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主页 / 相册 / 标签 Diane Coleman 36
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Diane Coleman sits in her wheelchair with the access symbol on the ADAPT flag framed behind her. She is wearing a tricornered hat from revolutionary American days. In the foreground in front of her is half of the Liberty Bell, and the feet of someone else in a wheelchair are visible below the bell.
ADAPT (665)
Photo: A man [Mike Auberger] in a motorized wheelchair in blue ADAPT t-shirt and jeans, sits in the middle of a group of other people in wheelchairs. From left to right, they are unknown man with back to camera, woman in pink jacket and red skirt [Diane Coleman], man [Joe Carle] in dark sunglasses and sleeveless jacket, and man [Jim Parker] in white Bart Simpson t-shirt. Mike is holding a clipboard on his lap and reading something from it.
ADAPT (744)
The Disability Rag July/August, 1992 [This article continues on ADAPT 738, 733,728, 724, 748, 743 and finally 737; however the entire text is included here for easier reading. ] Photo by Tom Olin: A policeman holds a wooden barricade while another tries to pull a protester who is lying on the ground by his pants legs backward and out from under the barricade. The protester is holding onto something above his head. On one side a third policeman seems to be coming over and on the other side a man (Frank Lozano) and his guide dog (Frazier) are coming over. Title: On the barricades With ADAPT by Mary Johnson photos by Tom Olin “I am tired of rules and regulations. And them telling me what you have to do. None of them has worked for me as good as being at home. In nursing homes, they put you on sleeping pills to keep you from getting aggravated with what will occur. “You can’t pay —— you don’t have any money to pay an attendant at night, when you’re on SSI. All of these things they’re constantly cutting. I haven’t been in a nursing home for 15 years — and I don’t plan to go.” It's Saturday night in Chicago. Nearly 300 ADAPT members have gathered in a meeting room in Chicago’s Bismarck hotel, getting ready for the group’s May 1992 assault on the Windy City. People are telling their stories. Many are there because there was a nursing home in their past — or they don’t want one in their future. The next day the group will swoop down on the University of Chicago's commencement exercises. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan is speaking, and some in the group can't believe their late-breaking good fortune at getting another shot at hassling the Secretary who has steadfastly refused to meet with them to discuss redirecting Medicaid funds to in-home attendant services. A planned Mother's Day March to a graveyard — to symbolize how this nation kills its mothers in nursing homes — is cancelled. “I was never for that dead stuff anyway," ADAPT organizer Mike Auberger says. The week's events are debated. Somebody wants to know why they see police taking photos of them whenever there's an ADAPT action. There's an attorney available for people who get arrested, the group is told; they‘re given his name, as well as ADAPT organizers to contact if they get arrested. “I’m telling you — and it’s the most important thing I'm gonna say." Auberger warns the group. “have your medications with you if you're going to get arrested. Have ‘em labelled. No pill boxes; bottles. Make sure it has your name on it — nobody else's. Make sure there’s no illegal substances on you; no weapons. ‘Cos this is going to follow us down the road.” As it turned out, Chicago was mild compared to Orlando's confrontations last fall, in which nearly all ADAPT activists were thrown in jail — some in solitary confinement — for the week. In Chicago, only 10 people would be cited and fined in Monday’s confrontation at the HHS regional offices in downtown Chicago, and only 4 police-tagged “leaders” arrested the next day at American Medical Association headquarters; all were released at day’s end. Perhaps the national outrage in the wake of the Rodney King beating acquittal in Los Angeles a few weeks before had made Chicago police, considered to be some of the most brutal, cautious. The University of Chicago graduation turns out to be a beautiful Chicago spring day. Police and Secret Service are allowing ADAPT members into the auditorium without any hassle. Later, though, Jim Parker is asked to leave. He protests loudly as police haul him out a side door: “Why am l the only one being asked to leave?” About that time Tim Carver of Tennessee simply rolls off into the men's room, unnoticed, to wait out the sweep. Several ADAPT members unfurl a large FREE OUR PEOPLE banner over the wall below their seats, off in the “handicapped section" where the Secret Service have relegated them. Big burly Secret Service men with their walkie-talkies run over quickly and reach down to pull it up. Bob Kafka and Allen Haines are as determined that they won’t succeed. A kind of arm wrestling match ensues with Kafka and Haines holding firmly to the banner to keep it hanging over the wall where it forms a backdrop to the stage area where Sullivan will be speaking. The Secret Service have the advantage of leverage; they’re taller. One especially burly guy finally wrests the pole with its banner away from them and with a contemptuous jerk, flings it high into the bleachers behind them. “Clear ‘em out," mutters an all-business police captain. Four cops to a chair seems to be the agreed-on method of removal. Paulette Patterson of Chicago is removed this way. Over on the side, Anita Cameron and Jim Parker, back in and out of his wheelchair, and Frank Lozano, minus dog Frazier, are scooting down the steps on a side tier, trying to make it down to where Sullivan will speak, but they're caught and removed, too. “Get as close to the doors as possible,” says Bob Kafka to the other activists who have now been ejected from the back of the building. With police blocking doors. clots of ADAPT move to every entrance. Well, almost every one. Jean Stewart and Eleanor Smith use Stewart's crutches to pound on the metal doors, trying to create a disturbance inside, as the graduation ceremonies begin. Inside, though, the noise is barely audible. Nancy Moulton of Atlanta is sitting quietly on the ground, leaning on a door, with her guide dog Nan beside her. “Get up,” say a blue shirted Chicago cop. Moulton doesn‘t move. Nan rests her head on Moulton’s leg and rolls her eyes up at the cop towering over them. Now there are 4 Chicago cops and one guy who must be from the Secret Service hanging over Moulton and her dog. “If you don't move, we’ll have to grab you. and the dog will attack,” the cop persists. Still Moulton sits. “If you’re concerned about the dog, move!” the cop barks. Moulton gets up, worried that the cops will hurt Nan. While some block doors, others pass out leaflets to latecomers. The chants of “hey hey, ho. ho, nursing homes have got to go!" change to “We want Sullivan!" The police have barricaded the exit with blue sawhorses that read “police line." A pickup truck from the University's facilities management is unloading yellow university police barricades. A lady inside the back of the auditorium, hearing the faint chanting coming from outside, mutters, “they're not making friends." She‘s with the university. The University of Chicago is so large that commencement is held in two shifts; a morning one and an afternoon one. Sullivan has finished speaking and the crowd is emerging from the pavilion. They walk down the long fence of police barricades, while ADAPT chants and hands them leaflets: “Wanted: Sullivan. For crimes against disabled people." Inset picture: Beefy policeman with his cap down over his nose leaning forward. Caption: “If you care about your dog, move!” Article continues: It's lunch. ADAPT always feeds its activists. Today it‘s Burger King. Attendants and other walkies pass out cokes and burgers. Nan, Moulton’s dog, gets some much welcomed ice cubes from the big bag under the tree, put into