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Beranda / Album / Tags Mike Auberger
+ wheelchairs 8
ADAPT (543)
PHOTO by Tom Olin: Close up of Mike Auberger with mouth open chanting. Around his neck is a kryptonite lock locked to a second lock, which is locked to a revolving door. He wears and ADAPT bandanna around his head and long braids. Caption reads: ADAPT member Mike Auberger puts his neck on the line. DISABILITY RIGHTS ADVOCATES TURN UP THE HEAT IN CAPITOL In more ways than one, the heat was turned up in Washington, D.C. during the week of March 11 to March 17, 1990. Weather records were shattered as the mercury climbed to 89 degrees on Monday and remained hot all week; the cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin bloomed three weeks early. There was another heat wave going on as people with disabilities from all over the country converged on the Capitol to push for the Americans with Disabilities Act, which passed the Senate last September and is now stalled in the House. On Monday, March l2, we gathered in front of the White House at noon. Over 1000 strong, most in wheelchairs but including people who are deaf and blind, we marched down Pennsylvania Avenue, the 17 blocks to the U.S. Capitol. We carried signs and chanted “ADA Now!" At the Capitol, Justin Dart, chairman of the President's Committee, said that partial equality is not equality: “We want an end to discrimination against the disabled, the nation's most impoverished, isolated and segregated minority." King Jordan, president of Gallaudet University, warned “If we don’t get what we want, we will be back to stay." Mike Auberger, from ADAPT, closed with a stirring speech. “We are Americans," he said, “and we want the same rights as everyone else." After the speeches, many abandoned their wheelchairs and climbed the 83 steps on the west front of the Capitol, as a symbolic gesture dramatizing the barriers that the disabled still face. On Tuesday, many assembled in the huge rotunda inside the U.S. Capitol and heard speeches by Speaker Thomas Foley, Congressman Robert Michel and Congressman Stenny Hoyer of Maryland, who is coordinating the House legislative effort on ADA. Hearing that no promises could be given as to the date of a House vote, many started chanting “ADA Now!" Many were arrested for illegal entry, carried in police vans to a police facility and then to court for paper work. Many did not get back to the hotel until midnight. It was a matter of individual conscience whether anyone was arrested; many chose not to, believing that the legislative process has been working well so far. On Wednesday. about 60 were arrested at the Rayburn Building in and near the office of Congressman Bud Shuster of Pennsylvania, who had supported some weakening amendments to ADA. On Thursday, a small group (their numbers reduced because so many were in court) assembled at housing and urban development and asked to see secretary Jack Kemp; he was out of town but Undersecretary Alfred Dellabovi came down. There was a productive talk concerning the Fair Housing Amendment Act of 1988. Some weakening amendments to the Housing Act, relating to access standards, had been proposed; the disability groups strongly opposed. On Friday, some members of ADAPT protested at the Greyhound terminal. Some of the strongest opposition to ADA has come from Greyhound and other private bus companies, who fear that the cost of wheelchair lifts will be excessive. But the disability groups claim as much a right to be on a bus as anyone else. After a glorious week, the participants began the long journey home by train, bus, airplane or dust-covered van. Though many other disability groups were involved, much credit goes to Wade Blank, Mike Auberger, Bob Kafka, and Mark Johnson, all of ADAPT. It‘s too early to tell whether our goals have been reached, but there was a feeling of solidarity. and of a successful crusade on behalf of equal rights for disabled people in employment, in transportation, in housing, in places of public accommodation, in every aspect of American life. That, indeed, is the purpose of the Americans with Disabilities Act. —Richard B. Treanor At the bottom of the page is a Callahan cartoon: Three women in a row. First woman is in a wheelchair and below her it says "M.S." Second woman is standing with a walker and below her it says "M.D." Third woman is very overweight and below her it says "M&Ms".
