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Home / Album / Tags Mike Auberger
+ Bob Kafka + march 4
ADAPT (745)
Fourth Wave Magazine (Washington University) [This article continues in ADAPT 729, 721 and 739, but it is included here in it's entirety for easier reading.] Wheelchair Warriors Story and Photographs by Jan Neely Editor's note: Last May, Fourth Wave editorial intern Jan Neely and I flew to Chicago for our first ADAPT demonstration. ADAPT (or American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, as it is more formally known), first took to the streets 12 years ago in Denver, Colorado, to fight for wheelchairaccessible public transportation. Today, with the passage of the ADA securing transportation access, ADAPT has taken on the nursing home industry, institutions and the United States government in an attempt to provide community based personal attendant care and housing to all persons with disabilities in all 50 states. Here’s what happened: ..... Editor Photo: A city sidewalk jamed with wheelchairs and a couple of cameramen standing beside them between parked cars. Larry Biondi is on front right side of the photo. People are basically lined up waiting to move out. Article begins: DAY ONE: ADAPT arrives in Chicago. Its my first demonstration and my first job as a photojournalist. "Click, click" goes my camera. Everybody else may look cool. but I'm shakin' in my shoes. Try to picture 300 people (most in wheelchairs) on the same mission. No pro-nursing home advocate is safe here! I feel as if I've just entered THE ADAPT ZONE! Actually, the first day was mellow and taken up with pre-action planning. ADAPT doesn't have any membership rules or requirements. You just have to believe that people with disabilities have the right to live without putting up with abuse of any kind. I'm real excited because this is the first group I've ever been involved with that has people with all kinds of disabilities, not just developmental disabilities. DAY 2 Here's ADAPT (photo 1) blocking the doors of the auditorium in hope of catching Dr. Sullivan when he leaves. The Chicago police and the Secret Service put up barricades and pushed back the activists. Victoria Medgyesi, editor of Fourth Wave and my traveling buddy, used her press pass to get into where Dr. Sullivan was to ask him some questions. He refused to talk to her about Medicaid, ADAPT or nursing home abuse. PHOTO 1: A line of Chicago police officers face off against a line of ADAPT protesters in wheelchairs who come up to about the middle of the officer's chests. In the forground there is a barricade, but further back they are just right up against each other. PHOTO 2: Three men in wheelchairs (__________, ___________ and JT Templeton sit in an open area in front of a barricade. Behind the barricade is a crowd of people. JT holds a poster that reads "Sullivan where are you?" Article continues... DAY 2 cont. Usually ADAPT doesn’t go around the country crashing graduations, but this one was different (photo 2) Here we are at the University of Chicago where Dr. Louis Sullivan, Secretary of Human and Health Services, is speaking to students who are going to be medical professionals. For the past two years, ADAPT has been trying to talk to Dr. Sullivan about redirecting 25 percent of the Medicaid budget for personal attendant care into a home-based program. But he has refused to talk to ADAPT or to change the rules. As the graduation crowd went in, ADAPT passed out flyers. As l told one person, “What if you become disabled someday? What if your family couldn't take care of you?" As for the police, at this time they just stood back and watched. One of the reasons ADAPT has public demonstrations is to make the public aware of what's important to people with disabilities. Actions like this keep us going to meetings back home even though what we say is usually ignored. DAY 3 The next day we went to one of ADAPT's all time favorite places to "act up": the state office of Health and Human Services. It was only a few blocks away from our downtown hotel. so all 300 of us got in a single line and went for a little walk. Did I say little? Wait a minute. a line of 300 people in wheelchairs plus their supporters? Little? I will admit it was the most incredible thing I have ever seen. ADAPT does not stop when it goes on one of its “little walks." It does not stop for lights, trucks, cars, cops, or anything else. It also goes right down the middle of the street. But that's not to say ADAPT isn't nice, oh no! All along the way ADAPT gave the people of Chicago (who lined up on the curbs to watch as we wheeled and walked by) little gifts of knowledge: flyers with the real scoop on nursing homes. PHOTO 3: Amid a long line of ADAPT folks marching in their wheelchairs, a man (Mark Johnson) in a wheelchair talks with a man (Bill Henning) and a woman who are walking beside him. PHOTO 4: A city street lined by tall buildings, is filled by ADAPT protesters apparently crowded from one side to the other. Several people standing closest to the camera but facing away (Jimmi Schrode is on the far left) raise their hands, thumbs up. Article continues... DAY 3 cont. It was a