the little folding plastic water bowl Moulton carries with her. A new crowd is coming to the arena. They, too, get leaflets and chants. Tim Craven has been ejected when police found him inside, but not before he and the other two who had hidden themselves in the press box get off a few good chants in Sullivan’s direction. A reporter for Habilitation, a disability magazine out of Seattle, has marched up to Sullivan, she reports, and asked him the questions ADAPT has so long wanted to ask him. To every single question, she says, he has responded, “It's a very nice day." Most of the students don‘t want to talk to a reporter. They have no comment. Some think that it‘s wrong of ADAPT to spoil their special day. Others think the group has a right to make itself heard — just not here, not now. One woman who has read the flyers says that "they don‘t want to be prisoners in nursing homes." A man, who hasn‘t read one, says he doesn’t know what they're protesting about but he thinks they have a right to do it. His daughter is graduating today —— with a degree in special education. Each ADAPT contingent blocking an entrance has its contingent of cops. The two `groups` joke with each other and pass the time in small talk. It's a lot like a chess game, says Haines; this trying to puzzle out where Sullivan‘s going to exit. Just about the time it occurs to several of the organizers who have been trying to psych out from which exit Sullivan will be spirited away that the one exit that has no guards on it is the parking lot entrance, a police car comes screaming down the street, makes an abrupt U-turn, and, at that moment, Sullivan's car, driven by Secret Service, shoots out of the entrance. Several ADAPT wheelers are on his tail in a flash, but it's too late. Sullivan again escapes— but the point, say the activists, has been well made to the over 10,000 people who have attended. Thousands of flyers have been passed out. PHOTO by Tom Olin: Inside a cavernous arena filled with people, two plain clothes police or Secret Service men have an ADAPT person (Bob Kafka) by the arms and are trying to lift him. He is sitting on the steps of an aisle leaning forward. To their right a young man in a button up shirt and jeans, a graduate, looks down at them. Caption reads: Getting to see Sullivan. Not. ADAPT makes no effort to block the streets surrounding the Pavilion. Monday‘s a different story. By 11am, both State and Adams Streets are blocked. Downtown Chicago is taking the flyers as fast as they’re being passed out. Many of them are surprisingly in agreement with ADAPT’s call for 25% of the current Medicaid money to be redirected to in-home services. One businessman engages Bob Kafka in a long and intense discussion over the merits of attendant services. He has buddies who were in Viemam, he says, and want the same thing Kafka does. He gives Kafka his card. Many other people are giving ADAPT members their cards, too; they are interested in the issue. Nobody, they say, has brought it up before. Certainly not the Chicago Tribune, which, instead of covering the baccalaureate brouhaha, runs a feature story on a college camp-out. “What I‘m looking for is a reasonable atmosphere to address the issues." Delilah Brummet Flaum, HHS’s Region V Director, would have to shout to make herself heard over downtown Chicago traffic and hundreds of milling demonstrators. And she‘s not shouting. She has come down, along with Chester Stroyny. Regional Director of the HealthCare Financing Administration and HCFA official David DuPre. in response to ADAPT demands. They want to meet with “officials”; they’ve blockaded the Region V HHS headquarters and aren‘t letting anyone in or out — unless they're willing to climb and crawl over protesters. About 20 activists have gotten all the way up to the HHS offices on the 15th floor, and have a bunch of police in there with them. It’s lunchtime by the time Flaum, Stroyny and DuPre are trotted out to Karen Tamley, Bob Kafka and Teresa Monroe and the others in the middle of Adams Street. ADAPT wants them to call Sullivan, to make him come back to Chicago and meet with them. Flaum can’t do that. “I am willing to do anything else you want us to do. to do try to get this resolved,” she’s saying. But she wants the group to be "more reasonable." She tells Tamley that she is “well aware" of ADAPT’s concerns, and that “the Bush Administration is working on non-institutional care options." Anna Stonum asks more questions. People in the crowd are starting to yell that they can’t hear. Flaum is telling Kafka that “shutting down a building“ is not the way to get a meeting with Sullivan. Kafka responds that they‘ve sent at least four letters to Sullivan and he's never responded to a single one. “You know as well as I do that the Secretary sets the tone for the discussion,“ Kafka lectures her. Kafka and DuPre engage in a debate about facts and figures. They can't trip Kafka up; he seems to know as much if not more about the issue than these folks do. At times the officials even seem to agree with him. Not, however, when he charges that “nothing the Secretary has said or done" changes anything “because he's in the pocket of the nursing home industry." “We disagree with that," say all three officials simultaneously. “We do favor the de-institutionalization model." “The damn Secretary has not said one thing — ever - has not even said the word ‘attendant services’ publicly," Kafka yells, and swears that ADAPT will continue to hold the building. “This is not being positive," says Flaum. “These are peoples' lives you’re talking about.” Kafka retorts. Photo Inset: The head of Bob Kafka, looking very intense, below the words "The damn Secretary has never even said the word 'attendant services' publicly." Article continues: “You don’t know what it’s like,” Monroe shouts at the officials when Kafka's done. “I want to talk to Sullivan. You get him here. He has no idea. Don't tell me Sullivan knows.” Monroe’s point, which she makes to Flaum, is that the money should go directly to the disabled person “because no person knows better what they need than the disabled person. Let us have our dignity.” She argues with Stroyny over nursing home inspections. Mark Johnson accuses Sullivan of “being in the pocket of the nursing homes.“ And meetings like this, he charges, aren’t worth a thing “unless there’s a commitment." The group, hearing Johnson, takes the cue: “We want a commitment!" One of the workers in the HHS office has come out for lunch and now finds she cannot get back in over the demonstrators. Still, she thinks what they're doing is “positive.” She’s a volunteer in a nursing home herself, she says, “And I know they’re the pits. People who don't frequent them don't know. These people who are walking around here” — she gestures to lunch-hour Chicagoans moving up and down the street-- “they could become victims of nursing homes, too. I look at these people here" —— and now she means ADAPT — “and I know I wouldn’t want to be jailed up in a nursing home." But then, she believes in protesting, she says. “I think protests are fine. I'm in tune with them. I was with Martin Luther King back in the 60s." she says. “I was in jail with Dr. King. I was 14 years old. That was just what you did; you went to jail. Some of our young people don't understand. “This is how to explain it,” she continues, warming to her subject. “These people want to get heard. We couldn’t get heard in Birmingham, either. That‘s why we marched on Washington." She won’t identify herself, though, but will only say she’s a spectator. But she works upstairs in the HHS office, she says. “And they got time to listen to that TV stuff — people come in talking about that, they make a big deal about the stuff they see on TV. And they got these people out here and they don‘t want to pay attention. When I was upstairs, they were callin’ ‘em ‘beasts’ and “vultures.” It is a measure of the erosion of belief in the system that has become the trademark of ADAPT that, when an EMS ambulance pulls up to the door