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Home / Albomlar / Tag blocking a bus 24
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ADAPT (441)
DISCLOSURE September-October 1989, Issue No. 112 the national newspaper of neighborhoods [Headline] Disabled Protest Across Country: “Accessible Transit Is a Civil Right" This story continues on 436 but is included here in its entirety for ease of reading. PHOTO by Tom Olin: A large group of people in wheelchairs, on crutches, many carrying posters, are massed in front of a MCI New Jersey bus. Joe Carle is in the middle of the group with his back to the camera and on the back of his wheelchair is a sign that reads "I can't even get on the back of the bus." Also visible (right to left) are Cassie James, Diane Coleman, Brian Shea, Mike Early from CORD, two other guys in wheelchairs, Kent Killam, Julie Nolan, a white haired blind person with a big sign, and a short woman, perhaps a child, looking to her left and holding on to the back of a wheelchair. The group is blocking the bus and the street, while others walk by on the sidewalk. Caption reads: Members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) and affiliated groups stages demonstratlon on disabled rights issues in front of buses at the federal court building, Philadelphia, May, 1989. by Mike Monti The message is clear: “We will ride,” say the members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT). From a series of demonstrations to a controversial court case, this relentless group keeps fighting for accessible transit around the country. Among its victories are a July, 1989 federal court ruling that transportation agencies no longer have a 3 percent cap in providing wheelchair lifts or paratransit. For the members of ADAPT, accessible transit is a basic civil right — and is always worth fighting for. We reported in Disclosure #l08 on ADAPT’s actions in Montreal at the annual convention of the American Public Transit Authority (APTA). APTA and other transit authorities continue to make it extremely difficult for people with disabilities to use public transit. Nevertheless, ADAPT has shown that it will confront APTA wherever it shows up. Last April, at the Western Regional Conference of APTA in Sparks, Nevada (just outside of Reno), over 125 ADAPT members staged actions at the conference, calling for public transportation that can be used by everyone — including people with disabilities. Members started off with a march from their hotel to the conference hotel. When they were about halfway there, ADAPT was met by a police blockade. Obviously, authorities already knew about ADAPT: here is a group that won’t stops until it forces permanent changes. In Sparks. the marchers were able to get around the police barriers. But when they got to APTA’s hotel, they were met by private security forces. The hotel security outnumbered the city’s police three-to-one -— and were able to chain the door shut before ADAPT entered. Forty-seven ADAPT members were arrested, and seven were sent to jail. “The Sparks police had obviously decided that we weren't going to march in the streets,” said Stephanie Thomas, an ADAPT member who lives in Austin, Texas. “But we were able to go around the car barricades. it was like water going around the rocks." The following afternoon, ADAPT staged another demonstration with many crawling across the street and around police barricades, blocking traffic until they reached the front door of the hotel. It was locked from the inside. This time, 25 were arrested. The charge: blocking a fire door which was locked. Many of the ADAPT members who were arrested went on a hunger strike. Meanwhile, ADAPT members on the outside held a press conference calling attention to the problems jail staff were having providing for several of the disabled people’s needs. A final protest was held the next day. One day later, the Sparks judge who sent the hunger strikers to prison made a deal with the protesters: he let out two protesters for the price of a $100 fine. The judge had imposed a much stiffer sentence a couple of days earlier, but changed his mind in the face of a group of arrested ADAPT members who made it clear that they would rather starve and stay in jail than pay a huge fine. Meanwhile, disability groups on the east and west coasts were raising money to help support ADAPT. On the fourth day of the hunger strike, the judge relented and the fine was reduced. By the end of the day, all arrested ADAPT members had been released — and many in the group headed to Denver, for more demonstrations. In Denver — which is the home of ADAPT — the group protested at the annual conference of the Urban Mass Transit Administration (UMTA). This time, demonstrations focused on the federal government's request for a re-hearing of the ADAPT vs. Burnley case. In February, ADAPT won a major victory from the Department of Transportation (DOT) - only to have it undercut by the government. The first of ADAPT’s arguments stated that the rule saying transportation agencies should not have to spend more than 3 percent of their budget on wheelchair lifts or paratransit was unconstitutional. Second, ADAPT held that the option allowing agencies to decide whether or not to provide new buses with wheelchair lifts was unconstitutional. DOT kept flip-flopping on the issue: first it said yes, and then it backed off, asking for a rehearing to vacate the decisions. In Denver, ADAPT confronted Michael Norton, U.S. Attorney for the Tenth District in Denver. “Why is the government working against disabled rights?” asked ADAPT. Norton eventually read a 20-page statement from Attorney General Thornburgh stressing “the need for concern, compassion, and commitment” — but also saying that the law never mandated integration. “It was a really offensive statement, ” said Stephanie Thomas. “On one hand, he was affirming the government's commitment, and on the other he’s fighting tooth and nail to stop rights for the disabled.” When the case was reheard in Philadelphia on May 15, ADAPT was ready. With help from the local chapter of Disabled in Action and the Cape Organization for Rights of the Disabled (CORD), protesters gathered at the federal court building. Four ADAPT members met with the U.S. Attorney, who listened to their concerns. Two days later, a protest was staged at Independence Hall. Dressed in revolutionary garb complete with wigs, three-cornered hats and fife and drum, the “Disability Rights Patriots” marched around the Liberty Bell. Court Decision On July 24, ADAPT won a significant victory as the original ruling striking down the 3 percent cap on wheelchair and paratransit lifts was upheld. On the local option issue, judges decided that the stipulation was legal. Now, it's back in the hands of DOT, for "clarification." Meanwhile, ADAPT will be working with lawyers to plan its next strategy in the legal arena, even though the courts have dodged the issue of equal rights for the disabled. Nevertheless, ADAPT is still ready for action. “We are not going to sit around and wait for the government to put a piece of legislation through,” said Wade Blank. What's next for ADAPT? The next APTA Conference will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, September 23-28, 1989. “The court’s decision on local option will make our demonstrations in Atlanta bigger,” says Mike Auberger, a co-director of ADAPT. Sparks Nevada, Denver, Philadelphia, Atlanta. . .ADAPT marches on for rights for people with disabilities. “Someday,” says Wade Blank, “ It will be just as appalling to see buildings without ramps as it was seeing signs that said ‘Whites Only.’ ” end of article Pictures of 2 graphic symbols: One is the ADAPT no-steps logo with American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit around the outside and a circle with a set of steps rising to the right and a bar across the circle and steps with the word ADAPT on it. The other is a power fist, with wheelchair warriors written below the arm. Caption reads: These symbols are part of ADAPT’s continuing fight. Says Wade Blank of ADAPT “Someday it will be just as appalling to see buildings without ramps as it was seeing signs that said ‘Whites Only.’”
