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Staartsäit / Albumen / Schlagwuert Wade Blank 138
Publikatiounsdatum
ADAPT (1776)
This is the cover of the April 1993 issue of Mainstream Magazine with an almost full page picture of Wade Blank in an ADAPT cap with his hair blowing behind him, his trademark round tinted glasses. He's wearing an ADAPT shirt with a square pattern of Free Our People around the Free Our People logo. Across the upper left corner of the picture is a diagonal banner that reads Wade Blank 1940 to 1993.
ADAPT (1763)
This article continues from ADAPT 1764 and is included there in its entirety for easier reading. Photo by Tom Olin: Wade Blank and Mike Auberger sitting on either side of the plaque honoring the Gang of 19. Caption reads: Co-Directors Wade Blank and Mike Auberger reflect on the past decade of organizing and activism.
ADAPT (1780)
Wade is standing, hands on hips looking down at Claude Holcomb who is spelling out a message on his letter board. Behind them someone is bent over doing something. Claude is in a wheelchair and has the letter board resting on his lap and armrest, as usual. It's a newer board laminated black with white letters and numbers. Before computer communication devices. people used these boards to spell out the words they were saying.
ADAPT (1795)
Mainstream Magazine, April 1993 issue [This article continues in ADAPT 1974, but is included here in its entirety for easier reading.] Photo: Wade Blank, in sneakers, jeans and an ADAPT T-shirt over a long sleeved shirt, walks with other ADAPTers in a march down a city street. Beside him is George Roberts, behind George is Diane Coleman and behind her is Anita Cameron. Behind Wade's left side is Chris Hronis, and behind him Bill Henning carries a banner. Caption for picture reads: Wade Blank takes to the streets of San Francisco with ADAPT in October 1992 Title: Wade Blank, 1940 to 1993 Co founder of Adapt [sic] Pursued A Vision Of Justice For People With Disabilities By Laura Hershey When a college friend dared Wade Blank to march with Martin Luther King. Jr. in Selma, Alabama. Wade didn't know what to expect. However, the experience imbued him with a vision of civil rights which he would never forget. Later. working in the youth wing of a nursing home, he understood clearly that the same issues, freedom. equality, and justice, were at stake for people with severe disabilities. Throughout his life, Wade Blank strove to obtain independent living opportunities and equal access for people who had lone been denied these basic civil rights. Wade died at age 52 on Feb. l5. I993. in a swimming accident in Todos Santos, Mexico, where he was vacationing with his family. He was trying to save his 8 year old son. Lincoln. An undertow made the rescue impossible; both Wade and Lincoln drowned. Wade is survived by his wife, Mollie; his daughter. Caitlin, 6; and his adopted daughter, Heather, 22, who has a disability. All members of the Blank family were actively involved in the disability rights movements that Wade helped launch. On Feb. 2l. a memorial service drew 1,100 people to Denver's Radisson Hotel. the site of the first national protest by American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, or ADAPT. the grass roots, direct action disability rights movement Wade co-founded. Wade and Lincoln were remembered as spirited, loving people committed to social change. A neighbor remembered Wade helping her fix a broken lock late one night; she recalled Lincoln leading other children in a rousing chant during a make-believe demonstration on his front porch. Wade's colleague Shel Trapp quipped. “lf Heaven is inaccessible. God is in big trouble." Wade believed in the leadership potential of even the most severely disabled activists. He pushed his followers to take charge of the movement, even when it would have been easier to dominate it himself. His ability to alternate between a directive role and a supportive role from manager to attendant. from mentor to messenger kept Wade close to his people. lt also had a tactical value: At a 1991 demonstration in Colorado. police were vainly searching for someone to hold responsible for several dozen unstoppable wheelchair wielding protesters. An officer asked Wade. “Are you in charge here?" "No." Wade answered. “I just help people go to the bathroom." Drawing on his background as a pastor of a diverse and active parish, Wade taught the value of community. He brought people together across disabilities, classes, races, ideologies and other differences. ln ADAPT. Wade created a true community. welcoming anyone committed to the movement's vision of justice. During national actions, people from across the country exchange experiences and expertise. offer each other encouragement and strength, meet friends and even start romances. Just getting to the sites of national protests requires enormous energy expenditures and a myriad of logistical details for people with disabilities, many of whom use wheelchairs. On long. grueling caravan drives across country. Wade met those needs with humor and gentleness. He drove tirelessly, navigated, did attendant care, pumped gas, made fast food runs, hauled suitcases and battery chargers, repaired wheelchairs, even brought coffee to everyone’s rooms in the mornings. When we grew exhausted and short-tempered. he buoyed us with affectionate teasing and terrible, recycled puns. He kept the troops moving, both on the road and during protests. with encouragement, bad jokes. and calm confidence. Protests will be tougher without Wade's bold creativity, irrepressible sense of humor, and reassuring presence. But the movement won’t die with Wade. He knew that. “King‘s organization’s mistake was that they hung it all around his neck,” he told an interviewer last November. “What happened to the movement? It lost its definition. King gave it its definition. If I would get knocked off tomorrow or die of a heart attack, it wouldn’t slow us down a bit. We know what we’re about, and