and the word goes out that police are bringing down a man who’s had a heart attack, the thought passes among the group that this is yet another ploy. They think the stretcher rolled into the lobby and up on the elevator may be a ruse to make them move away from the door, which they nonetheless do, not wanting it to be said that they cared not for another disabled person who might be in danger. And when the man is brought down on the stretcher, there is more speculation: wasn’t he one of the officials out here earlier? Did the confrontation and excitement give him a heart attack? Is he faking? Is it really a medical emergency, or just :1 move to get someone out of the building who has an important meeting to attend and doesn't want it stopped by cripples? No one remembers the man in the stretcher more than a few minutes after the ambulance pulls away, lights rotating, into the Chicago traffic. Jane Garza from El Hogar del Nino is with the protesters. blocking a door by leaning against it. She’s part of the protest. she says: disabled herself, though she knows she doesn’t look it. She works in early childhood education. Some of the signs protesters are carrying were made by the children at her center, she says. “It's a way to bring them into it," she points out. The parents of the disabled kids at the center “are all reasonable people,” she says. “So they understand my being at an activity like this." If she gets arrested, she says, she has an understanding with her agency: they will bail her out. She’s been arrested with ADAPT before. she says; that was in Montreal. She’s been with ADAPT protests in Washington — the one to get the ADA passed; and one in St. Louis. “No one wants to see their child in a nursing home. People can really relate to that." She says the group at her door has been talking to passersby all day about the issue. “I was on the verge of going into a nursing home myself, back in ’82.” says this woman who doesn’t look disabled. When she had her aneurism and was in rehabilitation, she says, the Illinois Department of Rehabilitation Services gave her money with which she was able to pay two people — one for the morning, and one for the evening. “I just needed help getting up and then getting to bed. I was so weak. I just needed minimal assistance, somebody there to help me get dressed. But without that program. they would have put me in a nursing home.” Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar’s budget cuts have forced the Department of Rehabilitation Services to extend a freeze on intakes in that program through the end of 1993. and Edgar, Chicago ADAPT charges, is trying to eliminate a yearly cost-of-living adjustment for attendants. "After I got stronger, I was able to manage on my own. But look at how many people are in my shoes!” she says. “I worked; I had money. I was a social worker back then: one who had to apply for public aid just so I could get assistance." Insert picture: A person (possibly Lonnie Smith) with his head to one side and below the words “We want them to see what it’s like for us.” Article continues... The philosophy and tactic of doorblocking: Let people go in and out, if they’re willing to climb over you and your chair to do it. Arrest is not the objective here; inconveniencing people is. “We want them to see what it's like for us.” says one who has engaged in many door blockings. Photo by Tom Olin: A policeman stands in the middle of the street legs braced in a wide stance and arms streched out. He is holding a man with a cane (Gary Bosworth) with one hand and with the other hand and foot trying to hold back a man (Bob Kafka) in a manual wheelchair who is bent forward pushing. Other police officers are standing in the street, a supervisor is watching, as is a TV cameraman. Other protesters are partially visible at the edges of the scene. Chicago police have a black and white checkered band around their hats that is very distinctive. Article continues- Tuesday morning's Chicago Tribune, instead of covering ADAPT's HHS confrontation. reports on stepped-up security measures at the downtown State of Illinois building where. the Tribune reports, in error, ADAPT was "supposed" to be demonstrating Monday. ADAPT, it says, changed its mind. In fact, ADAPT planned to hit state offices on Wednesday. Speculation abounds as to who fed the paper the false information, the effect of which is to make ADAPT look disorganized. It later becomes apparent that state officials have had a hand in it. There is nothing in the Tribune about the people who stopped along State Street and asked questions, about Flaum, about any of it. The Sun-Times carries a photo inside. At the comer of State and Grant, a baby-blue police wrecker, the same blue as the cars, as the barricades, has blocked a curb ramp. ADAPT has blocked four intersections adjacent to the American Medical Association. Wheelchairs are stretched across 16 streets. At the intersection of Wabash and Grand, in the back, Paulette Patterson is hassling the policemen, mouthing off and chasing them with her motorized chair. It seems she is trying to get arrested. The police are being friendly enough. It won't be until noon that things will get rough. The cops will barricade the main entrances to the glass-walled fortress: many ADAPT members will take that as their cue to launch themselves out of their wheelchairs onto the high-curbed stoop around the building, crawling up to bang and hammer on the wooden barricades. A few find satisfaction in pounding on the glass walls. This will happen, though, only after the confrontation — the confrontation that resulted in Jerry Eubanks of Chicago being dropped from his wheelchair: picked up by his neck, it seems to other protesters, who holler for an “Ambulance! Now!”; the confrontation that causes Patterson to roll from her wheelchair and shriek at the top of her lungs, kicking her legs wildly as police try to pick her up. The police back off; when they come at her again, her screams again drive them back. Finally, Patterson is left alone, and, once more in her wheelchair, rolls off to the side, where she admits slyly and with her trademark smile that she enjoys discomfiting police. “They don't wanna mess with me," she says proudly. Suddenly they are all there again, surging at the entrance, trying to get up the high curb. Stephanie Thomas and Diane Coleman and others are wedging themselves in next to the Chicago Transit Authority paratransit vehicles that are a sure sign of arrests: it's the only way police can haul off a wheelchair to the hoosegow. Allen Leegant is diving under a barricade trying to get up to the entrance. Chris Hronis and Arthur Campbell are trying to follow; they are caught by police. Campbell is carried, spread-eagle, by four cops, directly to a CT A van. Cameras are everywhere; TV crews have materialized out of nowhere. Campbell has been arrested. Mike Auberger has been arrested. Campbell and Auberger are each put into his own van. The police have their eye on Mike Ervin. When you catch a snatch of cop-to-cop talk, you learn they're trying to pick off those they figure to be the leaders. “What the cops never understand is why the demonstration continues after they’ve hauled off the folks they think are leaders," says someone who is blocking a street. “They can’t figure out that arresting leaders doesn’t work; that as soon as they arrest someone, somebody else just moves in." Susan Nussbaum, blocking a side door, answers questions about whether the movement will ever see violence. “There’s always the potential for violence," she is saying. “But it would be good if that could be understood in the context of a larger issue. “I am not in favor of getting my head beaten in." At 3:15 the building starts to empty out. ADAPT has managed to block all the exits, so AMA workers and officials alike are subjected to a gauntlet of taunts as they trot, under tight police protection, down the ramp to the alley and across to the parking garage. The taunts seem mostly to be of the “AMA Shame On