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Início / Albuns / Etiquetas Washington DC + Denver 3
- ADAPT (223)
MAinstream magazine [No date] [This story continues in ADAPT 222, but is contained here in its entirety for reading ease.] [Headline] ADAPT takes the fast lane to make transit accessible By Michael Ervin San Antonio—The first indication that something was about to happen came when an oversized, stretch-limo of a van pulled up beside the Alamo and a wheelchair lift uncurled out of the back door. The colorful banner on the side of the van read: ACCESS FOR ALL. Six more people in wheelchairs were in another van parked in a lot down the street. As they proceeded down the sidewalk to join the demonstration in front of the Alamo the pedestrians stopped and looked them over. A parade of people in wheelchairs is bound to draw stares. But the expressions accompanying these stares were unique—welcoming, supportive, somewhat star struck. Maybe they knew they were coming. Before the 50 or so members of various chapters of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit even arrived here there were stories in the media about previous ADAPT confrontations with the American Public Transit Association (APTA.) Television news showed footage of the mass arrests that occurred last October in Washington, D.C. when ADAPT members tried to force their way into the center where APTA was holding its annual convention. That's the kind of escalating media coverage Wade Blank likes to see. He’s the main force behind ADAPT. “We're becoming famous. When we had our first ADAPT meeting in Denver in 1982, our goal was to make the officials of any city we were coming to nervous. We wanted them to say, ‘No! Not here! We don’t want ‘em!’” They were certainly nervous in San Antonio. When a horde of people in wheelchairs showed up at the offices of the local transit authority for a noisy demonstration, the employees locked themselves in a large office as if they were afraid ADAPT was going to take them out one by one and shoot them. And when the march that began at the Alamo turned into an equally raucous occupation of the lobby of the posh hotel where APTA people were staying, hotel security had no idea what to do. And the bewildered looks of the innocent tourists were amusing. They’d certainly never seen anything like that before. “Seeing a bunch of disabled crazies blocking buses and doing things like that redefines everything everybody’s been conditioned to believe about the disabled," Blank says. This radical redefinition of what the disabled are (in the eyes of both the disabled and nondisabled) is what ADAPT is all about. And having stuffy APTA conferences and conventions as a backdrop helps make that point. APTA’s primary sin, according to ADAPT, is that it spent big bucks on a lawsuit that struck down the federal mandate that all fixed-route public buses be lift-equipped. ADAPT sees equal transit access as the most basic civil right. “It's the same segregation as when blacks had to sit in the back of the bus or yield their seats to whites. Except it’s even worse,” says Blank. “The disabled can’t even get on the bus.” By using APTA as a symbol of the stifling paternalism that keeps the disabled in a position of dependency, ADAPT makes the immorality of inaccessible public transit quite clear. *** Wade Blank is an ordained minister who never goes to church. “It’s in the true Jesus tradition. He was kicked out of the synagogue and never went back.” Blank worked in a nursing home for a few years after seminary. It frustrated him to see the disabled friends he made there stuck there simply because they had no place else to go. So in 1976 he and some others began Atlantis, an independent living center in Denver. ADAPT was born of Atlantis. Blank says Atlantis likes to “do the impossible” in terms of working with clients who have the deepest holes of dependency to dig out of. Frank, a man with cerebral palsy who was part of the ADAPT Denver caravan to San Antonio, was sprung by Atlantis in 1976 from a nursing home he had been in since 1934. Another woman began feeding herself for the first time when she became part of Atlantis. She was always physically able to. Her mother just didn't want her making a mess. Another woman had never seen a head of lettuce. Her salads had always come to her prepared. It’s rather stunning seeing people who were mired in the world of please and thank you traveling around the country, blocking buses and maybe getting arrested. It’s gotten ADAPT and Atlantis in trouble with irate relatives. The father of a woman arrested for blocking buses in Denver told Wade that since he was a reverend he must be brainwashing his daughter into joining his cult, just like Jim Jones. He said he was going to tell the newspapers so they could investigate. But Blank says, “All we’re saying to people in Atlantis and ADAPT is, ‘You are an important person.’ I just tell them (the irate relatives) that people get excited when they see that they are important and that they are expected to be somebody.” In 1978, it became clear that the mission of Atlantis could never be fully accomplished as long as Denver’s public transit system was totally inaccessible. What good was it to set someone up in an accessible apartment if they couldn’t move beyond it? They might as well have still been in the nursing home. So the Atlantis people took to the streets of Denver. They blocked buses. They held sit-ins in the transit authority offices. They got arrested. But four years later, they won and Denver is on its way to full access. [Bordered text box in center of page: “We created a drama and let it unfold . . .I guess we raised consciousness.”] The next year, APTA made the mistake of holding its convention in Denver. The target was too tempting for Atlantis to resist. Here was the personification of everything Atlantis opposed right on its step and begging to be hit. Atlantis formed a permanent transportation component call ADAPT. They organized confrontations around the convention and vowed to follow APTA everywhere until it passed ADAPT ’s resolution renouncing the lawsuit and the damage it did. These confrontations would also provide a focal point and a training ground for activists from other cities so they could form their own ADAPT chapters. Mike Auberger of Atlantis is a quadriplegic resulting from a bobsled accident during the 1972 Olympic time trials. “When we started ADAPT, we were a bunch of crazy nuts. A year later, we were a possibility. Now, we’re a reality. We started in one city and here we are about 20 cities. We must be selling something everybody needs.” The hope is that the feeling of self-importance that inspired the disabled of Denver will be as infectious in San Antonio and in cities all over America. ADAPT paved the way in San Antonio by creating a three-day headache for the police and transit authority and forcing them to take the issue very seriously. They also permanently etched the issue on the minds of the people of San Antonio with pictures on the front page of the newspaper of disabled people blocking APTA tour buses. “We created a drama and let it unfold,” Blank says. “I was talking to a reporter and I said, ‘I guess we raised consciousness.’ She said, ‘Boy did you! That’s all this town is talking about.’ ” “Now you can’t say that about too many political movements today.” But even if it doesn’t play in San Antonio, Auberger sees what happened there as another battle won. “Again we took on APTA and beat them. You’ve got this guy in a $300 suit and a designer tie with his initials and a soup stain on it. More and more people are starting to see APTA that way.” If success can be judged by police reaction, ADAPT is accomplishing a lot. Knowing ADAPT ’s penchant for blocking buses, the police routed buses away from areas with high ratios of wheelchair-users. They obviously did their homework by talking to police in other cities who had to deal with ADAPT. A television news report even told of how San Antonio police intelligence photographers were following ADAPT members around. And it’s clear that transit authorities are taking ADAPT very seriously too. The next target is Los Angeles, where APTA will hold its convention in October. ADAPT has obtained a copy of a private memo of the Southern California Rapid Transit District that speaks of the authority’s plans to spend $10,000 to $15,000 to “handle vast numbers of wheelchair bound people” who will be coming to town. “While confrontations cannot be stopped, they can be blunted.” It speaks of how the RTD is “searching for ways to diffuse or ward off demonstrations,” perhaps by pacifying everyone for a few days with a conference on accessible transit [ibid]. “Can we take control by creating a hospitality center for the handicapped?” the memo says. Who can resist such an opportunity. ADAPT is on its way. - ADAPT (599)
PHOTO: An African American woman in a motorized wheelchair sits in front of a group of other people in wheelchairs and standing. Several are wearing ADAPT no stairs logo T-shirts. The woman in front has a sign across the front of the wheelchair that says "Access Now. We will Ride." They are on a city street in an urban downtown area. Caption says: SINCE 1983, ADAPT has picketed APTA is national and regional conventions, always an unwelcome guest. Scores of demonstrators have been arrested hundreds of times as they blocked the entrances to APTA's various hotel headquarters in such cities, as Denver, Detroit, Montreal, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Cincinnati, San Antonio, and Reno. Only once, in Denver in 1983, was ADAPT allowed to make its plea for accessible public transit before an APTA meeting, and then only after the city's mayor, Federico Pena, intervened. APTA insisted throughout the demonstrations that they weren't opposed to lifts per se, only to making the lifts mandatory on all public transit systems. APTA argued that it was a matter best decided by local transit providers. - ADAPT (588)
Fort Worth Star Telegram handwritten: 3-26-89 [sic] [Headline] An Easter sit-in by activists in the Federal Building [This story appears in 588 and continues on 587, but is entirely included here for ease of reading.] PHOTO (by Fort Worth Star-Telegram/ RICKY MOON): In a fairly fancy office with leather chairs and wooden bookshelves and table, a group of disabled people sit in a semi circle. On the left side of the picture is a small man (Paul Alexander) in a grey suit and small, personally adapted wheelchair; his head is back and he is kind of looking over his shoulder at some of the others in the room. Next to him in a comfy padded chair sits a man with black hair, mustache and beard (Frank Lozano) in an ADAPT no steps logo shirt. Over his head he holds a poster that says "Access not excuses DON'T APPEAL." Next to him is a man in a manaul wheelchair (Bob Kafka) who is also wearing an ADAPT no steps logo shirt, suspenders and blue jeans. Beside him is a doorway and someone is standing in the doorway, on the other side with his back to the group. On the other side of the door is a woman in a wheelchair (Kathy Gaines) with curly hair and a pink blouse; she appears to be in a wheelchair as well. She is holding a sign but you can't read it from the angle it's at. Beside her, and at the front of the picture is a man (Joe Carle) sitting in an armchair with his legs up in his wheelchair; one leg is amputed below the knee. He is wearing a vest and ADAPT T-shirt on the arm of which you can see the list of cities where ADAPT has held actions. He is holding up and looking at a poster that reads "Bush says Mainstream Disabled." Caption reads: Paul Alexander, left, and Kathy Gaines, second from right, tried to negotiate for Frank Lozano and Bob Kafka, center, and Joe Carle, right. [Headline] Disabled demand better access BY Bob GWIZDZ Fort Worth StarTelegram Four people lobbying for better access to public transportation for disabled people refused to leave the Federal Building in downtown Fort Worth last night, promising to stay until Monday. Members of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation earlier in the day had demanded that a local Department of Transportation official call the White House in support of their cause. Similar actions were planned in other cities today. “We plan to stay through Easter and welcome Wilbur Hare Monday morning.