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Staartsäit / Albumen / Schlagwuert Ken Heard 17
Publikatiounsdatum
ADAPT (447)
PHOTO Tom Olin?: ADAPT marches down a curvy street, the line snaking back out of sight. All but a couple of people wear their black ADAPT t-shirts with the gold "no steps" logo on the front. Julie Farrar with her "Together Not Apart" sign, and Lillibeth Navarro, with an "Access equals gentler + kinder" sign are at the front of the photo. Behind them are Kim Horton, George Roberts and Mark Johnson. Then Arthur Campbell is guiding the edge of the line from the side, with his grey hair in a headband and pony tail, and next to him a quad with a blue cap sits and Sue Davis is walking toward them. In the next row of marchers is Larry Ruiz and Tommy Malone. Behind them is a woman in a white shirt and behind her is Ken Heard. Behind Ken is a someone walking on crutches with lots of buttons on their shirt. Beside that person a woman (possibly Rhonda Lester) walks and behind her is Jim Parker and Devorah Kappers is pushing someone in a wheelchair. Being pushed by Frank Lozano, Paulette Patterson is riding off to the side of the line, wearing a white t-shirt. Behind her is Lori Eastman and what looks like Rick James and Barb Guthrie.
ADAPT (453)
PHOTO by Tom Olin: On the left side of the picture you can see through a glass door men in tuxedo type outfits looking outside as two men, one in a uniform and one in a sports coat, try with all their force to pull an open glass door closed. On the right, two men in wheelchairs (Joe Carle and Ken Heard) try with all their strength to keep the door open. Ken's face is twisted in determination. Behind them Paulette Patterson and JT Templeton in their wheelchairs watch with concern, as do several other protesters. Larry Ruiz in his chair, and a man standing next to him against the wall of the Casino, look out across the street. At the very edge of the picture you can see a small child (Lincoln Blank?) riding on possibly Laurie's back.
ADAPT (214)
PHOTO by Tom Olin: Ken Heard in shorts and an ADAPT no steps T-Shirt lies back in his wheelchair one leg extended to his joy stick on his footrest, the other spasming back toward his body. His face is grimaced in determination, his arm pulled up to his chest. His wheelchair is on the lift of a bus. He is surrounded by able bodied people (mostly police officers) trying to handle him and his wheelchair. The bus lift is down, and behind and above him, in shadow up inside the bus, you can see Edith Harris, her hand on the drive of her scooter.
ADAPT (233)
The Cincinnati Post 6/26/68 Local report Courts Title: Wheelchair protestors ignore court CINCINNATI - The arrests of four wheelchair-bound protestors were ordered after they failed to appear for their trial today in Hamilton County Municipal Court. The four men were charged with disorderly conduct during protests against Queen City Metro and transit officials here for a conference. Defense attorney Joni Wilkins said she wrote a letter to each of four men - George Florum, of Colorado Springs: Colo.; Rick James of Salt Lake City; Kenneth Hart, of Denver, Colo.; and Arthur Campbell, of Louisville, Ky. -- advising them of the court date. Only Campbell acknowledged the letter, she said. Judge J. Howard Sunderman ordered warrants for the arrests of the four on a charge of failure to appear in court and forfeiture of the $1500 unsecured bonds of each defendant. Ms. Wilkins said it is unlikely any of the four would return to Ohio where they could be arrested on the warrants.