You” variety. When ADAPT members arrived at AMA headquarters in the morning, they found tables set up with water coolers and cups of refreshing water awaiting them. Later, the AMA‘s Department of Geriatric Health would confirm for a reporter that the AMA had done this so the disabled people wouldn't get overheated and get sick. Many protesters were wary of the water. Some suspected it had been spiked with Valium: others thought it a ploy to get them to have to pee later on, adding to their discomfort and hopefully ending the demonstration early. Much of the water was left untouched. Water was also running through hoses into the sprinkling system of the AMA‘s lawns. This had the added effect of keeping protesters off the grassy knolls fronting the building. Shortly after ADAPT arrived, one demonstrator had parked his chair on the hose while others moved across the area to block doors. Later, the water was simply turned off. Insert picture: A head and shoulders picture of a protester chanting, with the words "AMA: Shame on you!" "People are dying shame on you!" Article continues- The AMA’s flak, Arnold Collins, was standing around with the TV and radio reporters most of the day. The AMA had issued a statement insisting it “supports the home care objectives of ADAPT." Dr. Joanne Schwartzberg, Director of the AMA's Department of Geriatric Health, said in the news release that a meeting the previous Thursday with ADAPT had been “productive” and that the two `groups` had “considerable common ground.” Campbell, who attended the meeting, had a different analysis. He said he believed Schwartzberg truly had no understanding what ADAPT wanted; that some of their ideas had been totally inconceivable to her. Schwartzberg said ADAPT was the first group she had ever met with and felt “hostility.” “It was a great shock," she said. “I always thought of myself as being a great advocate. But I wasn’t an advocate enough for them." Schwartzberg said that ADAPT didn’t understand that there were “really frail people in nursing homes — a kind of frailty that these disabled don’t have. “I was really scared that the demonstrators might get harmed, the way they throw themselves out of their chairs.” she went on. “They’re very courageous; I think they're a little reckless. Luckily, nobody’s gotten seriously hurt." “Do you think she really believes the things she says, or do you think it’s just a pose?” a filmmaker wondered. The AMA had issued “a guideline for medical management of homecare patients," she said, and they were putting on 8 seminars for doctors “in managing home care.” She knew ADAPT wanted AMA members to divest themselves of their financial interest in nursing homes and cut nursing home admissions. But the AMA couldn‘t do that, she explained patiently. “We are a voluntary body. not a regulatory body." “They couldn't understand why we couldn‘t do more." she said. The Chicago Tribune was still concerned about the State of lllinois building. Every day Tribune stories had chronicled the increasing security at the site. On Tuesday, Paulette Patterson and another disabled woman filed suit in U.S. District Court alleging denial of access due to increased security. Though a temporary restraining order was not granted, Patterson’s attorney, Matthew Cohen, said filing the suit had had the desired effect. The Tribune covered the suit. Photos by Tom Olin: 1) Two protesters (Spitfire and Jimmi Schrode) in the march raise the power fist to woman leaning out of a second floor window yelling and giving them the thumbs up. Below on the sidewalk most people are just walking by but one older man looks on. Spitfire is wearing her combat helmet. 2) A line of ADAPT protesters face a set of barricades on the other side of which are a line of policemen holding the barricades with both hands. Midway down the line of protesters, a man in a wheelchair (Danny Saenz) is turned toward the camera and another protester (Chris Hronis). 3) Close up of a man in a wheelchair (Rene Luna) who sits in front of an almost life sized portrait of IL Governor Edgar. Rene is holding a poster that reads "nursing home industry owns Edgar." Article continues- Finally, on Wednesday, ADAPT obliged the Tribune and state officials by staging a protest at the building, drawing attention to stale policies that were cutting people off from attendant services in Illinois. On Thursday. the Tribune ran a long story on ADAPT. Calling them "a group of vociferous activists savvy in street action." It quoted a miffed Chicago official who refused to be named saying that "one of the strongest points in their civil disobedience is making themselves look as pathetic as possible.“ “The group's history is rife with attention-grabbing acts of protest." said the Tribune. which compared them to ACT-UP and Earth First! protest `groups`. "Though some may question their tactics. none can doubt they have impact.“ said the Tribune. the end
US_Capitol_Rotunda_part_2_cap
This is part 2 of the ADAPT Capitol Rotunda protest in support of the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA. This shows the group preparing for civil disobedience to pressure swift passage of the bill. Over 100 people were arrested at this protest, which gets less attention than the Crawl but was equally intense. The film is open captioned (as are all videos on this museum site).
ADAPT (1795)
Mainstream Magazine, April 1993 issue [This article continues in ADAPT 1974, but is included here in its entirety for easier reading.] Photo: Wade Blank, in sneakers, jeans and an ADAPT T-shirt over a long sleeved shirt, walks with other ADAPTers in a march down a city street. Beside him is George Roberts, behind George is Diane Coleman and behind her is Anita Cameron. Behind Wade's left side is Chris Hronis, and behind him Bill Henning carries a banner. Caption for picture reads: Wade Blank takes to the streets of San Francisco with ADAPT in October 1992 Title: Wade Blank, 1940 to 1993 Co founder of Adapt [sic] Pursued A Vision Of Justice For People With Disabilities By Laura Hershey When a college friend dared Wade Blank to march with Martin Luther King. Jr. in Selma, Alabama. Wade didn't know what to expect. However, the experience imbued him with a vision of civil rights which he would never forget. Later. working in the youth wing of a nursing home, he understood clearly that the same issues, freedom. equality, and justice, were at stake for people with severe disabilities. Throughout his life, Wade Blank strove to obtain independent living opportunities and equal access for people who had lone been denied these basic civil rights. Wade died at age 52 on Feb. l5. I993. in a swimming accident in Todos Santos, Mexico, where he was vacationing with his family. He was trying to save his 8 year old son. Lincoln. An undertow made the rescue impossible; both Wade and Lincoln drowned. Wade is survived by his wife, Mollie; his daughter. Caitlin, 6; and his adopted daughter, Heather, 22, who has a disability. All members of the Blank family were actively involved in the disability rights movements that Wade helped launch. On Feb. 2l. a memorial service drew 1,100 people to Denver's Radisson Hotel. the site of the first national protest by American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, or ADAPT. the grass roots, direct action disability rights movement Wade co-founded. Wade and Lincoln were remembered as spirited, loving people committed to social change. A neighbor remembered Wade helping her fix a broken lock late one night; she recalled Lincoln leading other children in a rousing chant during a make-believe demonstration on his front porch. Wade's colleague Shel Trapp quipped. “lf Heaven is inaccessible. God is in big trouble." Wade believed in the leadership potential of even the most severely disabled activists. He pushed his followers to take charge of the movement, even when it would have been easier to dominate it himself. His ability to alternate between a directive role and a supportive role from manager to attendant. from