the movement would go on with the same intensity.” In 1971, Rev. Wade Blank arrived in Denver after 10 years of preaching and organizing in the Midwest. He had graduate degrees in divinity and was an ordained Presbyterian minister. But his radical activities had gotten him in trouble with the church authorities and he had been fired from his parish. His experiences had included hosting meetings of the Kent State chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS); helping Vietnam War draftees flee to Canada; and organizing African American youths to demand community water and sewage systems in conservative Twinsburg Heights, OH. Wade was burned out and not sure what he wanted to do next. He ended up at Denver’s Heritage House nursing home, where he tried to make institutional life bearable for young disabled people. He quickly realized that such confinement could never be acceptable. He was fired from his job, but stayed in touch with several of the young residents. Eventually he helped 11 of them move into their own apartments. At first, Wade himself provided all his clients’ attendant care, until finally the State of Colorado agreed to fund home health care services for people living independently. This was the beginning of the Atlantis Community (named for a forgotten continent), today a thriving independent living center in Denver. Even in their newly won freedom, the Atlantis founders discovered barriers to independence all around them. Public buses were inaccessible, so the community members became activists. One July 5, 1978, with Wade’s support and guidance, 19 disabled people blocked buses overnight in the busy intersection at Colfax and Broadway to demonstrate their demand for lifts on buses. Protests continued until, in June 1983, Denver committed itself to a fully accessible bus system. Last summer, the city laid a plaque at the Colfax-Broadway intersection, engraved with the 19 activists’ names. Characteristically downplaying his own key role in the demonstration, Wade asked that his name not appear on the plaque. Wade once described his role this way: “That’s what my job is, to assist my people in gaining the power to make change." Throughout his years of service to “my people,” Wade worked to build strength and leadership among disability activists. Emboldened by success, the Denver activists carried their demands for bus access to the entire nation. Wade‘s vigorous encouragement and organizing skills had helped to transform a group of powerless nursing home "patients" into a band of effective revolutionaries. Now that same savvy spirit found a warm reception among disabled people who were tired of segregation and exclusion. A new movement was born, with the fitting acronym ADAPT, or American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation. The first national ADAPT protest took place at the Radisson in October, 1983. The nation's transit officials were meeting at the hotel when disabled protesters blocked every entrance. Similar demonstrations throughout the country, involving the blocking of hotels, office buildings, and buses, focused public attention on the fact that access to transportation was a basic civil right denied to people with disabilities. Subsequent protests refined ADAPT ’s brand of protest. With his 1960s civil rights experience, Wade taught his followers how to stage protests that were non violent but direct and confrontational. In the hands of people with severe disabilities, these tactics were astonishingly effective. ADAPT activists baffled police officers, and filled jail cells, in dozens of cities. The public, and ultimately the powers that be, had to respond. The idea of people with severe disabilities, and their allies (including Wade), risking arrest again and again some as many as 20 or 30 times proved not only impressive, but persuasive. After nearly a decade of such protests, ADAPT achieved its goals for the nation’s transit systems. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) included mandates for bus and rail services. All new bus purchases must now be lift equipped, just as Wade and his cohorts had demanded. But before it passed, the ADA became stalled in the U.S. Senate and was in danger of being defeated or weakened by amendments. Wade organized a “Wheels of Justice” campaign that included three days of marching, demonstrating, and civil disobedience. Some 150 people were arrested in the Capitol rotunda. Within a few weeks, the ADA passed the full Senate, and was signed into law by President Bush on July 26, 1990. But Wade and ADAPT spent little time celebrating. They knew there was still much to be done. With over a million people still languishing in nursing homes, ADAPT immediately launched its new campaign, demanding the shifting of federal Medicare/Medicaid funds from nursing homes to in home attendant services that would allow people disabled by birth, accident, illness, or age to live independently. The meaning of the acronym, ADAPT, did just that it adapted. The letters now stand for American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today. The old battle cry, “We Will Ride!,“ was replaced with a new one: “Free Our People NOW!” In a recent interview, Wade said, “My whole commitment in life is to eradicate those nursing homes, to destroy them, bring them down. We will.” He didn’t live to see that goal realized, but he shared that vision with hundreds of others. In the process he helped create a movement that will continue the fight to “Free Our People.” Laura Hershey, freelance writer and poet, is an ADAPT activist. Inserted in box: A memorial will be held May 9, I993 at the Lincoln Memorial as part of an ADAPT action in Washington DC. Contributions may be sent to The Family of Wade Blank Memorial Fund at The First National Bank of Denver, 300 S. Federal Blvd., Denver, CO 80206. A trust fund has also been established in the name of Wade Blank. Contributions can be sent to Atlantis/ADAPT c/o Evan Kemp, 2500 Q St. N.W I21, Washington, DC 20007.