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The Toronto Star Tuesday, October 4, 1988 Photo CP Photo: Three men (left to right - Lonnie Smith, Jerry Eubanks, and ET Ernest Taylor) in manual wheelchairs block a bus with a huge "SPECIAL" sign above the front window. About a dozen uniformed police officers stand on the sidewalk. One seems to be doing something to Lonnie's wheelchair. Inside the bus the driver is looking back talking to someone through the open door. [Headline] Protestors Wheel Into Action Three handicapped men block the path of a bus holding several other handicapped people arrested at the Sheraton Centre in Montreal on Sunday. Twenty people were sentenced to three days in jail after they blocked escalators and elevators to protest lack of access for wheelchairs. About 80 police were called in to clear the lobby.
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St. Louis Post Dispatch (May 18, 1988) PHOTO by Ted Dargan/Post Dispatch: About a dozen people in wheelchairs surround a bus in the middle of a street. A man in a white short sleeved button down shirt and dark pants stands to one side with his hands on his hips, looking at the ground. The photo is grainy so it is hard to tell who the protesters are, but several wear ADAPT shirts and several have large posters taped across their legs. George Florum sits by the bus' left front wheel. Caption: The driver of a Greyhound bus leaving his vehicle Tuesday after it was surrounded by protesters on Sixth Street near the Greyhound Terminal. The protesters are members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit. Title: Disabled People Block Buses, 37 Arrested By Mark Schlinkmann, Regional Political Correspondent Thirty-seven protesters, almost all of them in wheelchairs, were arrested Tuesday afternoon as they blocked buses from entering and leaving the Greyhound Lines terminal downtown. Police also arrested a man from Ohio after he became Involved in a scuffle with two protesters. Police said the man, who was later released without being charged, might have been irritated at the delay in a bus departure caused by the demonstration. The incident, which shut down traffic at the terminal on and off for almost three hours, took place on the third day in a row of protests by disabled people seeking the installation of wheelchair lifts on all buses in the United States. The group, called the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, or ADAPT, is in St. Louis because the American Public Transit Association is meeting at the Omni International Hotel. But after two days of protesting at the hotel, the target shifted Tuesday to the Greyhound terminal, at 801 North Broadway. "We demand that they serve all the public, including us," said Bill Bolte of Los Angeles as he and others blocked a bus on Sixth Street from entering the terminal. "We're going to stop their buses everywhere until they stop treating us as less than greyhounds." Boite and others complained that Greyhound allowed disabled people with wheelchairs to travel only if were accompanied by a companion. George Gravley, public relations director or the bus line, defended the company's policies in a telephone interview from his office, in Dallas. While the company lacks mechanical lifts, he said, it for years has had a program that provides a free ticket to a companion of any disabled traveler. The protesters began arriving at the terminal around noon. First, a few people began blocking two entrances to a parking lot on the east side of the terminal along Broadway. Then, when a bus without passengers drove toward the west-side entrance, on Sixth, several protesters wheeled up to block its path. Carrying placards and chanting slogans, the group grew in number to about 20. Police, meanwhile, blocked off Sixth between Convention Plaza and Cole Street to traffic. Other incoming buses were forced to bide their time elsewhere. About 1:30 p.m., Police Capt. Clarence Harmon informed the protesters that they were breaking the law and would be arrested if they refused to move. While that was being mulled over, police said, a man identified as Donald Keiper, 63, of Ridgeville, Ohio, walked from the terminal area and grabbed a wheelchair in which Barbara Guthrie, 48, of Colorado Springs, Colo., was sitting. Keiper started to move Guthrie's wheelchair, but another protester in a wheelchair, Ernest Taylor of Denver, intervened, and a brief scuffle ensued, Police then arrested Keiper. He was released later: warrants were :_aken under advisement. Police said no injuries had resulted. Police later arrested Guthrie, Taylor and the other protesters, some for blocking buses inside the terminal area. The process was slow because the wheelchairs had to be lifted mechanically onto Bi-State buses and vans, which hauled them to the City Workhouse. The episode was over about 3 p.m. The circuit attorney's office said Tuesday night that the protesters had been released on their promise to appear in court after being charged with general peace disturbance, a misdemeanor. Late Tuesday afternoon, Circuit Judge Robert H. Dierker Jr. denied a request from Jerome Schlichter, an attorney from St Louis who is representing ADAPT, for a court order regarding blood tests. Schlichter's request was denied after the city stated that it was not requiring the people arrested to undergo mandatory testing and that only those who agreed to the practice voluntarily were being tested. But Schlichter said ADAPT continued to allege that blood tests were taken without consent Sunday night at the Workhouse from a group of 41 protesters arrested that day in front of the Omni. Bill Bryan and William C. Lhotka of the Post-Dispatch staff contributed information for this story.