mentor to messenger kept Wade close to his people. lt also had a tactical value: At a 1991 demonstration in Colorado. police were vainly searching for someone to hold responsible for several dozen unstoppable wheelchair wielding protesters. An officer asked Wade. “Are you in charge here?" "No." Wade answered. “I just help people go to the bathroom." Drawing on his background as a pastor of a diverse and active parish, Wade taught the value of community. He brought people together across disabilities, classes, races, ideologies and other differences. ln ADAPT. Wade created a true community. welcoming anyone committed to the movement's vision of justice. During national actions, people from across the country exchange experiences and expertise. offer each other encouragement and strength, meet friends and even start romances. Just getting to the sites of national protests requires enormous energy expenditures and a myriad of logistical details for people with disabilities, many of whom use wheelchairs. On long. grueling caravan drives across country. Wade met those needs with humor and gentleness. He drove tirelessly, navigated, did attendant care, pumped gas, made fast food runs, hauled suitcases and battery chargers, repaired wheelchairs, even brought coffee to everyone’s rooms in the mornings. When we grew exhausted and short-tempered. he buoyed us with affectionate teasing and terrible, recycled puns. He kept the troops moving, both on the road and during protests. with encouragement, bad jokes. and calm confidence. Protests will be tougher without Wade's bold creativity, irrepressible sense of humor, and reassuring presence. But the movement won’t die with Wade. He knew that. “King‘s organization’s mistake was that they hung it all around his neck,” he told an interviewer last November. “What happened to the movement? It lost its definition. King gave it its definition. If I would get knocked off tomorrow or die of a heart attack, it wouldn’t slow us down a bit. We know what we’re about, and the movement would go on with the same intensity.” In 1971, Rev. Wade Blank arrived in Denver after 10 years of preaching and organizing in the Midwest. He had graduate degrees in divinity and was an ordained Presbyterian minister. But his radical activities had gotten him in trouble with the church authorities and he had been fired from his parish. His experiences had included hosting meetings of the Kent State chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS); helping Vietnam War draftees flee to Canada; and organizing African American youths to demand community water and sewage systems in conservative Twinsburg Heights, OH. Wade was burned out and not sure what he wanted to do next. He ended up at Denver’s Heritage House nursing home, where he tried to make institutional life bearable for young disabled people. He quickly realized that such confinement could never be acceptable. He was fired from his job, but stayed in touch with several of the young residents. Eventually he helped 11 of them move into their own apartments. At first, Wade himself provided all his clients’ attendant care, until finally the State of Colorado agreed to fund home health care services for people living independently. This was the beginning of the Atlantis Community (named for a forgotten continent), today a thriving independent living center in Denver. Even in their newly won freedom, the Atlantis founders discovered barriers to independence all around them. Public buses were inaccessible, so the community members became activists. One July 5, 1978, with Wade’s support and guidance, 19 disabled people blocked buses overnight in the busy intersection at Colfax and Broadway to demonstrate their demand for lifts on buses. Protests continued until, in June 1983, Denver committed itself to a fully accessible bus system. Last summer, the city laid a plaque at the Colfax-Broadway intersection, engraved with the 19 activists’ names. Characteristically downplaying his own key role in the demonstration, Wade asked that his name not appear on the plaque. Wade once described his role this way: “That’s what my job is, to assist my people in gaining the power to make change." Throughout his years of service to “my people,” Wade worked to build strength and leadership among disability activists. Emboldened by success, the Denver activists carried their demands for bus access to the entire nation. Wade‘s vigorous encouragement and organizing skills had helped to transform a group of powerless nursing home "patients" into a band of effective revolutionaries. Now that same savvy spirit found a warm reception among disabled people who were tired of segregation and exclusion. A new movement was born, with the fitting acronym ADAPT, or American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation. The first national ADAPT protest took place at the Radisson in October, 1983. The nation's transit officials were meeting at the hotel when disabled protesters blocked every entrance. Similar demonstrations throughout the country, involving the blocking of hotels, office buildings, and buses, focused public attention on the fact that access to transportation was a basic civil right denied to people with disabilities. Subsequent protests refined ADAPT ’s brand of protest. With his 1960s civil rights experience, Wade taught his followers how to stage protests that were non violent but direct and confrontational. In the hands of people with severe disabilities, these tactics were astonishingly effective. ADAPT activists baffled police officers, and filled jail cells, in dozens of cities. The public, and ultimately the powers that be, had to respond. The idea of people with severe disabilities, and their allies (including Wade), risking arrest again and again some as many as 20 or 30 times proved not only impressive, but persuasive. After nearly a decade of such protests, ADAPT achieved its goals for the nation’s transit systems. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) included mandates for bus and rail services. All new bus purchases must now be lift equipped, just as Wade and his cohorts had demanded. But before it passed, the ADA became stalled in the U.S. Senate and was in danger of being defeated or weakened by amendments. Wade organized a “Wheels of Justice” campaign that included three days of marching, demonstrating, and civil disobedience. Some 150 people were arrested in the Capitol rotunda. Within a few weeks, the ADA passed the full Senate, and was signed into law by President Bush on July 26, 1990. But Wade and ADAPT spent little time celebrating. They knew there was still much to be done. With over a million people still languishing in nursing homes, ADAPT immediately launched its new campaign, demanding the shifting of federal Medicare/Medicaid funds from nursing homes to in home attendant services that would allow people disabled by birth, accident, illness, or age to live independently. The meaning of the acronym, ADAPT, did just that it adapted. The letters now stand for American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today. The old battle cry, “We Will Ride!,“ was replaced with a new one: “Free Our People NOW!” In a recent interview, Wade said, “My whole commitment in life is to eradicate those nursing homes, to destroy them, bring them down. We will.” He didn’t live to see that goal realized, but he shared that vision with hundreds of others. In the process he helped create a movement that will continue the fight to “Free Our People.” Laura Hershey, freelance writer and poet, is an ADAPT activist. Inserted in box: A memorial will be held May 9, I993 at the Lincoln Memorial as part of an ADAPT action in Washington DC. Contributions may be sent to The Family of Wade Blank Memorial Fund at The First National Bank of Denver, 300 S. Federal Blvd., Denver, CO 80206. A trust fund has also been established in the name of Wade Blank. Contributions can be sent to Atlantis/ADAPT c/o Evan Kemp, 2500 Q St. N.W I21, Washington, DC 20007.