ADAPT (237)
The Cincinnati Post, Thursday, May 22, 1986 [We don't seem to have the beginning of this article] Protest (from page 1B) from the city if they chose to post bond. They did not. Kelli Bates, 21, of Denver, the only woman arrested, was the only ADAPT member to plead no contest to a disorderly conduct charge against her. Albanese found her guilty and sentenced her to 30 days in jail if she has not left the city by Friday or enters the city before Friday. Lonnie Smith, 30, of Denver, charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, pleaded not guilty. Albanese set a $2500 10-percent bond for the resisting charge and a $1500 10-percent bond for the disorderly conduct charge. Those pleading not guilty to charges of disorderly conduct and placed on a $1500 10 percent cash bond were Ernest Taylor, 31, of Hartford, Conn.; William Bolte, 54, of Los Angeles; Glenn Horton, 46, of El Paso, Texas; Joseph Carl, 47, of Denver, and James Parker, 40, of El Paso. Those pleading not guilty to charges of disorderly conduct and given higher bonds because of prior records were Robert Conard, 32, of Denver, on a $2000 10-percent cash bond and George Roberts, 37, of Denver on a $3000 10-percent cash bond. Those pleading not guilty to charges of disorderly conduct and released on a $1500 unsecured bond because of medical problems were Arthur Campbell, 39, of Louisville; Kenneth Heart, 36, of Denver; Efrain Lozano, 35, of El Paso; George Florom, 43, of Colorado Springs, Col; and Rick James, 36, of Salt Lake City. In all cases where bond could be posted, Albanese warned the people not to return to Cincinnati except for court appearances or meetings with their attorneys. The Cincinnati Human Relations Commission is investigating complaints that some handicapped people may have been denied access to the Westin Hotel. Robert Harris, the commission’s community representative for the disabled, said today at least four handicapped persons not connected with ADAPT were at least temporarily denied entrance to the hotel. “The process was geared against people in wheelchairs,” Harris said.
ADAPT (261)
The Cincinnati Post Thursday May 22, 1986 1B [This article continues in ADAPT 251, but the entire text is included here for easier reading.] PHOTO by Patrick Reddy/The Cincinnati Post: A lone man in a wheelchair (Glenn Horton) sits in front of a metal police barricade. He wears his pale ADAPT T-shirt with the ADAPT no steps logo imprinted in black on the front. He looks casual but determined, with one foot resting higher on his chair than the other, and his hands folded in his lap. Behind him is cavernous black, some kind of entrance. And around him stand four police officers dressed in dark colors, with light colored hats with eye shades. Each officer is looking determinedly in a different direction. Caption reads: Four police officers look on as Glenn Horton of El Paso, Texas, waits for a van to take him to the Hamilton County Jail after he was arrested at a protest at the Westin Hotel. Horton was among 17 disabled protesters arrested Wednesday. Title: Protesters ready for long jail stay Post staff report Comparing Cincinnati to Selma, Ala., in the 1960s, 11 members of a handicapped activist group are vowing to stay in jail to end alleged discrimination against the handicapped. Of 17 disabled protesters arrested Wednesday, 14 were charged with disorderly conduct for blocking the Westin Hotel entrance. Three were charged with criminal trespassing after chaining themselves to the front doors of Queen City Metro’s offices at 6 E. Fourth St., downtown. Scheduled court dates ranged from May 28 through June 2, so some of the protesters could be in jail for as long as 12 days. Demonstrating against lack of access to Queen City Metro buses, members of Americans Disabled tor Accessible Public Transportation have timed protests this week to coincide with an American Public Transit Association conference at the Westin. The five-day conference ended Wednesday night. “This (Cincinnati) is the Selma, Ala., of the disabled civil rights movement,” said the Rev. Wade Blank of Denver, a founder of ADAPT. “People from all over the country have been calling to say they are willing to get arrested. This has not happened in many cities.” Access Service, Queen City's alternative transit system for the elderly and handicapped, is inadequate and overloaded, ADAPT members say. “We are committed and the people who got involved in this knew it would be more than an overnight stay in jail," said Stephanie Thomas, an ADAPT organizer. “We will not post bond for them." The 11 jailed ADAPT members have been separated from the rest of the prison population and have a full-time employee watching over them at the Hamilton County Justice Center, said Victor Carrelli, Hamilton County chief deputy sheriff. Hamilton County Municipal Judge David Albanese held a special two-hour hearing Wednesday for the 17 under judicial orders covering mass arrests or civil disobedience cases. Those charged with crimi nal trespassing were Michael W. Auberger, 32, of Denver, Colo.; George Cooper Jr., 58, of Irving, Texas, and Robert Kafka, 40, of Austin, Texas. Albanese set bond for the three, who pleaded