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San Francisco September 30,1987 S.F. Independent PHOTO (right middle of page) by Rick Gerharter: At least nine wheelchair users (among them, Rick James, Stephanie Thomas, Woody Carlson, Cathy Thomas or Julie Farrar and others) fill the front of the frame blocking a bus with a sign with the APTA logo and Hotels written on it. Most of the blockers are facing toward the bus, away from the camera. Police stand on either side of the bus. Two protesters have Proud and Disabled bumper stickers on the backs of their wheelchairs. Caption: Disabled protesters blocked a SamTrans bus Monday at the American Public Transit Association convention taking place this week at Moscone Center. [Headline] Bitter Protests at Transit Meet By: Carol Farron [This story continues on a second page we do not have at this time.] Disabled people from throughout the United States are angry and have gathered in San Francisco this week to protest the lack of accessibility on public transit systems throughout the nation. The protesters are hoping to force transit officials who are convening at the annual meeting of the American Public Transit Association to change their thinking on transit accessibility for the disabled. APTA, public transit's biggest lobbying group, took the lead in the early 1980s in convincing Congress to overturn federal regulations allowing full transit accessibility for the disabled. What resulted from that decision was a "local option" plan. This allowed individual transit agencies to decide if they would provide accessibility for the disabled on fixed route service or an alternate van/taxi service. Many disabled `groups` are unhappy with that outcome, charging that the local option denies them their civil rights and impedes or prohibits their ability to attend school or hold down jobs because of a lack of transportation. Additionally, many disabled say that paratransit is a paternalistic system that segregates them from society, and users are made to feel helpless. APTA members contend that full accessibility is expensive and unworkable. They say that equipping buses and trains with lifts is too expensive given the number of disabled riders. The disabled, however, say that transit's estimates of disabled riders are low, and accessible transit can work as cities like Seattle, San Francisco and Denver have proven. More than 200 wheelchair bound men and women said last Saturday at a press conference that because the current regulations deny them their civil rights they came prepared to be arrested - and that they were. Thirty-four people, most in wheelchairs, were arrested at a City Hall protest last Sunday, and another 22 were arrested in for blocking a Samtrans bus at Moscone Center on Monday. Many more arrests are expected until the convention's conclusion this Thursday. "This is a militant bunch of protestors," said Jack Gilstrap, executive vice president of APTA. "These people terrified and roughed up some of our members at city hall. "Just because someone is in a wheelchair doesn't mean they're nice." Marilyn Golden of SAAT, the September Alliance for Accessible Transit, said her group is "far from militant." see Rides, page 2
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Photo by Tom Olin: Four people in wheelchairs, (left to right) Cindy from Mass., Bernard Baker in back, an unknown person with back to camera in motorized wheelchair, and Greg Buchanan, block a wheelchair accessible shuttle bus on a downtown street. In the front window of the bus is a sign that reads Moscone Center. Bernard has his fist raised in the power salute and he and Cindy's mouths are open chanting. Jane Jackson is sitting on the sidewalk behind them near the bus.
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Austin American-Statesman Sunday, October 25, 1987 Lifestyle section Title: Streetcars and Desire Activist couple dedicate lives to tearing down walls between city buses and the disabled By Carlos Vidal Greth, American-Statesman Staff (This is a compilation of the article that is on ADAPT 354 and ADAPT 353. The content is all included here for easier reading.) Most visitors to the Bay Area relish the opportunity to hop a cable car and "climb halfway to the stars," as Tony Bennett croons in his signature song, I Left My Heart in San Francisco. Stephanie Thomas, organizer for Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation, had other ideas. "To mobility-impaired people, keeping those historic symbols of public transit alive memorializes inaccessibility and makes it seem like a positive thing," she said. ADAPT, a national civil-rights group, strives to make it easier for disabled people to ride city buses. They differ from mainstream disability-rights groups in that members sometimes commit acts of civil disobedience when the usual political channels clog or hit a dead end. Thomas, her husband Bob Kafka, and eight other Austinites went to San Francisco in late September to conduct a protest during the national convention of the American Public Transit Association, a lobbying organization. Kafka and 15 others were arrested when they climbed out of their wheelchairs and staged a sit-in at the cable car turnaround at Powell and Market streets. Thomas was arrested twice, once for blocking a shuttle bus and once for blocking a cable car. "I've been arrested eight times or so," she said. "I've lost count. Bob has been arrested 14 times. The police are usually aware it's a demonstration about civil rights, and that we're not out to hurt their city. But it's scary. We're not automatons. Some members break down and cry when they go to prison." As far as Thomas is concerned, the suffering has been worth it. "The demonstrations got national exposure. More important, we got the transit association's attention. They are beginning to listen." Thomas, who is also executive director of the Coalition of Texans With Disabilities, could sit for a poster portrait of the committed political activist. Her shock of amber hair shifts of its own accord like the wind ruffling a field of grain. Wide, blue eyes fix visitors with the riveting gaze of a woman who believes she fights for what is right. She was born 30 years ago in New York to parents who fought for justice in their way. Her father organized political campaigns and worked for arms control. Her mother, a writer, was involved in the women's movement. "Mom taught me to question people's perceptions," Thomas said. "The women's and disabled movements have something in common: We're defined by our bodies. You have to fight that all the time." Her first protest occurred when she was in elementary school. Mothers in the apartment building where her family lived wanted to establish a day-care center. The owners didn't want to provide the space. "Women and children took over the building," Thomas said. "We weren't angry college protestors. We were non-threatening moms and kids. But our presence made a difference." Despite her progressive upbringing, she was a shy girl who hid from the world behind the covers of books. When she was 17, her legs were paralyzed when she fell off a farm tractor while doing chores. What could have