 buses equipped with EEC lifts in 1977. That represents 50 percent of the city's total bus fleet. The decision to purchase those buses came only after members of the Coalition staged a sit-in at the office of then MTA executive director Barry Goodman, who had earlier refused to meet with representatives of the group to discuss accessibility. Goodman declined to make a commitment to accessibility at the subsequent meeting. Coalition members joined forces with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in a lawsuit that would have prevented MTA from purchasing any other buses until it had agreed to provide mainline service to wheelchair users. Coalition members took to the streets and blocked buses. MTA finally gave in to their demands but, according to coalition members, once the buses were on the streets MTA did nothing to publicize the routes. As a result few disabled passengers used the lifts. The death blow to accessibility in Houston came when cracks developed in the front frames of the new buses. MTA attributed the cracks to the EEC lifts, though the same cracks appeared in other buses in other parts of the country that had not installed lifts. MTA later admitted that the lifts did not cause the cracks, but when the Grumman buses were pulled out of service, Houston chose not to replace them with lift-equipped buses. The coalition's transportation committee had by this time disbanded, and accessibility ceased to be a front-page issue in Houston until some 20 Houston ADAPT members issued a Jan. 22, 1986, press release demanding that MTA proclaim its intention to purchase only lift-equipped buses. ADAPT gave MTA until July 4 to alter its position. ADAPT charged that MTA's Advisory Committee of the Disabled and Elderly was powerless and had done nothing to promote accessibility since it was formed. "The right to move freely in Houston usurps the recommendations of any committee," the ADAPT release said. A symbolic rally was held outside MTA's headquarters on Feb. l2 — Lincoln's birthday — to protest what ADAPT called a segregated transit system that makes slaves of the city's disabled population. Symbolism was also behind ADAPT's choice of Jan. l5, l986 Martin Luther King, ]r.'s, birthday — for its showdown with the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART). Several of those same "outside agitators” who had irked the San Antonio Light made the 800-mile trip from Denver to participate in the demonstration. Among them was Mike Auberger, a quadriplegic community organizer for the Atlantis Community, who just may have been arrested more times than any other wheelchair activist in the movement. Auberger was not alone. Seventeen demonstrators, including several first-timers, were arrested. Denver's Kathy Vincent was among that group. Altogether the demonstrators managed to block l7 buses for more than six hours before the police stepped in and forcibly removed them from the streets. Not all the fireworks took place on the streets, however. The night before, at a regular monthly meeting of DART's executive board, ADAPT made known its intention to bring traffic to a standstill in Dallas the next day. "They laughed at us," Blank said. "They didn't think a handful of us could stop the buses." But Blank said DART's new executive director, Ted Tedesco, until recently a University of Colorado vice chancellor, knew different. “He knows what we can do. His face went white when we entered the room." At first, DART refused to hear from ADAPT. However, several ADAPT members began chanting "We will ride!", making it impossible for the DART meeting to continue. After making their presentation, several protestors showered the board with play money to symbolize the wasted tax dollars DART has put into non-accessible systems. Not all the news from Texas is bleak, however. ADAPT Austin has succeeded in winning 100 percent of off-peak hour accessibility from Capital Metro as of July 1, 1986. More than 50 percent of that city's peak hour routes will be accessible once l00 lift-equipped buses arrive this summer. Jim Parker reports that El Paso ADAPT is pushing the city to activate the 30 lift-quipped buses the system owns but has never operated. That would mean 50 percent accessible service during off-peak hours, according to Parker, who was among the first Texans to receive training from the Denver parent group. Auberger and other Coloradans had helped Parker block buses and stage a demonstration at a non-wheelchair-accessible McDonald's restaurant two years before.