not guilty, at $3000 cash and "banned them from the city if they chose to post bond. They did not. Kelli Bates, 21, of Denver, the only woman arrested, was the only ADAPT member to plead no contest to a disorderly conduct charge against her. Albanese found her guilty and sentenced her to 30 days in jail if she has not left the city by Friday or enters the city before Friday. Lonnie Smith, 30, of Denver, charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, pleaded not guilty. Albanese set a $2500 10-percent bond for the resisting charge and a $1500 10-percent bond for the disorderly conduct charge. Those pleading not guilty to charges of disorderly conduct and placed on a $1500 10 percent cash bond were Ernest Taylor, 31, of Hartford, Conn.; William Bolte, 54, of’ Los Angeles; Glenn Horton, 46, of El Paso, Texas; Joseph Carl, 47, of Denver, and James Parker, 40, of E1 Paso. Those pleading not guilty to charges of disorderly conduct and given higher bonds because of prior records were Robert Conrad, 32, of Denver, on a $2000 10-percent cash bond and George Roberts, 37, of Denver on a $3000 10-percent cash bond. Those pleading not guilty to charges of disorderly conduct and released on a $1500 unsecured bond because of medical problems were Arthur Campbell, 39," of Louisville; Kenneth Heart, 36, of Denver; Efrain Lozazno, 35, of El Paso; George Florom, 43, of Colorado Springs, Col; and Rick James, 36, of Salt Lake City. In all cases where bond could be posted, Albanese warned the people not to return to Cincinnati except for court appearances or meetings with their attorneys. Prosecutor Charles A. Rubenstein in many of the cases protested Albanese’s decision to allow the prisoners to be released on bonds. “There is a great likelihood if they are released on bond they would create "further problems and turn this court into a revolving door,” he said. However, James Nicholas of the public defenders office, who was appointed to aid the group's privately hired legal counsel, said "the group would cause no further problems. “The reason that they came, here is finished. They have no reason to remain." After the hearings were finished, Nicholas said most members of the group had vowed to remain in jail.
ADAPT (267)
THE PLAIN DEALER, THURSDAY, MAY 22; 1986 page 19-A PHOTO by AP: Four policemen in their fancy police hats are "rolling" a man (Rick James) up a 150 degree (ie. almost vertical) "ramp" into a van. Rick is sitting with his hands up by his chest. His hat is missing and his hair is flying out in all directions. His expression is a mix of amazement, disgust and resignation. Caption reads: Cincinnati policemen push Rick James of Salt Lake City, Utah, up a ramp into a van after he was arrested outside a downtown hotel as part of a demonstration by American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation. Title: Cincy arrests disabled in protest of bus access By BILL SLOAT STAFF writer CINCINNATI — Police arrested l7 disabled people yesterday after they blockaded the entrance to a downtown hotel or chained themselves to the doorway of an adjoining office building that houses Queen City Metro, this city’s public bus service. Eleven of them refused to post bond and were in Hamilton County Justice Center under cash bonds ranging from $1,500 to $3,000. Five were released late yesterday on personal bonds. One pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct and was found guilty. Sixteen were in wheelchairs from polio, paralyzing spinal accidents, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy and amputations. One was blind and walked carrying a white cane. The arrests were made during a non-violent, noon demonstration that challenged lack of access to city buses here and around the nation. Chants of “We will ride" and “Access now” came from about 52 demonstrators outside the Westin Hotel. Some removed footstands from their wheelchairs and banged on metal barricades. Police stood behind the barricades and refused to let the demonstrators into the hotel. All 17 taken to jail said they were members of a national handicapped rights organization called American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation. “This is a civil disobedience action," said Wade Blank, 47, a Presbyterian minister who helped organize yesterday's protest. Blank, who now lives in Denver, was involved in anti-war demonstrations at Kent State University in the 1960s when he lived in Akron. Several of the people loaded onto vans and hauled away to the Hamilton County Justice Center on disorderly conduct charges compared Cincinnati to Selma and Montgomery, two Alabama cities where civil rights activists were jailed by authorities in the 1960s. “The message needs to be sent out that we can’t ride a bus because we're handicapped,” said Glenn Horton, 46, of El Paso, Texas. "It's discrimination it’s segregation and it’s appalling that it could still be happening in this country." Horton said he had been confined to a wheelchair since age 9, when he fell and broke his back. Bill Bolte, 54, of Los Angeles, said handicapped people needed mainline bus service to get to jobs, movies, dates, shopping, banks and anywhere else they might want to