been a tragedy turned her life around. "I realized that life doesn't go on forever, and that you need to make the most of every moment," Thomas said. Thomas attended Harvard, where she and other disabled students organized a group to help make campus more accessible. "When I look back, I see we were very tame,” she said. “We were polite but usually got what we asked for.” Over the years, Thomas became increasingly active in disability rights. She got involved in independent living centers, communities of disabled people supporting one another so they can live with dignity outside institutions. In the early 1980s, she joined the Austin Resources Center for Independent Living. She went to work for the Coalition of Texans With Disabilities in 1985. The 9-year-old coalition lobbies for, represents and coordinates 90 organizations (including ADAPT) concerned with disabilities, as well as the more than 2 million disabled Texans. “It is the collective voice for the disabled in Texas,” said Kaye Beneke, spokeswoman for the Texas Rehabilitation Commission. "They’re committed - the members live every day with the problems they try to solve. “Stephanie understands there’s a spectrum of political views in the coalition, which tend to be more middle-of-the-road than ADAPT. She takes responsibility for the representing of all those views. But don’t call the coalition passive. They’ve had their way in the legislature and on the local level.” As a leader in two of Texas major disability-rights organizations, Thomas has her hands full. It helps having Bob Kafka, who broke his back in a car accident in 1973, at her side. The experienced trouble maker -- albeit trouble for a good cause -- has made a name for himself. He won the Governor’s Citation for Meritorious Service in 1986. Appropriately, Kafka met Thomas at a disability-rights conference. “Stephanie was real involved, real committed and real attractive,” he said. Sharing home and office has increased their commitment to the cause they serve- and to each other. “Bob and I are an activist couple,” Thomas said. “It’s intense because we work so closely. But it’s rewarding. It has made us an incredibly tight couple.” Thomas has to rework her concept of activism when she joined ADAPT. “Demonstrations force the public to look at disabled people in a different light,” she said. “The cripple is the epitome of powerlessness. We say we’re sorry if it scares you to look at me, but we have to live our lives.” Confrontation, however can cost allies as well as foes. This year, the Paralyzed Veterans of America severed ties with ADAPT and any organization "advocating illegal civil disobedience.” “Our charter states that we must act in accordance with the laws of the land,” said Phil Rabin, director of education. “To act otherwise would be to violate our charter. “The veterans and ADAPT members share first-hand the frustration of living in a society that is not accessible to the disabled. We don’t want to fight ADAPT. It’s a waste of precious resources to divert our energies.” Though Thomas’ group is controversial, it has achieved many of its goals. Albert Engleken, deputy executive director for the American Public Transit Association in Washington, D.C., acknowledged that ADAPT’s street theater has had some effect. In September his organization created a task force to study the issue of providing service for disabled, he said. Engelken, however is not a convert to their cause. “ADAPT wants a lift on every transit bus in the country,” Engelken said. “We believe it should be left to local transit authorities to decide how to handle transportation for disabled people. Transit officials are not robber barons. We’re paid by the public to provide the most mobility for the most people.” Thomas knows how to work within the system. Ben Gomez, director of development for Capital Metro, said ADAPT members have been effective on the Mobility Impaired Service Advisory Committee, which makes recommendations on service to the transit authority board of directors. “They’re well-organized,” Gomez said. “We don’t always agree on the approach and issues. We’ve made many of the adjustments they’ve asked for, but not always within their time frame.” The concessions have been gratifying, but Thomas has only begun to fight. “ADAPT took a dead issue änd made it hot again,” she said. For information on American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation, write to ADAPT of Texas, 2810 Pearl, Austin 78705/ To learn more about the Coalition of Texans With Disabilities, call 443-8252, or write to P.O. Box 4709, Austin 78765. [curator note: addresses and phone numbers no longer valid] Staff Photo by Mike Boroff: A man (Bob Kafka) with Canadian (wrist cuff) crutches, a plaid shirt, light colored jeans and sneakers sits in the lap of a woman (Stephanie Thomas) with wild big hair and a button down shirt. She is sitting in a manual wheelchair. Caption reads: "Bob and I are an activist couple,” says Stephanie Thomas who met Bob Kafka at a rights conference. “It’s intense because we work so closely. But it’s rewarding.” Photo by Russ Curtis: A group of protesters are looking up at something over their heads and their mouths are open shouting. In the front of the picture a woman in a manual wheelchair (Stephanie Thomas) is sitting on a line on the pavement that reads passenger zone. She has her finger raised pointing and is wearing a t-shirt with the ADAPT no-steps logo. Beside her is a man (Jim Parker) with a headband looking back over his shoulder, beside him another man in a wheelchair. Behind Jim stands a woman (Babs Johnson) with her arms by her sides and her mouth open yelling. Behind her a line of other protesters is arriving. Caption reads: ADAPT organizer Stephanie Thomas traveled to San Francisco to participate in a rally protesting the policies of the American Public Transit Association.
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Photo by Charles Krejcsi, Arizona Republic A man (Richard Guerra) in dark sunglasses and an ADAPT shirt with no sleeves and muscular arms in a manual wheelchair, and a woman (Diane Coleman) in a long skirt in a power chair, sit side by side in front of a bus at a bus stop. At the driver-side rear of the bus you can just see another wheelchair and someone standing. There is an empty power chair parked in front of the fronts steps of the bus.In the foreground a uniformed police office stands with his back to the camera looking at another uniformed officer. Both are wearing helmets. Between them you can see the legs of someone else in a wheelchair, and behind them, beside the bus stop a crowd of people are standing around. Caption: 35 arrested in bus protests Diane Coleman and Richard Guerra, both members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, block a city bus with their wheelchairs during a protest at the Phoenix Transit System terminal, First and Washington streets. Guerra, Coleman and 33 others were arrested Tuesday after staging protests at the terminal and other sites, including bus stops at the State Capitol and at Central and Van Buren. The group wants to see all the mass-transit buses equipped to accommodate handicapped passengers.