thrill to watch ADAPT in action. When the whole group got to the Federal building, it was a big mess. We blocked off streets and almost shut the building down. As ADAPT told the police, the media and all the people who gathered; “We declare this building a Federal nursing home... only this time, no one goes in or out without our permission! " The reason many activists do this is because they once lived in nursing homes and other institutions and know how bad those places are. Boy, can I relate. I have mild cerebral palsy and I’m lucky to have always lived at home. But will I always be lucky? I feel that as long as there are institutions, they will be a threat to the kind of life my friends and I want to live. This laid-back looking guy is Mike Auberger. He is one of the original ADAPT activists. ADAPT may look like a bunch of disorganized hippies who lost the map to Woodstock 20 years ago, but the opposite is true. In Mike's backpack is one of ADAPT's three cellular phones and the base walkie-talkie! Bill Scarborough, an activist from Texas, keeps the computer nerds in the know by sending the word out from his laptop computer to computer bulletin boards across the country. ADAPT also has a media person who goes to whatever city ADAPT is demonstrating in several days ahead to let people know whats going to happen. PHOTO 5: A very intense looking man (Mike Auberger) in a power chair is sitting sideways to the camera. Behind him is some kind of vehicle and the ADAPT crowd filling the street. Tisha Auberger (Cunningham) is squatting on the bottom right of the picture. After nine long hours of blocking the building's doors, representatives from HHS finally agreed to meet in the street with ADAPT. It turned into a regular media pow-wow. Activists told the administrators and the media what was needed by people with disabilities. Photo 6: A gaggle of reporters and photographers tightly encircle the Regional HHS Director and several ADAPT protesters (Teresa Monroe, center, and Bob Kafka, right side). Article continues... We talked and they listened, but I have a feeling the concern I saw on those experts' faces was just the same old B.S. All of ADAPT's demonstrations are non-violent, but they are important battles in a war fought by people who are fighting to lead decent lives. The possibility of being arrested did make me nervous. It made me feel a little better when ADAPT told the new people that, if you got arrested, the group would never leave you alone. They said ADAPT would tell the cops your needs, get you a good lawyer, and stay on the outside of the jail chanting so you would know ADAPT was with you. Photo 7: Portrait shot of a man (Gene Rogers) with long brown hair and glasses, sitting in his wheelchair. He is wearing a T-shirt with a larger than life sized photo of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr's face and the words "VIOLENCE IS IMMORAL" and a lengthy quote below that is too small to read in the photo. Article continues... DAY 4 As l was getting dressed I thought to myself “Today ADAPT is taking on the AMA." Oh God. what have l gotten myself into? l mean the AMA! The Big Brother of the medical world; the people who are not only in charge of admissions to nursing homes, but who are also in charge of giving prescriptions to people like me. I thought: What if my doctor saw me and did not like what I was doing with ADAPT? Would he stop giving me my blood pressure pills that I can't afford to buy? What would happen then? What about the others? Aren't they in the same boat? I got a lot more out of my trip to Chicago than just a story and a few good pictures. I met some people who are important to the disability rights movement. I felt accepted and I came home with the feeling that together we can really change things. People with disabilities need to keep talking. We need to demonstrate. We need to tell the so-called "experts" the real truth and try not to be too afraid while were doing it. Insert text box: Incitement, Stephanie Thomas Editor. What's happening on the front lines? Read INCITEMENT, the official newsmagazine of ADAPT, and learn the who, what, when, where and why behind today's headline news. Free! To order contact: ADAPT/INCITEMENT 1339 Lamar SQ DR Suite B, Austin, TX 78704 (512)442-0252 Second text insert at end of article: Jan Neely is a photography student at Olympic Community College and an editorial intern at Fourth Wave. She is active in People First of Washington. the end
ADAPT (260)