go. “We're already in prison," said Bolte, who had polio 51 years ago. “We're going to see that what few rights we have are not going to be taken away. Our rights to public transportation are being deprived, and we will not sit for it." Organizers of the protest said they took to the streets because about 600 executives of public and private transit companies in the eastern United States and Canada were attending a convention in the hotel that ends today. Protesters said the convention should adopt a resolution supporting the installation of wheelchair lifts on all public buses in the nation. Many came from Denver, which has such lifts in use on its bus fleet. The demonstration also came a day after the U.S. Department of Transportation announced in Washington, D.C., a new regulation that allows transit authorities to establish alternative services for the disabled instead of putting lifts on regularly scheduled buses. Demonstrators complained the rule meant that buses, subways and rail lines wouldn't be made accessible to people in wheelchairs. Police Chief Lawrence Whalen said the comparisons with Alabama in the 1960s were unfair when it came to the police. Police in the South during the civil rights era often brutalized protesters. Whalen yesterday said, “Our officers handled themselves very admirably. The group has had their chance to protest and get their point across." He said the police assigned to make arrests had attended special briefings on how to handle disabled people and were instructed to ask the people in custody the best way to lift them into vans. “We wanted to be sensitive to their special needs." Whalen said. Three of those arrested yesterday were out on $3,000 bond after incidents Monday when two climbed aboard city buses, paid fares and refused to leave when ordered off by Queen City Metro officials. The third interfered with a bus. The three, Robert A. Kafka, 40, of Austin, Texas; George Cooper, 58, of Irving, Texas; and Michael W. Auberger, 32, of Denver, were charged yesterday with Criminal trespassing when they chained themselves to the entranceway of Queen City Metro's offices. Police Capt. Dale Menkhaus told his men to use bolt cutters to get them out of the building. Kafka, Cooper and Auberger had been ordered Tuesday not to set foot in Cincinnati by a Municipal judge at the time they posted bond, but another Municipal judge lifted the banning order shortly before yesterday's protests started. Police Chief Lawrence Whalen said 14 others were charged with disorderly conduct for their activities outside the hotel. Bond was set at $3,000 each, a Hamilton County Municipal Court official said. Before the demonstration began, the group gathered in a Newport, Ky., motel for a strategy session on civil disobedience. They agreed not to carry anything but identification with them when they confronted police in downtown Cincinnati and they voted not to post bail. None of the people arrested were from Ohio. The 11 who refused to post bond and were in jail last night are: Bolte; Bob Conrad of Denver; Joe Carle of Denver; Auberger; Horton; Jim Parker of El Paso, Texas; Cooper; George Roberts of Denver; Earnest Taylor of Hartford, Conn.; Lonnie Smith of Denver; Kafka. Kelly Bates of Denver pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct, was found guilty and sentenced to 30 days in jail, which she is to start serving tomorrow. Those released on personal bond are Ken Heard of Denver; George Florman of Colorado Springs, Colo.; Frank Lozano of El Paso, Texas; Rick James of Salt Lake City, Utah; and Arthur Campbell of Louisville, Ky.
ADAPT (273)
PHOTO: Three police officers tip Ken Heard, an Asian American man, way back in his motorized wheelchair in an apparent attempt to stop him. The two on his side look somewhat taken aback, while the guy behind him looks determined and wary. Ken looks like he is waiting for his moment. Ken's hand and arm are up by his side and his control for his wheelchair, mounted on his footrest, is flipped over. Between and behind a couple of the officers an African American man is standing watching, with a smile on his face.
ADAPT (288)
This story is a continuation of the first article in ADAPT 296. The text of the article is included there for easier reading. 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.
ADAPT (296)
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.
ADAPT (373)
A policeman in a dark uniform and cap, face in shadow, grabs the push handles of a motorized wheelchair. He wears dark glasses and on his shoulder a police patch. An Asian American man (Ken Heard) in an ADAPT t-shirt looks down his face pressed in a look of determination sits, turned slightly, in the chair. He wears glasses and a headband with a Chinese dragon on it. the armrest of his powerchair has a box taped to it (a decoy control box) and a cup holder and on the lower section of the armrest you can see the first part of a proud and disabled bumper sticker. Above his head in the background you can see an African American man (Bernard Baker) sitting on the ground against a police barricade; he is yelling. Beside him is another power-wheelchair with a "proud and disabled" bumper sticker across the back.