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Handicapped Coloradan Volume 9, No. 3, Boulder Colorado October 1986 [There are two articles included here.] Headline: Rosa bows out at last minute PHOTO: by Melanie Stengel, courtesy of UPI Three uniformed police officers surround a woman in a scooter (Edith Harris) and hold her arms. They are in front of a city bus, and behind them you can see a fourth officer and a city building. The caption reads: EDITH HARRIS, 62, of Hartford, Conn., is arrested by police during demonstrations in Detroit in early October. Harris, a grandmother who lost her legs to diabetes, was in Detroit to picket the national convention of the American Public Transit Association (APTA). Harris has participated in similar demonstrations in Washington, D.C, and Los Angeles, Calif. She was also arrested in both those cities. Ironically, Harris compares herself to Rosa Parks, the black civil rights leader who decided at the last minute not to participate in the Detroit transit demonstrations. Title: Blacks blast ADAPT [This article continues in ADAPT 288 but the entire text is included here for easier reading.] Civil rights heroine Rosa Parks shocked disabled groups when she said at the last minute that she would not participate in any actions protesting Detroit's lack of accessible public transit. “We do not wish any American to be discriminated against in transportation or any other form that reduces their equality and dignity," Elaine Steele an assistant to Parks, said in a letter dated Oct. 3 and delivered to Wade Blank, co-founder of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT). "However," we cannot condone disruption of Detroit city services." Parks had said she would appear at a Sunday, Oct. 5, news conference and possibly lead a march across Detroit. Steele said that Parks "supports active peaceful protest of human rights issues, not tactics that will embarrass the city's guests and cripple the city's present transportation system.“ Blank said he asked Steele how their tactics differed from those used by Parks and other blacks to fight segregation in the South in the 1950s and 1960s but she was unable to provide him with a satisfactory answer. Parks is credited with igniting the civil rights movement when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Ala. bus in 1956. Parks' defiant action caused a Montgomery minister, Martin Luther King, Jr. to organize a black boycott of that city's buses. Detroit Mayor Coleman Young and CBS newsman Ed Bradley — both black -- were scheduled to address the national convention of the American Public Transit Association (APTA) and reportedly asked Parks not to embarrass them by participating in the ADAPT action. Blank said that Parks had wavered once or twice in the weeks before the convention, but that he had managed to persuade her to stick to her original decision. But less than a week before the convention opened, Parks and her staff met in long session, and decided to support ADAPT. The Handicapped Coloradan has so far been unable to reach Parks or her representatives to learn what made her change her mind so suddenly. Blank said that he "wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Chrysler or Ford told her that they wouldn't contribute to the Rosa L. Parks Shrine if she went through with the action.” Parks is currently involved in raising money to commemorate her role and that of other blacks in the struggle for equality. But Blank stopped short of condemning Parks, saying that the 74-year-old leader has earned the respect of everyone for her actions in the 1950s. He said, "Maybe it just isn't her time any more. If I had known we were going to put her on the spot like this, I wouldn't have done it. She was under a lot of pressure. Apparently the phone never stopped ringing.” However, Blank had plenty to say about Bradley, who is a regular on the highly rated television news program "60 Minutes." Before giving a speech on apartheid in South Africa, Bradley told the 2300 APTA delegates that ADAPT had asked him not to appear at the convention. Bradley said he talked with both Young and Parks and all three agreed that they did not approve of the tactics used by the disabled group. Blank said he tried to contact Bradley by phone on at least six different occasions during the two months preceding the convention but was never able to get past his secretary." "We wanted to explain our position, but he apparently wasn't interested. This may tell you just how much homework they do on ‘6O Minutes.' Maybe people who make their living by intimidating others can't take it themselves," Blank said, referring to the often adversarial approach used on the program. “Blank said he was never able to ‘get through to Young directly but a member of Young's staff said they were welcome to ride the city's buses. "Then they arrested us for doing just that," he said. The state of Michigan requires that all transit systems receiving state funds be wheelchair accessible, but the city of Detroit avoids that requirement by financing its own transit system. Representatives of the suburban Southeastern Michigan Transportation Authority (SEMTA), which is accessible, said it would be willing to introduce a pro-accessibility resolution at the next APTA convention if it can find two or three co-sponsors, according to Blank. Young defended ‘Detroit's policy at a news conference by saying that he couldn't "make gold out of straw" to pay for the lifts. Young attacked ADAPT for employing “sabotage and sensationalism” and accused the group of taking "advantage of their disabilities" to block buses and get publicity for their cause. “That's not the way to win cooperation," he said. Blank said the only time people in power take notice of disabled people is when they engage in civil disobedience, pointing out the efforts their opponents made to discredit ADAPT. “The police told us that APTA had told them we were urban terrorists." He said he was sure few people in Detroit knew of the difficulties encountered by persons with disabilities in using public transit before ADAPT hit town. Blank said he tried to get Jesse Jackson and his rainbow coalition to support ADAPT in Detroit, but every time he telephoned he was told that “Jesse was in the air" flying to another appearance. Some members of Jackson's other group, PUSH, did participate in some of the Detroit demonstrations. Blank said he was saddened that so many blacks could not understand ADAPT's motives. “I guess it was just one human race story running up against another" he said. PHOTO: The dark figures of 3 Detroit police officers loom into the frame from all sides. Through a small hole between their arms you can see the face and chest of a man (Ken Heard) they are surrounding. Below their arms you can see the wheels and frame Ken's wheelchair. Caption reads: Detroit police had their hands full when they placed Ken Heard under arrest. Title of 2nd article: 54 arrested in transit showdown [This article is continued in ADAPT 295 but the entire text is included here for easier reading.] At least 54 demonstrators were arrested in Detroit as disabled groups once again laid siege to a national convention of their arch-foe, the American Public Transit Association (APTA). Seventeen or 18 protesters (accounts vary) were arrested Monday, Oct. 6, when they attempted to board -- and block -- Detroit city buses, which are mostly not equipped with wheelchair lifts. Those arrested were released on a $l00 personal bond and were ordered not to participate in any actions that would lead to a second arrest. The next day, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 37 protesters, including 13 repeat offenders, were booked by police for blocking one of the two entrances to the McNamara federal office building. Twenty-four of these were released after posting the $100 personal bond apiece, but the repeat offenders had bail set at $1,000 each. Even as the protesters, primarily members of the militant American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT), began pouring into Detroit Friday night, the Wayne County jail was already filled to its 1700 person capacity and was turning away all prisoners charged with misdemeanors. The 13 two-time offenders were held Tuesday night in a gym at police headquarters which has bars on the windows and which has been used on other occasions as a holding area for prisoners waiting to be incarcerated. Ironically, the gym's facilities were not accessible to persons in wheelchairs, and police were obliged to carry their disabled prisoners when they needed to use the restrooms. Outside police headquarters, another 60 demonstrators gathered and staged an all-night candlelight vigil. As in other cities where ADAPT has staged demonstrations in its fight to win mandatory accessible public transit, the police said they were in a [unreadable.] More than one officer complained that you can't help but look bad when you arrest someone in a wheelchair. The Detroit police had received briefings from other cities visited by ADAPT and had given some special training to officers in dealing with disabled protesters. ADAPT had originally been granted a parade permit to stage a march on the Westin Hotel where APTA conventioneers were meeting, but Mayor Coleman Young and police went to the city council and got the permit rescinded. No parade permit was issued when ADAPT marched on APTA in Los Angeles, but police made no attempt to push the marchers off the streets and in fact routed traffic away from the demonstrators. However, in Detroit police dogged ADAPT marchers for two miles, making [unreadable] protesters stuck to the sidewalks, even when obstacles such as a large puddle of water hampered, their progress. ADAPT spokesperson Wade Blank said the Detroit action cost $20,000 and that the group was seeking additional financial assistance to continue to press their fight, which has taken them to APTA's national conventions in Denver, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, as well as to regional meetings in San Antonio, San Diego, and Cincinnati. Blank said several reporters asked him about reports that ADAPT was being funded by lift manufacturers. “I’m sure someone with APTA planted that question to try and discredit us,” he said. Blank said ADAPT had received contributions of $100 each from two lift manufacturers but that this was for other projects. “Besides, that isn’t enough to make bail for more than two people." APTA'S 1987 convention is set for San Francisco and ADAPT is already beginning to lay the groundwork for disrupting that meeting. “People ask why we do these kinds of things (civil disobedience)," Blank said. “But look how much publicity we get. People are finally getting the word about what public transit really means to someone in a wheelchair.” California has required all public transit systems to convert to accessible systems as they replace old equipment, but Blank said he’s heard that there have been some problems with the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) in recent months. But before they head for San Francisco, ADAPT has been asked by disabled groups in Boston for assistance in setting up a program to pursue accessible transit there.