JULY 1986 Disclosure Disabled Cripple Cincinnati PHOTO: A march of people in wheelchairs across a metal bridge that looks like a giant erector set. Three across lead the march, and behind you can see others in an almost single file line. On right, Mike Auberger with his braids and headband rides an electric chair, and has a poster across his legs "Give me a lift, not the SHAFT." In the center, Stephanie Thomas with a bush of hair and a sign that reads "Access is a Civil Right", pushes her manual in a wheelie. On the left, Cincinnatian Gary Nelson, rides his manual as Babs Johnson pushes him. She is looking to her right talking with someone in line. Behind and between Mike and Stephanie, Rick James is visible, riding laid back in his powerchair. Others are behind in line, but the focus is not deep enough to make them out. Caption reads: GARY NELSON, STEPHANIE THOMAS and MIKE AUBERGER lead an ADAPT parade into Cincinnati. During four days of demonstrations there, 17 wheelchair riding protestors were arrested and taken to jail. Fifty disabled Americans went to Cincinnati at the end of May to protest discrimination against people in wheelchairs—and they put together some protests that city authorities will never forget. The wheelchair-riding demonstrators, who came from as far away as Texas and Colorado, are members of ADAPT— American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation. They're tired of being denied access to public buses, and they went to Cincinnati to confront a meeting of the American Public Transit Association (APTA). APTA represents public transit officials from cities all over the country, and 600 of them were in Cincinnati in May for a regional education and training conference. In the space of four days, ADAPT staged half a dozen dramatic demonstrations, tied up bus service for an entire afternoon, shut down the office of the local transit system, caused havoc at a major downtown hotel, and had 17 of their members arrested, including 3 who were temporarily banned from the city of Cincinnati. “I've been kicked out of a lot of places," says ADAPT organizer Mike Auberger, "but never from a whole city!" ADAPT was formed in Denver in 1983, after Auberger — who is a quadriplegic as a result of a bobsled accident — and other handicapped activists convinced city officials there to put wheelchair lifts on every single bus. “It took six years of street fighting to win in Denver," says ADAPT organizer Wade Blank, a minister who became involved with handicapped issues while working as an orderly in a nursing home. “So then we said, are we going to sit on our laurels, or are we going to expand to other cities?" ADAPT demonstrators have hit APTA events in Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. The demonstrations have a double purpose: to pressure APTA to go on record in favor of accessible public transit nationwide, and to push local officials to change their bus systems. While APTA remains stubborn, ADAPT can point to a number of local successes in cities such as Los Angeles, Seattle, and Kansas City. ADAPT members see their cause as a civil rights struggle, and their actions call attention to the injustice suffered by disabled people who are denied access to basic public services. The first arrests in Cincinnati came on Monday, May l9, when George Cooper and Bob Kaska climbed out of their wheelchairs and crawled aboard a Cincinnati city bus. They paid their fares, but were arrested for “trespassing.” Mike Auberger, who blocked the front of the bus, was also arrested, and the three were banned from the city by a municipal judge. Monday night, APTA conference-goers had a reception scheduled at the College Football Hall of Fame, outside the city limits. ADAPT protestors went out to meet them, but found entrances to the building locked by local sheriffs. They were waiting on the shoulder of the four lane road leading to the Hall of Fame when four buses carrying hundreds of APTA members came down the road, rolling along at about 40 miles an hour. Suddenly, a group of people in wheelchairs bolted out to block the buses. “l remember flashing in my mind that these might be the first deaths of the civil rights movement of the handicapped," recalls Wade Blank. No one was injured: two buses steered onto the shoulder of the road, and two others came to a halt. The conventioneers had to get off the buses and walk the rest of the way to the Hall of Fame. On Tuesday, ADAPT settled for a symbolic action, raising a cross in front of the Westin Hotel, where APTA was holding its meeting. The cross, they said, demonstrated APTA's “crucification" of disabled people. On Wednesday, it was back into battle. The banning order against Kaska, Cooper and Auberger had been lifted, but they got arrested again by chaining their wheelchairs to the front doors of the Cincinnati bus system’s main offices. Fourteen other disabled people, meanwhile, were arrested for blocking entrances at the Westin Hotel. All seventeen of them wound up in a classroom at the city jail. "It was definitely a new experience for the whole justice system,” says Mike Auberger. “Everyone received a real education in disabilities." Most of the protesters were released after a day or two, but Auberger, Kaska and Cooper, who were viewed as the real troublemakers, had to stay in jail for six days. This caused some serious problems, as none of the men can use the bathroom without the help of an attendant—and no one in the Cincinnati jail system was prepared to deal with that situation. Auberger, who had a skin rash and a urinary infection, was eventually hospitalized. All three protestors have now been released, he reports, and they are back home and suffering no serious long term effects from their ordeal in prison. The difficulties in jail, he thinks, “were more of a left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing type of thing than any serious intent to do harm." Their grueling experience, however, shows just how difficult it is for disabled people to stand up for their rights in a society that is not prepared to deal with people in wheelchairs. Despite such obstacles, ADAPT members are determined to continue their struggle for full civil rights. They are already planning for their next confrontation, which will take place on October 6 through 9 in Detroit, where APTA is scheduled to have its 1986 national convention. Without doubt, it will be a memorable occasion. HIGHLIGHTED TEXT: Suddenly, a group of people in wheelchairs bolted out to block the buses. . . “I remember flashing in my mind, ” said one observer, “that these might be the first deaths of the civil rights movement of the handicapped. ” BOXED TEXT BELOW ARTICLE: BE THERE! People in and our of wheelchairs are welcome to join the ADAPT protest in Detroit, to speak out for fully accessible public transportation. For information, contact Mike Auberger or Wade Blank at ADAPT, 4536 E. Colfax, Denver, Colorado, 80220. 303-393-0630 303-393-0630.
ADAPT (250)
Cincy orders protesters out A May bus protest in Cincinnati has been described “as the most effective, courageous and fun action ever accomplished in the movement for disabled rights," according to literature mailed out by the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT). Some 85 members of ADAPT were in Cincinnati in mid-May to picket a regional convention of its arch-enemy, the American Public Transit Association (APTA) and to dramatize what a lack of accessible buses means to the disabled population of that Ohio city. The action began with the customary march on the convention hotel on Sunday, May 18. No arrests were made but marchers were greeted at the Westin Hotel by police and double barricades. None of the protestors was allowed into the hotel. Pointing out that other people were passed through the barricades, Bob Kafka of Austin, Texas, said the wheelchair protestors were being discriminated against. However, Cincinnati police captain Dale Menkhaus said that such actions, were proper when taken to protect private property from any group seeking to disrupt other lawful gatherings. The following day Kafka and fellow Texan George Cooper of Dallas dragged themselves onto a City Metro bus, paid their fares, and were arrested. They were reportedly told that “it’s not safe for disabled people to be on the regular bus.” The two were later released on $3,000 bond and ordered out of town, an action that ADAPT leaders described as blatantly unconstitutional. A third protestor, Mike Auberger of Denver, who is a former resident of Cincinnati, was arrested when he attempted to block the bus on which Cooper and Kafka were riding. Auberger said he originally left Cincinnati because of that city's “nineteenth century” attitude toward persons with disabilities. None of the Queen City Metro buses are accessible to the disabled, although 87 of the buses do have lifts which have been bolted down. Metro officials estimate it would cost them $350,000 to return those lifts to operational status. A local Cincinnati disabled activist said that's why she agrees with ADAPT’s goals, even if she can't go along with their methods. Dixie Harmon, co-chairperson of the Specialized Transportation Advisory Committee to Queen City Metro and a member of the Greater Cincinnati Coalition of Persons with Disabilities, said that the city’s service for disabled riders was inadequate. A disabled person must request space 24 hours in advance from Access, the paratransit system, but even then there's not always a space. “They dictate our lives to us because we have to go and come as there's space available.” ADAPT members said that's why they were willing to go to jail to publicize their cause. Police, however, made no arrests when 15 wheelchair protestors rolled onto a highway where vehicles were traveling at 40 miles per hour and blocked seven buses that were carrying APTA delegates and their spouses to a dinner at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in nearby Canton. Police were caught by surprise, as they had barricades to turn back protestors at the entrance to the Hall of Fame. Two local disabled leaders who were accompanying the APTA delegation to the dinner were taunted as “Uncle Toms” in front of TV cameras. Early the next day ADAPT members were back in front of the Weston Hotel where they erected a huge cross and hung a wheelchair from it in a mock crucifixion. On the final day of the convention, 17 protestors were arrested when they blocked the hotel driveway and refused police orders to move. Many of those arrested were ordered to jail unless they agreed to leave town. Three protestors, Auberger, Cooper and Kafka, decided the time had come for disabled protestors to do “hard time” and ended up serving 10 days. Five other protestors were turned out of jail because they had special medical problems or speech impairments. Others were released after pleading “no contest” to the charges in hastily organized trials. “Even the story we had left town and the protest was over made TV news," an ADAPT spokesperson said.