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Houston Chronicle Tuesday May21, 1996 Headline: 5 arrested after building is taken over in protest [page has a crease down the middle so some text is hidden, most was able to be figured out] by Lisa Teachey -- Houston Chronicle About 400 disabled people took over a westside building Monday until police arrived to move the protest outside. Members of American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, most of them in wheelchairs, blocked the entrance and elevators leading to Living Centers of America at 15415 Katy Freeway at about 10:30 a.m. Five people who refused to leave the building were arrested for criminal trespass, said Houston police Capt. D.E. Watkins. None of the arrested was wheelchair bound. The protest was staged because ADAPT wants a larger share of the federal money dedicated to nursing home care to go to programs that provide in-home care or community-based care for the disabled. “We're tired of the nursing home industry keeping a lock on over 85 percent of the long-term care money,” said protester Diane Coleman. “If a person needs long-term care, they should be able to say where they [obscured partially here] get, not the system.” Federal money is set aside through Medicaid for nursing home care as well as for attendant-care and community-based programs, said Katherine Hinson, of the Texas Health Care Association, a trade organization that represents long-term care facilities. “They want to take money from one under funded program and put it in another under-funded program,” Hinson said. “There’s not enough money to go around. We've asked them to join us to get more funding for all.“ Living Centers is a long-term health care corporation that operates nursing facilities, rehabilitation centers a other types of facilities. “Their main quarrel is with the government,” said Edward Kuntz, Living Centers chief executive officer. “They want additional funding." Kuntz said he agrees with ADAPT's call for more money, “but not at the cost of long-term nursing facilities."
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The Guardian, May 27,1992 Photo by Tom Olin: A disabled man dressed all in white (Tim Craven) lies on his back to crawl under a police barricade. Beside him a woman (Barbara Bounds) in a wheelchair leans toward him as if to support and protect him. She is facing the barricade and has a sign taped to the back of her chair that says "People Before Profits." Two police men lean over the barricade toward Tim and another sticks his arm in between them. Behind them are even more officers. On the near side of the barricade yet another officer stands, bending almost all the way forward toward Tim on the ground. Caption reads: Protesters in Chicago got our of their wheelchairs and lay down in front of the barricades, forcing employees to walk over them. Disabled militants bring hope to health reform By Mary Johnson Chicago-Hundreds of members and supporters of ADAPT (American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today) took to the streets here May 10-13 to continue their fight for in-home attendant services and to move the national health-Cate debate into the rights arena. The group is aiming to force the American Medical Association—whose headquarters are here—and the American Health Care Association, the nursing home lobby, to replace “home care" with "attendant services“ which consumers control “in the location and manner of our choice,“ says ADAPT. ADAPT, which under the name American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation won the national fight for wheelchair lifts on buses, intend their street protests as the “flashpoint," says founder Wade Blank, for national health care reform. There is nothing medical about assistance to bathe, eat or dress, these activists charge. Target: Louis Sullivan Learning that Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan would be speaking at University of Chicago commencements on May 10, the 250-strong ADAPT contingent cancelled a Mother‘s Day march and stormed into the university‘s pavilion, planning to disrupt Sullivan's speech. Police and Secret Service agents promptly ejected them, but the group spent the afternoon handing leaflets to graduates‘ families. Sullivan has been a perennial ADAPT target for his refusal to meet with them to discuss Medicaid policy on nursing homes. The next day, ADAPT surrounded the HHS regional offices in downtown Chicago, managing to get up to 15th-floor offices before being blocked by police. Others in the group cordoned off exits, forcing building employees to climb over them, and at one point succeeded in getting department officials into the street to listen to the group‘s demands. Ten protesters were cited and released. On May 12, ADAPT moved to AMA headquarters, blocking adjacent streets and crawling up to bang on office windows. Police barricaded the doors, but protesters got our of their wheelchairs and piled themselves at barricades, forcing AMA employees to step over them when their offices shut down early. Police moved to arrest four people they believed to be in command. The four included Mike Auberger of Denver and Arthur Campbell of Louisville, Ky., who were released later in the day. Garnering media attention Though ADAPT planned to press state targets only on May 13, the state barricaded its downtown State of Illinois Building on the two days before. Guards locked wheelchair access doors and forced wheelchair users to submit to police escort on elevators. On May 12, Chicago ADAPT member Paulette Patterson sued the state over discriminatory denial of access. Though District judge Milton Shadur failed to grant a requested temporary restraining order, Patterson’s attorney, Matthew Cohen, said he had “no doubt the suit had an effect.” On May 13, ADAPT took over the building while city police squabbled with state police over jurisdiction and mostly kept their hands off protesters. Longtime Chicago activists noted ADAPT‘s success in garnering media attention. Chicago Lawyers Guild member Ora Schub said ADAPT‘s protests got more coverage than Gulf war demonstrations in the city — even when antiwar protesters shut down Lake Shore Drive. There seems little question ADAPT has begun to have an impact beyond disability rights. As one of the only groups to take the health reform issue into the streets, ADAPT, says Blank, sees its role “as focusing the debate on a bigger political issue” within health-care reform: services as a legal right. “What the disability rights movement can do is humanize society,” he says. Tennessee ADAPT recently forced the hospital power structure there to accept a state financing fee that will fully fund Medicaid (see sidebar). Lawyer Gordon Bonnyman, who was involved in the Tennessee campaign, remembers a “poverty advocate friend" sending him a clipping about an ADAPT protest in Orlando, Fla., in 1990, when the group first took on the American Health Care Association over the attendant services issue. He and his friend “were despairing about health reform," he said, “asking ourselves when the people who were really affected were going to begin to influence the discussion. "l said, ‘l just don‘t see that ever happening until people are willing to stage some direct actions,‘ " Bonnyman recalls. “Then she sent me that clipping from ADAPT's Orlando action and she said, ‘Here are the folks who could do that.'" “My response at that time was, ‘That’s nice, but how many people is that?‘ I now think: ‘Enough.' ADAPT really does have the ability to have an impact nationally on health care issues-far beyond their own issue of personal attendant services." The group plans similar actions in San Francisco this fall. Second, sidebar, article inserted on this page: Saving Medicaid in Tenn Six people in wheelchairs moved swiftly a cross across the drive-way of the Tennessee Health Care Association in Nashville on March 31. Chaining themselves together, the small band waited for members of the Tennessee Hospital Association to come out of their meeting. It was a classic ADAPT action. This time ADAPT was leading a coalition of health care reformers that would force the state‘s powerful hospital lobby to drop its opposition to a state licensing fee intended to prevent a $1.1 billion loss in federal Medicaid funds. Tennessee pioneered the concept of leveraging matching federal Medicaid funds by levying a state financing fee against hospitals that took Medicaid patients. With its 70-30 match, the state took the $300 million collected from participating hospitals to obtain another $700 million in federal matching funds. With that tactic, Tennessee was fully funding its Medicaid program and feeling no financial crisis. By 1991 it was in use in 37 states, with many reporting similar success. The federal government, alarmed at having to pay out increased Medicaid funds to stares that used this method, devised a plan to derail it. A little-publicized 1991 law made such licensing fees illegal unless levied against all hospitals equally. It counted on opposition from hospitals that took no Medicaid patients (and therefore had no reason to agree to the fees) to fight state passage of licensing fee bills. That opposition was swift in coming in Tennessee. The state is home to Hospital Corporation of America and HealthTrust, two of the nation's largest hospital chains, and numerous other hospitals. The Tennessee Hospital Association, of which Hospital Corporation of America is a powerful member, opposed the fee. A state bill to extend the fee to all hospitals was virtually dead, said Tony Garr, head of the Tennessee Health Care Campaign, until ADAPT of Tennessee, led by organizer Diane Coleman, got involved. “The only way we could bring attention to the issue was to hit the streets,” said Garr. “ADAPT played a very important role" in helping other groups in the Tennessee Health Care Campaign “move to direct action,” said Gordon Bonnyman, a lawyer who has worked with Medicaid issues in Tennessee. Beginning in January, Coleman and Tennessee ADAPT members staged weekly actions, targeting the large hospitals as villains who were destroying the state’s Medicaid program. The first week a group of nearly 200 people, headed by ADAPT, marched to the Hospital Association's offices. The next week the group staged a protest in front of Baptist Hospital, which opposed the fee. The group hung a sign asking “Are you Christian?" on the hospital administrator's portrait. The group‘s fifth action targeted Thomas Frist, who heads Hospital Corporation of America. “We had a small casket, with dollar bills draped over it, and a sign that read, “Thomas Frist, how many must die for your $1.235 million in annual cash compensation?” said Coleman. The protests had the desired effect. Frist, reportedly upset by the negative publicity, capitulated the day the group surged on Health Care Association headquarters with the cross and withdrew his corp0ration’s opposition to the fee—reportedly urging legislators to vote swiftly to pass the law to avoid more unfavorable publicity. “There have been Medicaid cuts for the last 15 years in this country, and they have gone mostly unreported," said Bonnyman. “ADAPT galvanized people. Without them, the whole thing would have gone down the toilet." M.J.