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This is a continuation of the story on ADAPT 292 but the entire text of the story is included there for easier reading. [this page also includes a second article] [Headline] 17 disrupt bus service, now facing court date The 2,300 APTA delegates, meeting through Thursday at the Westin Hotel, heard keynote speaker Ed Bradley of CBS News condem the tactics and positions of the handicappers. Bradley said he was lobbied by the Denver-based ADAPT to cancel his speaking engagement at the convention, but, after checking with Mayor Young and investigating ADAPT and its tactics, he decided he couldn't support the group. Bradley said he also checked with civil rights leader Rosa Parks, who canceled an appearance at a downtown ADAPT parade Sunday, saying she disapproved of their tactics. Mayor Young, in a press conference after his welcoming remarks to the convention, defended the city's efforts to provide wheelchair lifts on buses. He said the protesters, who have staged similar demonstrations at previous APTA conferences, using "Sabotage and sensationalism" to take "advantage of their disabilities tothrow themselves in front of buses. That's not the way to win co-operation." Young said the city recently bought 100 new buses, 20 of which were lift-equipped. "Rumpelstiltskin could make gold come out of straw," he said. "If I had that facility I would be able to do what they (ADAPT) ask."
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Protest for disabled PHOTO (from an unknown newspaper) By Melanie Stengel, UPI: A heavy set older woman (Edith Harris) in a scooter is surrounded by three uniformed police officers. Behind them on one side, a bus; behind on the other side, a large city building. Edith, who has no legs is sitting at an angle in the scooter, looking at her left hand. Two of the officers have her by her wrists, and a third, is doing something behind her back. The caption reads: BUS-TED: Edith Harris, of Hartford, Conn., is arrested for blocking a bus in front of the City-County Building in Detroit Monday. Harris, with ADAPT — American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation — was among about 18 arrested Monday, the second day of demonstrations to gain the attention of the American Public Transit Association. ADAPT is protesting the lack of wheelchair accessibility on the nation's buses and trains. The association is meeting in Detroit.
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THE HANDICAPPED COLORADAN Vol. 8, No. 4, Boulder, Colorado, November 1985 [This article continues in ADAPT 115 but the story is included here in its entirety for easier reading.] PHOTO on center-right of the page and shows several people in wheelchairs (including Larry Ruiz looking away on left, as you face the bus, and George Florum on right in black ADAPT T-shirt holding a coffee and a cigarette) in front of a large bus. One person stands in front of the bus holding a scarecrow-like effigy of a person in one hand and something else in the other. A person in a white shirt is seated in the driver's seat. Another person similarly dressed is standing next to him. Above them behind the windshield is a destination type sign reading “EASY.” Caption: DEMONSTRATORS BLOCKED BUSES in Long Beach during the fourth day of the Los Angeles demonstration. One protestor (center) holds up an effigy representing the American Public Transit Association. Police arrived later and made several arrests. Demonstrators said the Long Beach police treated them properly. [Headline] Access showdown in L.A. Leads to massive arrests In a scene reminiscent of the black civil rights marches of the 1960s, some 215 people in wheelchairs rolled down Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles on Sunday, Oct. 7, to protest the lack of accessible mainline public transit in the United States. ' Chanting "We will ride!" and carrying inflammatory placards, the single-file column snaked its way 1.7 miles from the MacArthur Park staging area to the Bonaventure Hotel where the American Public Transit Association (APTA) was holding its national convention. Although the demonstrators had been denied a parade permit, police made no attempt to halt the march and routed traffic around the procession. However, the hands-off attitude disappeared once the column of wheelchair militants reached the hotel. As hotel security personnel blocked the only wheelchair-accessible elevator that gave access to the main lobby, several of the demonstrators pulled themselves from their wheelchairs and threw their bodies in front of the escalators, vowing to prevent anyone else from entering or leaving the hotel. The disabled demonstrators shouted "Access now! Access now!" while police deliberated their next move. Finally, after an hour, the police moved in. Eight demonstrators, including one woman, were arrested for “refusing to leave the scene of a riot," according to a police spokesperson. But they didn't go without a fight. George Florom of Colorado Springs thrashed about so hard that it took three officers to subdue him. One of the officers claimed that Florom kicked and bit him, During the scuffle, police said one of the demonstrators grabbed an officer's gun. Florom was removed to a specially equipped police van. He was soon joined by Edith Harris of Hartford, Conn, a veteran of other APTA demonstrations, who had been arrested during the San Antonio APTA protest. Harris had tried several times during the day to get the police to arrest her, even to the point of throwing shredded ADAPT literature in the street and demanding that police arrest her. Police merely removed her motorized chair from the street and picked up the paper, But when Harris threw herself on an escalator, the police moved in and escorted her to a waiting police van. Police and demonstrators differed as to how well the department handled the arrests. "We look bad no matter what we do," Sgt. Bill Tiffany said. A police spokesperson said the department had medical personnel on hand and tried to provide for the special needs of those arrested. That wasn't the case, according to Wade Blank of Denver, one of the founders of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT), which helped organize the Los Angeles demonstration as it has similar protests in Denver (1983), Washington, D.C. (1984), and San Antonio, Texas (1985). "The police were real nice until we got to the Bonaventure," Blank said. “But it was a real bad situation at the hotel. The cops turned into real pigs. They wouldn't let us use the hotel restroom. Some of them laughed at