ADAPT (317)
Tues., April. 7, 1987, The Phoenix Gazette Title: Vice mayor derides disabled group's tactics By Pat Flannery, The Phoenix Gazette Vice Mayor Howard Adams denounced the tactics of a group of wheelchair activists protesting in Phoenix, saying their actions cloud the “tremendous job” the city has done to make public transit accessible to the disabled. The American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit has staged several protests in the city to dramatize its demand that all public transit buses in the nation be equipped with wheelchair lifts. On Monday, about 30 wheelchair-bound protesters blocked two entrances to the Mansion Club in an effort to prevent 40 American Public Transit Association conventioneers’ spouses from attending a luncheon there. The delegation had arrived via a taxpayer-supported Phoenix Transit charter bus. In a later incident at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Phoenix, police said five protesters were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. The were: Marilyn Golden, 33, of Oakland, Calif.; Arthur Campbell Jr., 43, of Louisville, Ky.; Kenneth Heard, 36, of Denver; Chris Hronis, 47, of Haywood, Calif.; and Robert Conrad, 38, of Dallas. ADAPT has staged protests in every city in which the APTA - an industry lobbying group — has held a major convention. The APTA is holding its Western regional conference this week at the downtown Hyatt Regency. “Arizona and Phoenix have absolutely nothin to be ashamed of,” Adams, who himself uses a wheelchair, told the editorial board of The Phoenix Gazette and The Arizona Republic Monday. “At this point, disruption doesn't serve the cause," Adams said. The Phoenix Mayor's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped has taken the same position, saying in a position paper that it endorsed the protesters’ goal but not their methods. “The type of demonstration usually conducted by ADAPT serves only to shed a very negative light on a very worthy cause," committee chairwoman Michelle Goldthwaite wrote. APTA has been ADAPT’s primary target since 1982, when APTA successfully fought a federal regulation requiring all city transit systems to equip at least half their buses with lifts to qualify for federal funds. But Adams said the local protests could unfairly malign the city's efforts to meet the needs of the Valley's disabled. "l would hate for the public to think overall that this is aimed at Phoenix," he said. City transit director Richard Thomas said Phoenix is doing “reasonably well" to accommodate the needs of the disabled through a mix of lift-equipped buses, “dial-a-ride” vehicles and an experimental program in which private transportation for the disabled is subsidized by the city.
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The Riverfront Times, ST. LOUIS' LARGEST WEEKLY: 211,962 READERS EVERY WEEK! MAY 18-24, 1988 [This article continues in ADAPT 398, but the entire text is included here for easier reading] PHOTO: Three plain clothes policemen try to hold back a man in a motorized wheelchair (Ken Heard). One is behind Ken, one beside him holding the armrest and the third is in front bending forward trying to manipulate the driving mechanism that is on the footrest of Ken's wheelchair. (Ken drove his chair with his foot.) Ken is in shorts and an ADAPT shirt and wears a pony tail and head band, and he is leaning forward concentrating on trying to control his chair. A uniformed policeman looks on from behind or is possibly looking to help. On the right side of the photo, another man in a scooter (Tommy Malone from KY) is watching. Behind him is a set of glass doors and blocking one is a woman in a wheelchair (Barbara Guthrie of Colorado Springs). She is wearing dark glasses and a brimmed hat as well as her ADAPT shirt. title: Picket To Ride, Why the disabled take to the streets to get down the road by Joseph Schuster For most who want to take the bus, the biggest problem is finding exact change to drop into the fare box. But for disabled persons dependent on wheelchairs, the fare box is more a slot machine: Their chance of getting on a bus is frequently as unlikely as hitting the jackpot. The problem is an acute shortage of buses equipped with wheelchair lifts to get disabled passengers into the bus. In St. Louis, less than one-fourth of the 690 buses operated by Bi-State Development Agency are equipped with lifts; only half of those available lifts function. The story is the same in almost every city across the United States, and now disabled rights activists are pointing to the lack of accessible transportation as the most significant problem facing the disabled today. "In the past (disabled groups) placed education and employment programs high as a priority," says Mike Auberger, a leader and founder of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT). "But we've always seen that as the biggest joke: 'Hire the handicapped.' You can give me a job, one that pays a good salary, but if I can't drive (because of a disability) and can't take a bus, there's no way in heaven you can hire me. It's been, 'Here, let's put this piece of the pie out here for you but not give you a way to reach it. The unemployment rate among disabled Americans is appallingly high. The most recent figures available for St. Louis are from the 1980 census, says Russ Signorino spokesman for the Missouri Division of Employment Security. [at this point in the article the first column is cut off on the left, slightly] According to that census, there were 119.000 [disa]bled St. Louisans. but only 48,000 were in [the] work force. says Signorino. Of the 71,000 of the labor force. 