ADAPT (200)
The Handicapped Coloradan, vol.8, no.7, Boulder, CO February 1986 (This article is continued in ADAPT 198 but the entire article is included here for ease of reading.) PHOTO 1: Along a street a large line of people in wheelchairs and others move past a shady park with vendors with small umbrellas over their stands. Several of the protesters carry placards in their laps, one of which reads: A PART OF NOT APART FROM. Faces are too dark to tell who is in the line. Caption reads: In the shadow of the Alamo a wheelchair column moved along the streets of San Antonio, Texas in April 1985. Protestors were heading for the hotel headquarters for the regional convention of the American Public Transit Association. PHOTO 2: Mike Auberger, with his mustache, trimmed beard and shoulder length hair looks at the camera with his intense eyes. Wearing a light colored sweater and shirt with a collar, he sits in his wheelchair which is mostly visible because of his chest strap. Caption reads: Mike Auberger of Denver was one of some 16 Coloradans who went to Texas to protest the lack of accessible public buses. [Headline] The eyes of Texas are on outside agitators -- and a lot of folks from down the street There's never been much love lost between Coloradans and Texans, at least not since those folks from the Lone Star State first wandered into the Rocky Mountains and discovered deep powder in the winter and cool valleys in the summer. As Winnebago after Cadillac after pickup poured across Raton Pass, Coloradans greeted Texans with open cash registers and - increasingly -- ridicule. Our scorn for Texans even reached into the highest office in the state when Governor Dick Lamm greeted his Texan counterpart with this joke: A Texan died here recently and we couldn't find a coffin large enough, so we gave him an enema and buried him in a shoebox. Texans were not amused, though by now they should have come to expect such treatment. We've been squabbling ever since a detachment of Colorado militia turned back a Texas Confederate army at Glorietta Pass during the Civil War. Each summer now we give Texas a chance to even the score down near Alamosa in a rotten tomato battle. OF course we always make sure our army's bigger. That animosity, however, doesn't carry over to the disabled population of the two states. In fact, a dozen or more militant wheelchair activists from Colorado have been rolling onto the streets of several Texas cities during the past couple of years to aid their counterparts in the battle to force Texas transit systems to make their buses wheelchair-accessible. "After Colorado, Texas is out best organized state," Wade Blank, the long haired ex-preacher who helped found American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) in Denver two years ago. ADAPT chapters have sprung up in several other states, notably Illinois, Maine, and Connecticut, but none have garnered as many active members as Texas. Scores of Texans have blocked buses in San Antonio, Houston, Dallas and El Paso in recent months to focus the attention of the state's media on the lack of accessible buses. Part of ADAPT's success in Texas lies in the fact that there are so few lift-equipped buses in this huge state. Some Texas cities did order accessible buses when the Carter administration's Department of Transportation ordered mandatory accessibility in the 1970s. However, most of these lifts were never used as the American Public Transit Association (APTA), a national lobbying and policy making organization for transit systems, successfully fought the regulation in federal appeals court. APTA maintains that the local transit provider is the best judge of whether or not accessibility is feasible. Adverse climatic and geographical conditions are generally cited as the chief obstacles to lifts. Texas ADAPT leaders point out that few areas in Texas experience severe winter storms and that the state's larger cities are generally laid out on flat plains. That was one of the points wheelchair activist tried to make when they picketed in April 1985 regional APTA convention in San Antonio. A sizable contingent of Coloradans joined those picket lines, leading to a charge by