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Chicago Defender, Vol. LXXXVII [87] No. 7 Wednesday May 13, 1992 (40¢ outside Chicago and suburbs) Editorial Listen to disabled on in-home funds A group of "disabled rights activists, who on Tuesday continued their protest against the federal government's failure to allocate more funds for handicapped individuals, should be taken seriously. They are protesting for the right to remain at home, rather than being warehoused in nursing homes. “Six times the (amount of) money goes to nursing homes and other institutions,” compared to the sums going “to community-based services. We want 25 percent of that nursing home budget to go to home care,” said Diane Coleman, an organizer for the group. There are various reasons why authorities should lend an ear to the protesters’ demands. Some of them are: * Disabled people would rather live at home than in an institutionalized environment, just like anyone else would. Many physically challenged individuals are wheelchair-bound but would have no trouble at home turning on a computer and working on it; going to the refrigerator to get their own food; operating their own TV, radio, or CD player; reading books, teaching younger members of the family, making their own bed and doing countless other constructive things to make them feel useful and relatively independent. * Additional money for home-based and community-based assistance would permit thousands of disabled individuals to receive help from part-time home attendants or nurses. The tab to the taxpayers might, in many instances, be smaller than the current cost for such services. * Many disabled protesters argue that being housed in a nursing home may actually prohibit some physically challenged people from developing into more productive citizens. These pundits stress that some of the disabled individuals being cared for in nursing homes could, if given home-based fund support, live a life with more quality to it and a few of them could even participate in home-based employment or other legal business. The bottom line is that disabled individuals deserve to be treated with as much respect as any other group in society. Other protesters have been given serious consideration by the federal government on various causes. The current cause espoused by many of America’s physically challenged individuals deserves equal attention from government authorities.
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Chicago Tribune Tuesday, May 12, 1992 Title: State thwarts protest, so disabled switch site By Rob Karwath A threatened demonstration by wheelchair-bound protesters prompted an unprecedented show of force Monday at the 16-floor glass-and-steel State of Illinois Center. The demonstrators instead targeted federal offices several blocks south, leaving 3,000 state workers walking along barricaded corridors and past security checkpoints in the building at 100 W. Randolph St. Workers had to tell uniformed police where they were going. Security guards manned the elevators. A trip from an upper floor to a main-floor coffee shop became a half-hour journey. The preparations were made for a group that has become increasingly militant, with members at times chaining themselves to objects and forming chains of wheelchairs. After experiencing a day of the clampdown, most employees interviewed said they thought the state Department of Central Management Services, which runs the building, has overreacted. “It's ridiculous," said Peggy Craddieth, a secretary at the Illinois Pollution Control Board. “Even during Operation Desert Storm they weren’t this tight.” State officials said the tight security will continue all week, or at least until the protesters from Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT) leave town. The heavy security seemed out of place to those familiar with the idea behind the wide—open state building. Architect Helmut Jahn created the building to symbolize the openness of a properly run democracy. Jahn’s concept was former Gov. James Thompson's frequent retort to anyone who criticized the building as a poor use of space. “There’s a general discomfort all across the office about this,” said Rob Cushing, a lawyer in the lllinois attorney general‘s office. He said of the demonstrators, “We shouldn't have to go through all of this to deny them their right to protest.” Central Management Services officials said they never intended to create a problem with the extra security, which included calling all department police in on their days off and hiring l6 private security guards at a cost of about $2,000 a day. Instead, department spokeswoman Helen Adorjan said the state was simply trying to keep the building open after receiving a call from ADAPT warning that the group might try to block doors and elevators at the building this week. The group is protesting what it believes to be a lack of government funds for programs that allow disabled people to live at home and avoid nursing homes. ADAPT did block doorways and elevators Monday in at least one Loop building where federal offices are housed. Diane Coleman, an organizer in ADAPT, said Monday that the group went to 105 W. Adams, the Bankers Building, because it houses one of the regional offices of the Department of Health and Human Services. “There have been movements by `groups` like this before, but they were neglecting civil rights tactics—taking it to the streets,” she said. “And we'll do it until we win this issue. Six times the money goes to nursing homes and other institutions than to home and community-based services. We want 25 percent of that nursing home budget to go to home care." Many State of Illinois building workers said they were concerned that everyone entering the building was barred from the Easement and first-floor elevators, which were roped of and guarded by Central Management Services police officers. Yellow and black paper signs directed workers and patrons to an escalator that took them to the second floor where they were allowed to board the elevators. The escalator guaranteed that any wheechair-bound protesters wouldn‘t make it beyond the ground level. But some state workers said they were concerned that wheelchair-bound employees and disabled people with state business had to specially request that an elevator descend to the first floor and then convince building police that they were not protesters. “ls it fair for someone who shows up in a wheelchair to have to declare their business?" asked Alex Des Chenes, a contractor with the state Department of Public Health. “Have you seen the tapes of what the have done in other cities?” Anforjan said. “This group completely immobilizes activity. They need to be able to express themselves, but we need to keep the building operating." But, in an effort to prevent a disruption, workers said all of the extra security only ended up causing a disruption. The building's Lake Street entrance was open, but a large steel gate inside the revolving glass doors sealed it off to all but riders of the CTA subway trains below. A newsstand and a Chinese restaurant located inside the entrance were empty as most of their customers were forced to bypass them. Even some of the Central Management Services police running the elevators said they disagreed with the security plan and would have tried less-disruptive measures. “Everybody’s complaining about this," said one officer, shaking his head as he punched elevator buttons. “It‘s crazy." Tribune photo by David Klobucar: A mass of people are clustered in one big not. ADAPT protesters in wheelchairs are on the street and people in suits and similar work outfits are making their way down the log jammed sidewalk, up to the police barricades. A woman in a dress is stepping over and through two of the protesters so she can continue in the street. Between the street and the sidewalk a metal police barricade is partially visible, and two uniformed officers appear to be casually trying to hold the barricades up. Caption reads: Protesters from Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs Today block an entrance to the U.S. Health and Human Services Department on West Adams Street Monday.