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FRI. SEPTEMBER 29, 1989 The Atlanta Journal and Constitution [Headline] ADAPT: ‘Militant Group' Takes on the Mainstream Disabled Protesters Tired of ‘Lousy Way to Live’ By Pat Burson, staff writer Sallie Bach said she used to look at people with disabilities “like they were nothing.“ “When you're able to walk, you see people like this and you stand up and laugh at them. l know. l did it," said the 50-year-old Chicago woman, a waitress for 21 years until she became physically disabled after jumping from a third-floor window to escape an apartment fire. “l know what it feels like now," she said. “Now I understand.“ Ms. Bach joined more than 100 other disabled and non-disabled people who are members of American Disabled for Accessible Transportation, or ADAPT, as they blockaded a federal office tower and the Greyhound bus station in Atlanta this week to call attention to their demands that wheelchair lifts be installed on all new buses purchased with federal dollars. ADAPT, based in Denver, promotes non discriminatory, mainline public transit system that are accessible to people who use wheelchairs. This week's protests were planned to coincide with the American Public Transit Association‘s (APTA) annual convention ADAPT has held similar protests in Denver, San Francisco, Cincinnati and Montreal, trying to persuade APTA members to support total accessibility of public transit systems. The transit group and ADAPT differ on the federal government's role in mandating access to public transportation. APTA agrees that transit systems should make their buses and trains accessible, but the group believes local government not Washington, should decide. Whether or not members of the disabled community agree with ADAPT's more radical tactics, they applaud its members unceasing demand for access. “They are a militant group, and l think their militancy had been imposed upon them," said Jay W. Brill, a longtime activist for disability rights and manager of the Initiative on Technology, Disability and Post-Secondary Education at the American Council on Education in Washington. "There's a point where the community [of disabled people] becomes so frustrated with transit authorities, and a door opens wide for ADAPT," said Mr.Brill. ADAPT founder Wade E. Blank, a 48-year-old minister with shoulder-length blond hair, said he got the idea to start the group when he worked as a nursing home orderly. "l said to myself, 'What a lousy way to live your life," he said Wednesday, standing behind a police barricade as 25 fellow protesters at the Greyhound station were loaded onto a lift-equipped bus by police. Co-founder Michael Auberger describes ADAPT as “a fringe group‘ that has become mainstream." “It attracts the person who has been within the system and tired of it and the person who is locked out of the system,... somebody who's really disabled, on a fixed income and needs to use public transportation." The organization, formed in 1983, has about 1,800 members and 33 local chapters. As protesters tried to close down the Richard B. Russell Federal Building this week, linking arms and wheelchairs at the tower's main doors and elevators, some compared the demonstration to those during the civil rights movement of a quarter-century ago. "The civil rights movement started because of busing" said Jerry Eubanks, a 31-year-old-dispatcher for the Chicago Sanitation Department, whose legs were amputated below the knee after a train accident. “We just want the right to ride the bus."
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This story in its entirety is on ADAPT 496.
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This article is continued in photo 451, but the text of the entire article is included here for ease of reading. The Handicapped Coloradan May 1989 VOL. 11, NO. 11 Boxed text in masthead: If you use a wheelchair and ever tried — or wanted -- to board an accessible bus in Detroit between Nov. 10, 1984, and the present, you owe it to yourself to read Justin Ravitz‘s story on p. 3. Photo: Man, in a dark suit standing against a white background with his hands in his pockets. He has dark hair and large eye glasses, a firm thoughtful look on his face. Caption reads: Mayor Pena tells UMTA officials they have a “moral obligation" to put lifts on buses. [Headline] Court grants transit rehearing In the wake of an often ugly battle with police, hotel security guards and the courts in Reno, wheelchair activists are heading for Philadelphia where the U.S. Court of Appeals has agreed to vacate its Feb. 13 decision to require all new buses