a lot of disabilities of the demonstrators, and a few of them pulled their clubs and threatened us with them." Blank said he learned that the officers who pulled their clubs were later given reprimands. Lou Nau, chairman of the Disability Rights Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), was also critical of how the police handled the arrests. Nau said that Mike Auberger, a quadriplegic community organizer for the Atlantis Community in Denver, was not allowed to use a bathroom for eight hours, causing hyperreflexia, while others who were arrested were not allowed to take necessary medications although they repeatedly explained the danger this might cause. Four men were handcuffed behind their backs and then left for up to five hours in their chairs in police vans, according to Nau. Of the eight arrested, Harris was released that same night and five of the men by the following afternoon. The other two men were not released until Tuesday morning. Some 53 disabled protestors maintained a night-long vigil outside the county jail. The police later issued this statement: “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." To that end, Jack Day, a board member of the Southern California Rapid Transit District (RTD flew to Denver earlier in the year to [print completely faded] in an attempt to talk the organization out of civil disobedience. Blank was one of those who met with Day. "We told him we wouldn't use civil disobedience if the (Southern California RTD) agreed to introduce and support a resolution at the APTA convention calling upon APTA to reverse its stand and back mandatory wheelchair lifts on buses," he said. Day said that was not possible. Meanwhile back in Los Angeles Day's other board members continued to discuss ways and means of handling the demonstrators. Ironically, Los Angeles — the city where demonstrators chose to make their point - is one of the most accessible in the country. California and Michigan are the only states that require all new public transit vehicles to be equipped with lifts. Usha Viswanathan, a spokesperson for the Southern California RTD, said that 1,891 of the district‘s 2,445 active buses were equipped with lifts and another 200 were being retrofitted. The lifts cost between $15,000 and $20,000 each. Within the next five years, the district intends to operate only lift-equipped buses, making it the first 100 percent accessible system in the country. In other parts of the country it's Up to the local transit provider to decide whether or not to offer accessible service. And that's the way it should bee, according Albert Engelken, APTA's deputy executive director. Geographical and climatic conditions have to be taken into consideration because lifts are difficult to operate in snow and on curved roads, Engelken said. In the late 1970s, the Carter administration's Department of Transportation mandated that all new buses be outfitted with wheelchair lifts. APTA, which acts as a lobbying and policy-making group for some 300 separate transit districts across the country, filed a lawsuit that eventually reversed that decision. Since then disabled groups have dogged APTA wherever it meets, insisting that the organization vote on a resolution calling for mandatory accessibility. That‘s why the demonstrators were in Southern California, Jim Parker of El Paso explained. Parker said ADAPT was very appreciative of the steps California was taking toward complete accessibility.” "This is a model city," he said. The demonstrators were in Los Angeles to embarrass APTA, not the local transit district, he said. That didn't stop the demonstrators from stopping buses, however. On Wednesday, Oct. 10, wheelchair demonstrators poured onto the streets of Long Beach, where they held several buses hostage. Protestors said they would release the buses if Laurance Jackson, general manager and president of Long Beach Transit and the newly elected president of APTA, would meet with them. A spokesperson for Jackson said that would be impossible, as Jackson had other commitments at the convention and the protestors had come unannounced. Before the day was done, police issued 33 misdemeanor citations for failure to disperse and arrested l6 protestors, all of whom were later released on their own recognizance. Blank said that the Long Beach police acted appropriately under the circumstances. Long Beach had been the scene of another confrontation earlier that same week. On Monday, 26 wheelchair demonstrators staged a roll-in at the office of U.S Rep.Glen Anderson (D-Long Beach), who is chairman of the House Transportation Committee. Anderson, who had been expected in his office that day, had been detained in Washington due to a heavy work load. The congressman later issued a statement pointing out that he had consistently voted to support accessible systems. Anderson blamed the Reagan administration, not Congress, for overturning a "requirement that the handicapped be given full accessibility to public transit." Most of the demonstrators agreed with that assessment. Blank and Parker compared APTA to the Klu Klux Klan and called upon its individual members either to fire its executive board, including executive vice president Jack Gilstrap, a longtime foe of mandatory accessibility, or to pull out and form a new national transit organization. A Gilstrap aide said he had no intention of resigning. Blank said Gilstrap and the rest of the APTA membership could expect to see them again when the organization holds its next national convention in Detroit in 1986. ADAPT plans similar tactics, since Michigan, like California, has already opted for total accessibility. "It's a question of civil rights," Blank said." And it's a national issue. Wherever they go, you can expect to find us." 3 photos filling the top three-quarters of the page. Photo 1: A man (George Florum) in a manual wheelchair wearing a black no-steps ADAPT T-shirt is loaded onto a lift of some type of vehicle by three beefy police officers Caption: GEORGE FLOROM OF of Colorado Springs is arrested for blocking buses in Long Beach. Photo 2: A dark shot of a man in a white T-shirt (Chris Hronis) being pulled upward by several sets of hands. Caption: CHRIS HONIS [sic], a California ADAPT member, is arrested at the Bonaventure Hotel. Photo 3: a couple of small groups of protesters in wheelchairs and standing, are in front of one bus and beside another, while police stand nearby. Caption: ACTIVISTS hold a bus captive in Long Beach. To the left of photo 3 is an ADAPT "we will ride" logo with the wheelchair access guy and an equal sign in the big wheel.