59.000 did not work [bec]ause their disability prevented them from [emp]loyment. The balance of 12,000 disabled [unclear]ons were so-called "discouraged workers." [Indi]viduals who had stopped looking for work [beca]use of various factors. ‘You're going to find a higher percentage of [disc]ouraged workers among the disabled (than [amo]ng the general population)." Signorino [said]. Nationally, less than one-third of the country's 13 million disabled are in the labor force, according to the Statistical Abstract of the United States 1986, the most recent edition to {unclear] information on the employment status of disabled Americans. Of those who are in the work force, almost {unclear]-fifth are unemployed. ("Discouraged" workers are not included in the work force; those who are unemployed. but looking for work. are.) This is compared, in the same year, with the able-bodied population of the country, which nearly 70 percent of 133 million persons were in the workforce and 9.6 percent of those were unemployed. The problem of lack of access to public transit brought Auberger and more than 100 other members of ADAPT to St. Louis this week to demonstrate at the annual meeting of Eastern region of the American Public Transit Authority [sic] (APTA), the industry's [principal] trade organization. ADAPT wants the transit industry to move toward what ADAPT calls "100 percent accessibility." That is every bus in the country would have wheelchair lifts. But APTA opposes that saying it is impractical and too expensive. It favors, instead, what is known as "local option." Each transit authority would decide how it would make public transportation accessible for the disabled, using either buses equipped with lifts, paratransit vans with lifts (the so-called dial-a-ride services, or a combination of the two. Right now, 18 percent of the nation's systems use lift-equipped buses exclusively, 44 percent use paratransit vans and the remainder — including St. Louis — use a combination. Nationally, according to APTA Deputy Executive Director Albert Engelken, one in three buses is lift-equipped. That is progress, Engelken says. In 1980, only about 11 percent of the nation's buses were lift-equipped. But for ADAPT and others in the disabled community, the progress is too slow. “I'm damned impatient," says Jim Tuscher, vice-president of programs for Paraquad, a St. Louis non-profit agency that serves disabled people. "I personally have been involved with Bi-State for well over 10 years, negotiating, trying to get an accessible transit system and today we still do not have an adequate system. Sure, their attitude is better now than it was 10 years ago, in that they are willing to cooperate with the disabled community. They had to be dragged, kicking and screaming into this. But I‘m a results person and so far I haven't seen any. I still can't go out to the corner and take a bus." Currently, 171 (24.8 percent) of Bi-State's 690 buses are equipped with wheelchair lifts. Tom Sturgess, the company's director of communication, says the system has a goal of 100 percent wheelchair accessibility, but getting there is a slow process. Later this summer, the number of lift-equipped buses will be increased to 238, but that will still mean that only one in three Bi-State buses can be used by a disabled person. Sturgess says Bi-State has notified its manufacturer that it will be buying another 60 lift-equipped buses sometime in the near future. Of the company's present 171 wheelchair lifts, only 85 (or just less than half) function. “We've had a lot of problems with them." says Sturgess. “The new buses we're getting will have a different kind of lift in them, one we think will work. Of those we have, we're in the process of repairing as many as we can, but some will never operate again. We're convinced it wouldn't be economically feasible to do so. The biggest problem is the salt they spread on the streets and highways. It sprays up into the lift mechanism, corrodes the wires and rusts the lifts.“ Because there are so few lift-equipped buses at present, only 16 to 18 of Bi-State's 129 routes have accessible buses, says Todd Plesko, Bi-State's director of service planning and scheduling. But not every bus that travels those routes has a lift. For example, on Bi
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Chicago Tribune Photo by Eduardo Contreras: An Asian-American man (Ken Heard) with pulled back hair and large glasses, a white jacket and pale jeans sits in his foot controlled power wheelchair. He blocking part of an escalator, and what he is not blocking, the police officer that is trying to stop him is blocking. The officer's arms are crossed across his chest and Ken has his hands in his pockets. Caption reads: Ken Heard blocks the entrance to an escalator Wednesday in the State of Illinois Center as part of an ADAPT protest.