purchased with federal funds to be equipped with wheelchair lifts. The case will now be heard by the entire 13-member court rather than the three judges who originally handed down the decision on a 2-l vote. The rehearing was requested by the Department of Transportation and the Department of Justice. Six disabled leaders had met with President Bush in an attempt to persuade him to call off the appeal. Bush didn't give them an answer at the time, said Wade Blank, one of the founders of the radical American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT), "but it's obvious the President has no intention of taking our side." So when the court convenes at 10 a.m. May 15, scores of wheelchair demonstrators will be outside chanting, "We will ride," the battle-cry of the six-year old movement. At press time, demonstrators were planning on arriving in Philadelphia on May 12 and demonstrating in front of the Justice Department there, up to but not including being arrested. "That will come later," Blank said. On Saturday, demonstrators are expected to attempt to board city buses, crawling onto them if necessary, and to otherwise disrupt service until Philadelphia transit officials sign an agreement promising to provide accessible service. Then on Sunday, the day before court opens, demonstrators will don Revolutionary War uniforms and march from Independence Hall to the federal courthouse, led by fife and drum. The movement is at a crossroads, Blank said, pointing out that many of his fellow activists are afraid that the court will reverse its pro-accessibility vote when its decision is made known, 30 to 90 days from now. Many of those activists are reluctant to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court if they lose in the Court of Appeals, arguing that the high court has a conservative majority, “We might have to wait 20 years before we get a liberal court," Blank said. "Better we find out where we stand with the court right now and then decide on a course of action." ADAPT has had plenty of experience with conservative judges in recent weeks, according to Blank, who said he broke down and cried at the treatment wheelchair defendants received in the Sparks courtroom of judge Don Gladstone. Gladstone told demonstrators that their mass arrests had "tarnished" their cause and suggested that the group needed "new leadership." Blank said Gladstone's courtroom was a zoo. "He locked the doors and screamed at us." Gladstone wasn't the only person in Reno and Sparks who was upset with ADAPT, which was there to protest at a regional meeting of the American Public Transit Association (APTA) as they have done in 16 other cities over the latter group's refusal to endorse mandatory accessibility for all transit systems in the country. The police weren’t very happy, either. Some 72 demonstrators were arrested during the 5-day-long protest, with about half of that number going to jail. City officials estimated that the protest cost local taxpayers at least $116,000. Police estimated their costs of controlling the group at $79,275, while the sheriff's department, which runs the Washoe County jail, placed its costs at about $34,164. Gladstone said municipal court costs will run about $3,000. But it wasn't just the money that bothered city and county officials. "While (the police) are out there handling these individuals and you cal 911, the response times change dramatically,” said Sparks Municipal Court judge Andy Cray. Police Lt. Tony Zamboni said, "We understand these people have certain rights, but they also don't have the right to obstruct other citizens." Sheriff Vince Swinney agreed with Zamboni and also seemed a bit miffed that the media were playing up the plight of the demonstrators. "Somebody should realize this is what these people want to do," he said. "if they were treated like royalty, they wouldn't be happy. And the media is playing it up 100 percent. I really think that we who have been here and will continue to be here deserve some credibility." ADAPT organizer Mike Auberger, 34, of Denver, said that the Washoe County jail was not prepared to deal with housing 30 disabled prisoners, although sheriffs department officials disagreed, saying that extra doctors and nurses were on duty. Twenty-two of the jailed demonstrators staged a hunger strike, including one woman who was warned by a doctor that she would ultimately go into seizures if she participated in the fast. Another demonstrator, Diane Coleman, an attorney from Los Angeles, was taken from the jail at 3 a.m. Tuesday morning when she started vomiting. Coleman was taken to the Washoe Medical Center where