ADAPT (1761)
This is a continuation of PEOPLE WHO MAKE A DIFFERENCE the article on 1766 and is included there for easier reading.
ADAPT (1787)
Wade, in a yellow ADAPT shirt over a sweatshirt and wearing an ADAPT baseball cap, is pushing a man [Bobby Simpson] in a manual wheelchair who is drinking from a large cup. Bobby is slightly slumped to one side and there is a towel by his side in the wheelchair. They are going down a city street in the traffic lane, and behind them are several other ADAPT folks walking, all wearing black ADAPT clothes. One [Terri Susan Hartman] carries a pink coat, another is walking a dog [Frazier] on a leash. In the far distance are cars and a bus.
ADAPT (1759)
Head and shoulders picture of Wade Blank holding a glass in toast to something. He is smiling, and wearing a denim shirt and his roundish, tinted glasses. His long blonde hair, grey at the temples, falls below his shoulders.
ADAPT (1828)
Looking down on Wade's funeral. It's a big hotel ballroom with ADAPT folks, Atlantis folks and friends and colleages are sitting in several sections with aisles in the center and on the sides. There is a stage at the front of the room with an ADAPT flag draped on the fron and flowers all along the front. A line of 14 people sit at the back of the stage. Among them you can see Mike Auberger and Justin Dart with his cowboy hat.
ADAPT (1785)
Wade and Lincoln Blank are standing outside on the grass practicing football. Wade, in profile, is holding the ball, legs spread like he's getting ready to toss the ball. Lincoln, a couple of feet closer to the camera but facing away, is leaning toward Wade.
ADAPT (1778)
Wade, in an ADAPT T-shirt with the old no steps logo, rests a hand on the chair of Gary. Beside him is Molly in a red version of the same ADAPT shirt. Beside her is Tisha Auberger (?) and Brook Ball is standing beside her in a blue tank top and yellow pants. Mel Conrardy is sitting back to the camera in the foreground and just in front of him, leaning forward is Ken Heard (both in wheelchairs.) Behind the group is a pink graffitied trailer. Everyone is looking to the left of the frame.
ADAPT (1777)
Wade is standing in a doorway looking off into the distance, his hand to his mouth biting his fingernail. In front of him sits Glenn Kopp, looking down, hands folded in front of his chin in a prayer-like position. Glenn lived with Wade and Molly for years, and this might be the back door to their house. Both men look very thoughtful.