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Chicago Tribune, Thursday May 14, 1992 [This article continues in ADAPT 712 but the entire text has been included here for easier reading.] Photo by Eduardo Contreras: A man (Randy Horton) in a denim jacket kneels on the bottom step of an escalator with his arms spread from one handrail to the other. Someone stands on the escalator facing him. Behind him are a group of other protesters in wheelchairs filling the area. The group includes: Steve Verriden, San Antonio Funtes, Chris Hronis and others. Caption reads: Randy Horton (on knees) blocks John Meagher on a State of Illinois Center escalator. Title: Disabled protesters take hard line by Christine Hawes and Rob Kawath Rolling his wheelchair around the cavernous State of Illinois Center, shouting for his rights, Ken Heard recalled how he used to spend his days in a Syracuse, N.Y., nursing home where doctors controlled his life. They would tell him when he could get up in the morning, when he could go to sleep, what he could eat. They would feed him pills, but they wouldn’t tell him what they were for. It was as if he had no mind of his own. “l saw people tied down in their beds, said Heard, who has severe cerebral palsy. "And I saw people die in there." It took some time, a marriage that got him out of the nursing home and a raging desire for independence, but today Heard has regained the power to think for himself. He now earns his own income, rents and fumishes his own apartment and even takes vacations in Las Vegas. His joumey to self-sufficiency began when he heard about an activist group now called American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today. On Wednesday, about 200 ADAPT protesters in wheelchairs disrupted operations at the State of Illinois Center, 100 W. Randolph St., blocking exits and occasionally fighting with building patrons and workers as police stood by, arresting no one. Elaborate security measures the state had put in place Monday to keep the 16-floor, 3,000-employee building functioning broke down while state and Chicago police squabbled over who was responsible for arresting protesters deemed to have gone too far. But the scene of disabled men and women dragging themselves up escalators, surging into the building lobby and clutching the legs of people trying to walk past is just another picture in the well-publicized story of a group of vociferous activists savvy in street action. “One of the strongest points of their civil disobedience is making themselves look as pathetic as possible,” said one Chicago-area official at an agency that has been a target of ADAPT. The official, who asked that his name be withheld, said, “They are excellent media users, and they are very successful at putting spotlights on issues that most people probably wouldn’t normally pay attention to.” ADAPT has taken its dedication to a fever pitch, too fevered for some, and like many new protest `groups`—including the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT -UP) for gay rights, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) for animal rights and Earth First for the ecology—is using dramatic, sensational tactics for their cause, to allow any nursing home residents the ability to live on their own. And though some may question their efforts, none can doubt they have impact. One woman who said she was grabbed, tripped and bitten during Wednesday’s melee confessed a few hours later, “I can’t help but feel guilty.” During Heard’s 10-year stay in the nursing home, he met some ADAPT members from Denver and listened to them tell of how they took sledgehammers to Denver's street curbs as a way of objecting to inaccessible sidewalks. Now Heard is a political organizer for ADAPT, in town with 350 other protesters. And though members are no longer taking sledgehammers to cement, they are steering wheelchairs into intersections, chaining themselves to buildings and crawling along dirty streets to get over curbs too high for wheelchairs. For the past two years, ADAPT has been staging demonstrations every six months in support of reallocating one-fourth of the country’s Medicaid funds that now go to nursing homes to in-home health care, and to make it easier for disabled people like Heard to escape their “prisons.” This week in Chicago, protests have played out at the quarters of everyone ADAPT perceives as the health-care power brokers: the federal Department of Health and Human Services, the American Medical Association and the offices of Gov. Jim Edgar. ADAPT claims that having personal, in-home attendants for the disabled costs $900 a month less in state funds than keeping them in nursing homes and other institutions. Illinois officials say the difference is only $600. But aside from financial concerns, ADAPT members say they’re