she was given liquids intravenously for dehydration. Headline for part 2 of article: Reno protest turns ugly as judge lectures ADAPT ”Get new leaders. ” Blank said that three or four demonstrators had to be hospitalized when they returned home because of inadequate care received at the jail. For example, Auberger was not allowed to empty his leg bag and he went into hyper reflex, according to Blank. “His blood pressure shot up to 300 and nearly blew his head off," Blank said. Unable to place a call to fellow ADAPT members in Sparks, Auberger was forced to call his parents in Indiana to see about getting help. Ultimately, Auberger had to bail himself out of jail in order to get medical treatment. “That's when the police began telling other jailed demonstrators that their leaders were bailing out on them," Blank said. Demonstrators also complained that the police in Reno and Sparks were rougher than the ones they had dealt with in other cities, pointing out that more of them were actually handcuffed than was usually the case. Most of the demonstrations took place outside the Nugget Casino and Hotel, which was serving as APTA's convention headquarters. Some 700 delegates were staying there. Demonstrators attempted to block all the entrances to the hotel to show APTA delegates what it is like not to have access to public institutions, buildings and buses. One demonstrator, Beverly Furnice, said her knee was broken when a Nugget security guard hit her leg as she was wheeling up to the door on the southeast side of the hotel. Nugget spokesperson Parley Johnson said he was sorry to hear about Furnice. “We made every possible effort to ensure the safety of all involved," he said. "However, if we have someone trying to get in, and we're trying to get the doors closed, what can I say? The person (trying to get in) is contributing to the problem. "We could not allow the group to come in and disrupt our business and cause problems with our customers. And we have every right to do this." Judge Gladstone several times commented on how well the hotel staff and police handled the situation. “He's just a front man for the casinos," Blank commented. On the other hand, demonstrators had nothing but praise for Reno's Citifare public transit system, which has already made a commitment toward a 100 percent lift-equipped bus system. All Citifare buses bought since 1984 have lifts, and the system expects its nonaccessible buses to be phased out by 1996. "We're not fighting Reno or any other city," Auberger said. “We're fighting APTA." Less than three weeks later, demonstrators were doing just that again, this time in Denver, where ADAPT was founded in 1983, Some 30 demonstrators were arrested as they protested outside the Radisson Hotel, where the Urban Mass Transit Association (UMTA) was holding a national transportation conference. The next day, April 25, 40 demonstrators, 30 of them in wheelchairs, were forcibly removed from the Federal Building at 9th and Stout by federal officers. Demonstrators were protesting word that the Department of Transportation, of which UMTA is part, had decided to appeal the Court of Appeals decision. "We are tried of winning lawsuits and never getting them implemented," said protester Maureen O'Rourke. UMTA‘s Alfred A. DelliBovi disagreed with the original court decision, saying his agency supports letting each transit provider decide how to handle disabled riders. Earlier Mayor Federico Pena met with ADAPT and reiterated his strong support for their goals, a statement he repeated when he met later with UMTA officials. Pena was responsible for forcing APTA officials to allow ADAPT to address its national convention in Denver in 1983. That is the only time ADAPT members have been allowed inside an APTA convention.
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PHOTO: A group of people in wheelchairs is lined up single file down the middle of a city street. From left to right the people in the line are: Mike Auberger in sunglasses and sleeveless t-shirt, Joe Carle in a blue cap, Linda Johnston in a green hat, Heather Blank in a blue ADAPT shirt, Larry Ruiz in orange pants, Wade Blank walks behind and beside Larry and Heather. In fromt of Larry is an unknown man in a manual wheelchair being pushed by a woman in a reddish ADAPT shirt, and headband. In front of them Tim Baker and Paulette Sanchez wask beside him, and on the right edge of the picture you can see Babs Johnson's backpack and arm. Behind the group is the Holiday Inn where we stayed for this action. The headband several of the group are wearing is a headband created by Arthur Campbell for this action.