ADAPT (1760)
Rocky Mountain News Sunday Magazine Sunday, May 25, 1986 Column title: people to watch Photo by Dick Davis: Wade Blank is sitting by a window with a rainbow and Atlantis Community painted on the outside so the letters are backward in this picture. There are some plants and some papers on a counter between Wade and the window. Wade has on a plaid button up shirt, his tinted glasses and long blonde hair parted in the middle. He is smiling. Title: Wade Blank: A smooth ride Occupation and activities: Wade Blank is the founder of Atlantis Community. a group that helps severely disabled people live on their own, outside of nursing homes. He is a Presbyterian minister who helped draft resisters flee to Canada in the 1960s and organized the disabled to fight for their rights in the '70s and '80s. During one demonstration he and several people with disabilities took sledge hammers to a city curb, to show the problems people in wheelchairs have getting around on city sidewalks. "My goal is for the community to understand," he says. "And understand that will be a long process.“ Age: 45. Birthplace: Pittsburgh. Marital status: Married, with a one and a half year-old son and a 15-year-old daughter. Worse job: “I worked for Sparkle Wash Truck and Mobile Home Wash. l went out and washed semi-trucks and mobile homes -- a wash and a wax ior $20." Car: 1977 Dodge wheelchair van; 1972 Volkswagen bug. Favorite vacation spot: Moab, Utah. Favorite music group: Talking Heads. Favorite movie: Apocalypse Now. The worst part of my job: “Trying to get the state to reimburse me for the services we've provided." I first became interested in the problems of the disabled: "When I started as an orderly in a nursing home in 1971. I was going to work every day and asking myself, if I was disabled, is this the way I'd want to live the rest of my life? One of the things that shook me to the core: There was one woman, she was 20 years old with polio and she was going back to high school we (had) filed an action to force the school systems to accept the disabled in school she couldn't deal with her classmates knowing she lived in a nursing home. She committed suicide. That's when I decided to bail out of the nursing home model. What can you do to make a nursing home more acceptable? You just can't." Most painful experience: “When that woman committed suicide. She hung on about 10 days. I remember going to St. Anthony's, watching her on the breathing machine and hoping she'd make it. It was almost my personal guilt; people said, ‘if you wouldn't have subjected her to the outside world, if the nurses had total control (at the nursing home), this kind of thing never would have happened.' When they told me she stopped breathing, I had to take a leave of absence." One thing I can’t stand: "Suits and ties." Nobody knows I’m: "Sentimental." Most irrational act: "When I first came to Denver. I hung around people against the (Vietnam) war. We were going to shut down 16th and California (with a sit in). I sat down. And when the police said, ‘Move,’ everybody moved except me. To this day. when I saw everybody getting up, I don't know why I didn't get up and move." My biggest regret: “That people come into your life and go out of your life and that we can't maintain constant friendship with everybody." Worst advice my parents gave me: "You can change the system from within." My most embarrassing moment: “I was preaching at this church. It was a hot July day and a congregation of very elderly people. l said, ‘For the closing hymn, will everyone remain seated.‘ We always sang Stand Up for Jesus at the closing hymn. So here's the congregation sitting there singing Stand Up For Jesus. I don't know lf anybody figured out the irony of the situation, but I sure did." If I could change one thing about myself: "I'd be less compulsive." A final word: "All the disabled want is to live like everyone else. That's all we represent: the right to ride public transportation, the right to go into any restaurant to eat, the right to have enough money to survive, like everyone else. My daughter is 15 years old and in a wheelchair. l have the same hopes for her that anybody else does. that she should be able to go to school and move around the country just like anybody else."
ADAPT (1768)
Wade Blank, back to the camera, shakes hands with Denver Mayor Webb as Ida Unsain, Atlantis nurse, looks on. In front of them Mike Auberger is sitting in his power chair, and behind them Brook Ball is talking with Robin Stephens (you can only see her legs.) They are in the Atlantis office on Broadway. This is the office that was raided by the FBI when someone said Mike Auberger and Wade's daughter Heather Blank were making bombs in the basement. The accusation was so patently absurd the FBI finally wrote Atlantis a letter of apology.
ADAPT (767)
San Francisco Chronicle, Monday, October 19, 1992 TITLE: S.F. Protesters In Wheelchairs Bar Hotel Exits By Dan Levy, Chronicle Staff Writer Hundreds of demonstrators in wheelchairs calling for a national program for home attendant care surrounded a downtown San Francisco hotel last night in a noisy protest. The protesters blocked the driveway and main entrances to the San Francisco Marriott hotel on Fourth Street for more than an hour, disrupting the opening night convention activities of the American Health Care Association, which represents the nursing home industry. Police in riot gear formed a narrow corridor for hotel guests to pass in and out of the hotel on the Market Street side, but the building was blocked at Fourth Street by about 300 demonstrators -most in motorized wheelchairs, some with dog guides — chanting “Up with attendant care, down with nursing homes." There were no arrests. Attendant care advocates have urged that $25 million of the federal Medicaid budget currently allocated to nursing homes be used to create a national program for home care. Wade Blank, a founder of the Denver-based advocacy group, American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, said home attendant care is less expensive than institutional care and allows disabled people to live in their communities.
ADAPT (1781)
Wade is standing behind and leaning over a man in a wheelchair helping him with the buttons on his T-shirt. The man, who sits an old-fashioned E & J type of chair, is looking at the camera and smiling. His arms are bent up at the elbows and his wrists are bent down.