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[Headline] Protest by disabled clogs downtown L.B. PRESS-TELEGRAM (AM/PM)/THURSDAY, Oct. 10, 1985, p. A10 FROM/A1 batch of arrests in the 200 block of Pine. At that point, protest leader Rev. Wade Blank, of Denver, told police there would be no further disruptions. Blank thanked the police for the way the department had handled the demonstration and said the remaining protesters were tired and hungry. During the afternoon, police Lt. Norm Benson conferred at length with protest leaders, pointing out that, despite whatever police sympathies there might be for the cause, the event took patrolmen off their rounds and posed an impediment to emergency vehicles. Benson even made a call to the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, where the American Public Transit Association is holding a convention, in an attempt to reach Laurence Jackson, general manager and president of Long Beach Transit and new president of the APTA, to urge him to speak by phone with an ADAPT spokesperson. Guy Heston, the bus company’s director of marketing, interviewed at the scene of the bus tie-ups, said the request to talk with Jackson was untenable because "they came unannounced, and, as you know, he has commitments at the convention." An ADAPT spokesman, Jim Parker of El Paso, told a reporter as he was being steered toward a Dial-a-Lift van for the trip to the Long Beach jail, "This is probably going to be the largest mass arrest of disabled people in the history of this country." He stressed that the targets of Wednesday's demonstration and one Monday in the office of Rep. Glenn Anderson, D-Long Beach, were the APTA, which closes its four-day convention today in Los Angeles, and Anderson, as chairman of the House subcommittee on surface transportation. "One very important thing for the people of Long Beach, Los Angeles County and California to understand," Parker said, "is that this is not aimed at them, because California and cities like Long Beach and Los Angeles are really models for the country to look at. "Most of the buses have lifts on them, and all new buses purchased will have lifts. "I guess, for the first time, disabled people have come to the city where the president of APTA resides . . . to help pull the federal government back into the issue again, along with APTA." ADAPT asserts that it was a legal action by APTA, followed by an administrative order in early months of the first Reagan administration, that killed a law mandating phased in accessibility for the disabled to public transit across the country. The order left the decision up to local option. Jackson could not be reached for comment Wednesday, but Long Beach Transit Assistant General Manager Patrick Butters said that nine of 18 fixed routes in Long Beach are wheelchair accessible, while 85 percent of all the company's public buses in the city are equipped with wheelchair lifts. "On an ongoing basis we’ve been increasing that" percentage, said Butters. A committee on the handicapped advises Long Beach Transit on which bus routes to offer lift service on, said Butters. "We’ve tried to hit the routes that are most heavily traveled," he said. An average of 12 to 14 persons a day who are confined to wheelchairs ride on fixed Long Beach Transit routes, said Butters. In addition to regular bus service, Dial-a-Lift service is available in Long Beach, Lakewood and Signal Hill, he added. At the height of the protest, Frank Lozano and Martin Walton took a stand in front of an RTD bus that had eight Long Beach Transit buses backed up behind it at Pine and Broadway. The passengers of those idled buses, workers and schoolchildren heading for home, were not happy with the delay. "Hey, I just want to go home; take a shower, eat some supper and watch the ball game," said one man. But Lozano, who is blind, and Walton, confined to a wheelchair, held their ground. "No, it doesn't surprise me,” Lozano said of the anger from the riders. "I realize that there are many people who are unaware of the issues." California is one of two states – Michigan is the other — that mandate that all new public transit buses be equipped with wheelchair lifts. The demonstrators said they were aware of this but believe that Jackson and APTA can pressure the other 48 states into enacting similar legislation. Press-Telegram staff writer Don Currie contributed to this article. Photo located on top middle of the page. Woman in an electric wheelchair wearing ADAPT stickers raises her hand in a power fist and yells. Meanwhile two informed officers load her onto a lift equipped paratransit van. The driver of the van stands in the doorway waiting. A person in a wheelchair watches from the side. Photo credit: Michael Rondou/Press-Telegram Caption: Protester is lifted onto a Dial-a-Lift van, which has the access she wants on buses, after her arrest on Long Beach Boulevard.
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This article is a continuation of the story in ADAPT 224 and is contained in its entirety there for easier reading. 3 photos filling the top three-quarters of the page. Photo 1: A man (George Florum) in a manual wheelchair wearing a black no-steps ADAPT T-shirt is loaded onto a lift of some type of vehicle by three beefy police officers Caption: GEORGE FLOROM OF of Colorado Springs is arrested for blocking buses in Long Beach. Photo 2: A dark shot of a man in a white T-shirt (Chris Hronis) being pulled upward by several sets of hands. Caption: CHRIS HONIS [sic], a California ADAPT member, is arrested at the Bonaventure Hotel. Photo 3: a couple of small groups of protesters in wheelchairs and standing, are in front of one bus and beside another, while police stand nearby. Caption: ACTIVISTS hold a bus captive in Long Beach. To the left of photo 3 is an ADAPT "we will ride" logo with the wheelchair access guy and an equal sign in the big wheel.
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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!"
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San Antonio Light Wednesday April 24, 1985 Front page Street Final [1?]04th year, No.93 The Largest and Best Newspaper in South Texas [Headline] Disabled Block Buses 50 protesters in wheelchairs clog downtown S.A. traffic. See Below. PHOTO by Roberta Barnes, San Antonio Light: On a city street a bare-chested man (Claude Holcolm) in a power chair sits in front of a GMC city bus blocking it. On Claude's left a man in a manual chair (Joe Carle?) rolls toward the back of the bus. On Claude's right a man on a scooter rolls down the other side of the bus. Inside the windshield of the bus is a sign that says "APTA." Caption reads: Stopping The Bus: Three Wheelchair-bound protesters block the path of a bus downtown as part of a protest over access for the disabled.