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Arizona Republic 4/17/87 Photo (whole right of the page) by Peter Schwepker/Republic: A small woman [Mary Ann Collinsworth] braces her legs to pull another woman [Katie Hoffman] in an airport style manual wheelchair across some rough terrain. Katie is holding the arm rests of the chair. Caption: Mary Ann Collinsworth helps Katie Hoffman maneuver across rocks as the Denver women head for a protest at the Mansion Club) Title: 5 Protesters Arrested for Wheelchair Honking By J.F. Torrey The Arizona Republic [This is an article that appears in ADAPT 326 and 325, but the entire text has been included here for easier reading.] Excessive wheelchair horn-honking led to disorderly conduct arrests of five members of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit on Monday afternoon in front of the downtown Phoenix Hyatt Regency. The arrests came from a frustrating morning for members of the group, which is in the city to protest the policies of the American Public Transit Association. The association is holding its annual Western meeting at the Hyatt. ADAPT would like to see the association, a trade group of public-transit-system officials, adopt a policy recommending that all public buses be equipped with lift systems to accommodate wheelchair-bound passengers. The arrests began at 3:41 p.m. after ADAPT members refused to stop blowing the horns on their electric wheelchairs. Four of the five people arrested were arrested Sunday at another demonstration. Phoenix police Lt. Ted McCreary led a half-dozen plainclothes officers over to the group of horn blowers, who were at the northern end of a line of 48 wheelchairs and a baby carriage that the protesters had assembled in front of the Hyatt. The group had spent more than an hour chanting and singing outside the hotel when McCreary made the attempt to silence the horns, which had been blowing intermittently during the demonstration. As police closed in, the original group stopped blowing the horns, only to be surrounded by other demonstrators in wheelchairs who began blowing theirs. Police eventually identified a demonstrator they planned to arrest, only to be surrounded by the rest of the demonstrators in wheelchairs, an action that made it difficult for police to move the suspect to a waiting lift-equipped van. McCreary later expressed frustration at the problems involved in policing the demonstration. "None of this is ever good,” he said. “We’re never in a winning position.” One of those arrested, Marilyn Golden, 33, of Oakland, California, complained that police had broken an agreement reached with ADAPT members in Monday’s arrests. “We were told that if we were going to be arrested, we would be warned,” Golden said. “I wasn’t, and I don’t even know what they’re arresting me for.” Sergeant Ken Johnson, a police spokesman, said he was not aware of the agreement to provide a warning. “Certainly there is no legal requirement that we give a warning,” Johnson said. “Maybe she couldn’t hear it because of the horns.” Earlier in the day, at a demonstration at the Mansion Club near the Arizona Biltmore Hotel, Sergeant Brad Thiss, another police spokesman, expressed similar sentiments as nearly 30 plainclothes officers approached a group of demonstrators who were attempting to block access to a luncheon of spouses of association members. When asked why only a few officers were in uniform, Thiss replied, “We’re trying to soften our image a little bit. Of course, how can you soften your image in wheelchairs into vans and arresting them?” The Mansion Club luncheon protest did not result in any arrests because those attending walked to the restaurant. ADAPT organizer Mike Auberger said that the protest achieved its goal because no buses passed the group’s line. “We want the function to go on as it would,” Auberger said. “We just want the people to experience the same convenience that handicapped individuals do.” After a brief standoff at a bridge over a Salt River Project canal, Auberger led the group back to a parking lot at the Biltmore Hotel where they surrounded a Phoenix Transit Authority bus they believed was to take association spouses back downtown. The bus turned out to be a decoy, and the spouses took a second bus back to the Hyatt. Thiss said the department will not calculate the expense of policing the convention until it is over. “For now, all I can say is the costs are enormous,” he said. Police arrested 26 ADAPT members Sunday for trespassing at Rustler’s Rooste, a southeast Phoenix restaurant where association members were attending a banquet. Those arrested were released later after being given a written citation. One protester, Clarence Miller, whose age and address were unavailable, was arrested for one count of aggravated assault on a police officer, a felony, and booked into Maricopa County Jail. ADAPT’s Auberger said Miller was required to post $1,370 in bail before being released Monday. Auberger, who said Miller is retarded, faulted the arrest.
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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.