the local newspaper, the San Antonio Light, that the demonstration was the work of outside agitators and that most of the city's disabled population was quite happy with using paratransit. Spot demonstrations and bus seizures soon followed in other Texas cities, while some Texas ADAPT members turned outside agitators themselves by participating in demonstrations at the APTA national convention in Los Angeles in October 1985. Several Texans including Jim Parker of El Paso and Bob Kafka of Austin, were among The dozens arrested. Supporters of lifts point to cities like Seattle and Denver where most of the buses are accessible -- and increasingly free of breakdowns. Denver's Regional Transportation District (RTD) maintenance crew made a few simple changes in some of their lift systems and managed to operate experimental buses without a single breakdown. ADAPT argues that some transit providers have deliberately sabotaged their lift systems to justify removing them. Opponents of lifts argue that paratransit--usually vans that pick riders up at their residences -- is more cost effective. Supporters point to Seattle where the cost per ride on mainline buses is less than $15 a trip, which compares very favorably with the best deals offered by paratransit systems. Convenience is a major factor too, according to Mike Auberger of ADAPT-Denver, who points out that most paratransit systems require two days' advance notice and users might have to travel all day just to keep a 15 minute dental appointment. "Me, I like being able to roll down to the corner bus stop," Auberger said. ADAPT grew out of coalition of Denver disabled groups who were successful in battling RTD over wheelchair lifts. Protestors seized buses and chained themselves to railings at RTD headquarters before the battle was won. Two years ago they went national when their arch foe, APTA, held its national convention in Denver, APTA refused to allow ADAPT to present a resolution to the convention calling for mandatory accessibility until pressure was brought to bear by Denver Mayor Federico Pena, a pro-lift advocate. APTA declined, however, to vote on the issue, and ADAPT picketed the group's 1984 national convention in Washington, DC, in October. Twenty-four protestors were arrested during the demonstration, including Parker. Parker, who was joined in Washington by four other Texans, isn't through with APTA yet. When that group holds its Western Regional Convention in San Antonio April 20, Parker said they can expect almost as many demonstrators as went to Washington. "I can't think of any place in Texas where it (public transportation for the disabled) is as good as it is here in Denver -- in fact it's poor everywhere here. Dallas just decided to buy 200 or 300 new buses without lifts." The situation isn't any better in his home city of El Paso, according to Parker. "It's very poor here," he said. "There are 30 city cruisers here with lifts but the city has shown no desire to use them." Parker thinks too many people in wheelchairs are too passive. "They're not used to pushing people, but we're starting to see some changes." However, Parker points out that Texas is a very conservative state and people -- including the disabled -- are slow to change. People wishing to participate in the San Antonio demonstration should call Parker (915-564-0544) for further information. PHOTO: Two bearded, bare chested wheelchair activists (Jim Parker, and [I think] Mike Auberger) are in the foreground. Parker, his shoulder length hair tied back with a bandana, sits with his foot up on his opposite knee, hands in his fingerless gloves. The two are facing away from the camera and talking with another man who is kneeling down beside them looking up at them. Caption reads: Jim Parker (center) of ADAPT-El Paso meets with a newsman during a picket of McDonald's. Many disabled persons objected to the fast food chain's refusal to immediately retrofit all of its restaurants so that they would be accessible to wheelchair patrons. Parker is currently involved in helping organize a demonstration at the Western Regional Convention of the American Public Transit Association (APTA) in San Antonio Oct. 20 - 24 [sic].