“ said Bob Kafka, a community organizer with the group. “On Monday we'll decide where we go from there.“ Hare, regional manager of the Urban Mass Transportation Administration, refused the group's request that he call White House chief of staff John Sununu in support of a recent federal appeals court decision requiring wheelchair lifts on all new public buses purchased with federal money. Group members say they think the Department of Transportation will appeal the decision. ln Philadelphia, eight people were escorted from a federal building that contains the regional transportation administration office when the building closed at 5 p.m. Sieglinde Shapiro, who headed the delegation of disabled people, said she read a statement to the official in charge. The statement noted that similar meeting had been scheduled with regional directors in New York, Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Seattle, Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Ariz., and Salt Lake City, she said. The Associated Press office in Dallas said it had no reports of meetings with federal officials there. The Fort Worth office of the transportation department serves the Metroplex. Shapiro said “our sources in Washington tell us that the U.S. Department of Transportation is poised to appeal” the Feb. 13 decision by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The ruling requires that every bus newly purchased with federal assistance be wheelchair accessible, and that those unable use buses be provided with adequate transportation. The Fort Worth protest began when between 20 and 30 demonstrators, many in wheelchairs, arrived at the Federal Building around 1 p.m. after assembling at nearby Burnett Park. Hare, who said he received word Wednesday that a protest was planned, asked the protesters to meet with him downstairs at the Federal Building. The demonstrators refused. “That’s how you treat the disabled separate,” Kafka said to Hare. “We want to see you on the ninth floor, in your office, like everybody else. It’s the same thing as transportation — we want access like everybody else.” After a few protesters entered the building, Federal Protective Service officers locked the doors, forcing more than half of the demonstrators to remain outside. Hare said his office would not accommodate all the protesters. He declined to say who ordered the officers to lock the doors. About 10 protesters met with Hare in his office. “I’m not calling Mr. Sununu, but if you have a message for him, I’ll do my best to get it delivered,” Hare said. “lf you’d like to make a call, then go where you conduct your business and make the call. I’m sure you’ve made your views known to (President) Bush and if you haven’t, there are better ways to do it than tying up this office all afternoon.” Hare did call the Washington headquarters of the transportation administration and said he relayed the protesters’ message to officials there. When Hare left at 4:45 p.m., his normal quitting time, four protesters decided to remain. “We weren’t anticipating Mr. Hare being so obstinate,” Kafka said. “We expected a quick reaction and a phone call. It just shows their real arrogance toward disabled people.” At 6 p.m., Casey Bowen, director of building operations with the General Services Administration, told the protesters that he would prefer they leave, but that he had no intention of forcibly removing them. But Bowen said he would not allow them to have food sent in, and he had the telephones removed from the office. “Quite frankly, our intent is not to encourage this sort of protest,” Bowen said. Reporters could not contact the protesters later in the evening and building guards declined to comment. The protesters, who had no provisions other than a couple of granola bars and soft drinks, have access to the building's snack and soft drink machines. Besides Kafka, 43, of Austin, the protesters who remained in the building last night were Joe Carle, 50, and Frank Lozano, 39, both of Dallas, and Tim Baker, 26, of Austin. Kafka has used a wheelchair since he suffered a broken neck in an auto accident 10 years ago. Carle suffers from a circulation disorder, has had part of one leg amputated and has used a wheelchair for nine years. Lozano is blind, the result of an auto accident five years ago. Baker suffers from severe cerebral palsy. Paul Alexander, a Fort Worth lawyer who uses a wheelchair, arrived late in the afternoon to try to negotiate a settlement. When it became apparent that the protesters were determined to stay, Alexander tried to arrange for permission for food delivery. Alexander said arrangements could not be made. “Us being locked up all weekend symbolizes the thousands of disabled people who are locked up in their homes," Carle said. “Will it do any good? Or will it make you look like a jackass? l don’t know the answer. I honestly don’t." Staff writer Betsy C.M. Tong contributed to this report.