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The Cincinnati Enquirer Monday, May 19, 1986 Comment/A-7 PHOTO by Jim Callaway/The Cincinnati Enquirer: Three protesters in wheelchairs form a diagonal line across the picture. On the right in the foreground a heavy set man (Jerry Eubanks) sits in his manual wheelchair, a cab of soda in his right hand. He is a double amputee below the hips, and is wearing a look of concentration, and appears to be chanting. His right hand is resting on the back of a motorized wheelchair to his right. In that chair is a slim man (Greg Buchanan) who is wearing a very large sign across his legs that reads "A Part of NOT Apartheid." (The message is a bit obscured by the curve of the sign around his legs.) He is also wearing a light colored ADAPT T-shirt. To Greg's right and a bit further away and behind is a third man in a chair, a slim man with dark hair and a beard (John Short). He also has a sign on his legs but the quality of the picture makes it unreadable. Caption reads: Members of ADAPT picket in front ol the Westin Hotel Sunday afternoon. Gary Eubanks of Chicago, right, Greg Buchanan of Colorado Springs and John Short of Denver were among them. Title: Protesters converge on city Disabled demand full access to public transportation BY KAREN ROEBUCK The Cincinnati Enquirer Former Cincinnatian Mike Auberger said he left the city because of its lack of accessibility to the handicapped and because "the mentality toward people with disabilities is really 19th century at best." Auberger, who now lives in Denver, is one of about 75 members of ADAPT (American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit) in Cincinnati Sunday through Wednesday demanding full accessibility to public transportation systems for the handicapped. But the approximately 50 members of ADAPT demonstrating in front of the Westin Hotel, where the American Public Transit Association (APTA) is holding its regional convention, were denied access to the hotel Sunday. "The only people they're stopping are people in a wheelchair; that's blatantly discriminatory," said Bob Kafka, of Austin, Texas and ADAPT community organizer. Cincinnati Police Capt. Dale Menkhaus, Operational Support, said public easements can be barricaded to any group that might disrupt the hotel, which is private property. ADAPT members publicly stated they would try to disrupt the conference and have attempted to do so at other APTA conferences, police and Westin officials said. The hotel's first priority is to its guests, in this case the APTA, said Larry Alexander, general manager of the Westin. The ADAPT group blocked entrances and exits to the hotel for a short time Sunday, and rode their wheelchairs in downtown streets, somewhat disrupting traffic to the Reds-Pirates game, Menkhaus said, but did not cause any major problems. Armed with signs, T-shirts and badges, the group chanted slogans expressing their desire to ride public transportation systems. Some of the signs read, "Buses won't roll without us," and "We have a dream. . . We will ride." Kafka said ADAPT members will most likely try to stop some Queen City Metro buses. In other cities, members have sometimes chained themselves to the vehicles. Murray Bond, assistant general manager of Queen City Metro, said if ADAPT members try to stop the buses, the drivers will put the vehicles into park and let the police move the demonstrators. Menkhaus said ADAPT members will be arrested if they break the law. Despite the barricades, ADAPT members also will try to get into the convention, Kafka said, to get a resolution requiring full accessibility for the handicapped onto the convention floor. Albert Engelken, deputy executive director of APTA, said the executive committee and board of directors have discussed voting on such a resolution, but decided that decision should be made at the local level. Every system in the country has some way of transporting the handicapped, he said, which was decided upon with the advice of local agencies for the handicapped. About 30% of the systems nationwide are fully accessible, he said. Queen City Metro has an access program which will pick up handicapped people at their homes and take them where they need to go in Cincinnati, Elmwood Place, St. Bernard and Norwood, Bond said. "We understand their goals of total accessibility. It's certainly a laudable one, but also a very expensive one." The customer pays 60 cents for a ride, but it costs Queen City Metro about $10, he said. A ride must be scheduled 24 hours in advance under the Queen City's rules, but space is not always available, said Dixie Harmon, co-chairperson of the Specialized Transportation Advisory Committee to Queen City Metro and a member of Greater Cincinnati Coalition of Persons with Disabilities. "They dictate our lives to us, because we have to go and come as there's space available," she said. Kafka said ADAPT does not expect public systems to make all their buses wheelchair accessible, only all new buses. In about 20 years, the entire system could then be used by the handicapped, he estimated, pointing out that Queen City now owns 87 buses with wheelchair lifts, but the lifts have been locked down. Bond said those buses were bought with federal money at a time when wheelchair accessibility was required for any purchased with federal funds, and would be too costly to operate. The Greater Cincinnati coalition supports the goals of ADAPT, Harmon said, but chooses to negotiate for changes instead of demonstration.