fighting against inhumane restraint and abuse in nursing homes. Their strategy is to make the able-bodied feel as uncomfortable and limited as they themselves do—and to grab as much media time as possible. Television cameras were there Wednesday when bands of wheelchair users mobbed workers trying to use an escalator in the State of Illinois Center. And they were there Tuesday when protesters crawled out of their wheelchairs, across Grand Avenue and over foot-high curbs outside of the American Medical Association’s national headquarters. “This makes us visible," said Jean Stewart, a 42-year-old novelist from New York, who has used a wheelchair since she lost her hip muscle because of a tumor about 17 years ago. “And it enables us to get our message across. It’s not a publicity stunt, it’s education.” The group’s history is rife with attention-grabbing acts of protest after talks with officials were unsuccessful and full of what they feel is noteworthy success. The end result of the Denver protests, said Wade Blank, a founding member of the group, was one of the most accessible cities for disabled people in this country. Three years ago, a handful of ADAPT members were arrested for blocking a Chicago Transit Authority bus with their motorized wheelchairs. But two results of those efforts, they feel, were CTA purchase of buses with wheelchair lifts and even the passage of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. ADAPT members say they are disrupting business as usual because they are shut out of offices where politicians and association presidents could be sitting down to discuss the issue. And they are trapping members of the public to demonstrate how they feel trapped and restrained. “For so long the issues surrounding disability have remained invisible,” said Stephanie Thomas, who lost her ability to walk when she was run over by a tractor 17 years ago. “So we have to do some extraordinary things to make people pay attention.” Wednesday’s protest, which came after U.S. District Judge Milton Shadur refused to order a lessening of security measures at the state’s Chicago headquarters, left police and Department of Central Management Services security officers snapping only at each other, even after the protest turned ugly. “I have to get to an appointment!" yelled one middle-age man as he wrestled on the ground with two protesters who had grabbed his legs and, in the process, had been pulled out of their wheelchairs. “This is what it feels like to be trapped in a nursing home!” yelled one protester. The man finally struggled free and hustled out of the building while Chicago and Central Management Services police watched from only a few feet away. “We’re sorely disappointed with the Chicago Police Department,” said Central Management Services Director Stephen Schnorf. “Certainly they provided better protection to the other buildings where there were protests this week.” But Chicago Police Cmdr. Michael Malone said the state was in control and his officers were just there to back them up. He said the state was misrepresenting the agreement between the two departments. And all that consternation was caused by a group that claims to be loosely organized and barely funded ADAPT, which has about 5,000 members nationwide, has very little formal correspondence, aside from a newspaper called Incitement and a rare memo, Blank said members keep in touch through word of mouth more than anything, and most of them support their travels through small fundraisers. But though the group says most of its day-to-day procedures are hardly sophisticated, ADAPT leaders are extremely skilled in using the media, say some who have watched the group’s protests first-hand. Sonya Snyder, public relations director at a Florida hotel where ADAPT demonstrated against the American Health Care Association last October, said the protesters only became rambunctious when television cameras appeared. “For most of the time, the police and the protesters would share sandwiches,” Snyder said. “But when the media came, down went the sandwiches and up went the protest.” And Janice Wolfe, a spokeswoman for the health care association, said the group’s efforts are “frustrating and misdirected. Their efforts could be better spent on individuals who are in power to do something.” ADAPT members view their protests as grand displays of strength, not pitiful appeals. They speak of their demonstration plans as though they are plotting battle strategy, using words like “identified enemy,” “privileged information” and "top secret." They pattern their protests after the civil rights demonstrations of the 1960s and compare themselves to the black leaders of that era “This is just like Martin Luther King,” ADAPT member Bernard Baker from Atlanta “We’re fired up, and we can’t take it anymore."