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New York Times, National, Thursday October 10.1991 Title: Militant Advocates for Disabled Revel in Their Roles as Agitators by Steven A. Holmes, special to the New York Times [compare with ADAPT 673] Boxed text: Forcefully trying to change images of the nation’s disabled. ORLANDO, Fla., Oct. 6 — The melee‘ at a meeting of nursing home representatives here was, in many ways, a typical for the demonstrators: After smashing their wheelchairs into police barricades and blocking a hotel entrance, 73 of them were arrested, creatmg front page headlines and a successful day's work for Adapt, the militant advocacy group for the disabled. The aim of the action today at the Peabody Hotel in this resort city was to focus attention on the organization's call to divert Federal money from nursing homes to a form of in-home care. But the means the group uses, like Sunday's chaotic demonstration, have often exasperated its allies as much as its adversaries. But even those who criticize Adapt acknowledge that the searing images of people with physical limitations engaging in civil disobedience often succeed in shattering stereotypes of how meek and pliant “cripples” are supposed to act, stereotypes often held by many disabled people themselves. “Adapt is about the issue," said Mary Johnson, editor of the Disability Rag, a weekly magazine that is devoted to disability issues. “But it is also about showing you that though you are disabled you have power already. For people who feel they don't have any power, who are often dependent, that is such a liberation." The Denver-based group's style has drawn its share of criticism from other advocates for the disabled. These critics note that the group played little part in the negotiations that led to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act and that their methods had often antagonized allies in the stniggle. “I think they do get attention," said a Washington-based disabled advocate who asked not to be identified. “But that's true when they are playing to an audience that is not politically sawy. For people out in Middle America, sitting in front of the TV, seeing people in wheelchairs demonstrating is something new. But to folks in Washington who are used to sit-ins, it's passe." [Subheading] An Effective Weapon But leaders of Adapt, which originally stood for Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation, say it is `groups` like theirs that push others to press forcefully ior expanded rights for the disabled. “l think that even for the people with disabilities who don't participate directly in Adapt, we give them heart," said Diane Coleman, an Adapt organizer from Tennessee. And even those who sometimes criticize Adapt acknowledge that it is an eiiective weapon. lt is a role Adapt readily takes on. "We make all the other `groups` seem real rational," said Mike Auberger, one of Adapt’s founders. The group was begun in I983 in Denver by people who worked to persuade the city to make all local buses accessible to people in wheelchairs. Over the next few years they held protests over the issue of accessible public transportation in Cincinnati, St. Louis, Phoenix; Detroit and Atlanta. In addition to picketing, the protesters often would lock their wheelchairs together in front of city buses or chain themselves to a bus’s bumper. Early on, Adapt made a prime target the American Public Transit Association, a group representing mass transit systems. The protesters disrupted meetings and harassed officials of the group. “You have to have a bad guy in political organizing, somebody you can go after," said Mr. Auberger. These days that role is filled by the nursing home industry and Louis W. Sullivan, Secretary of Health and Human Services. After Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act last year, requiring that all new buses be equipped with hydraulic lifts for people in wheelchairs, Adapt began protesting for Federal subsidies for personal attendants, individuals hired by those with physical impairments to help them with basic everyday needs. Adapt wants 25 percent of the more than $20 billion paid to nursing home operators under the Medicaid program to be diverted from nursing homes to help the disabled pay for personal attendants. Though many mainstream proponents of help for the disabled have endorsed the goal of government subsidies for attendants, the diversion of funds sought by Adapt is opposed by the American Health Care Association, the trade group for nursing homes, and by the Bush Administration. As a result, Adapt has spent the last few months harassing the nursing home association and “Mr. Sullivan. This spring they blocked his car during a visit to Chicago and heckled him in a speech in Washington. in August, a handful of Adapt members rolled their wheelchairs along side Mr. Sullivan and harangued him as he took part in a fitness walk on Martha's Vineyard. Whether such methods will achieve Adapt‘s stated goals is uncertain. But leaders of the group say that when they first began to put pressure on the public transportation industry, no one felt their methods would bear fruit. "You have to give complete and utter credit for that to Adapt," said Evan Kemp, Jr., the head of e Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
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The Orlando Sentinel, Thursday October 10, 1991 the best newspaper in Florida PHOTO by Phelan M Ebenhack/Sentinel: Three people (left to right: Frank Lozano, Bunnie Andrews? and Sue Davis) are standing in front of a wall. On the wall a cross with "Nursing Homes Kill" written on it is partially visable, as is the ADAPT flag (an American Flag with the stars arranged to form the wheelchair/access logo). The three are lifting up an old fashioned folding E & J manual wheelchair to hang it on the cross. Frank, who is blind and wears a headband and T-shirt with ADAPT on them, has his hand raised. Caption reads: Frank Lozano and Bunnie Andrews, both of Colorado Springs, and Sue Davis of Louisville, Ky., chain a wheelchair to a cross marked ‘Nursing Homes Kill.‘ Title: Disabled saw their message on many faces by Sharon McBreen of the Sentinel Staff Protesters say they made their message clear this week after 250 activists in wheelchairs converged on Orlando. “It’s almost as though they never felt it before we've gotten in their faces,” Diane Coleman said. “You can feel the impact of that. You can see it in their eyes." The members of ADAPT — Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs Today — carried a message to the American Health Care Association, which attracted 3,500 delegates to a convention this week at the Peabody Hotel. ADAPT membels want an alternative to nursing home care. And they want to live at home. During the convention, which ends today, ADAPT members tried to block the Peabody’s doors with their bodies and wheelchairs. Police arrested 75 protesters on trespassing charges. The group wants a fourth of the $23 billion Medicaid spends on nursing homes and other institutions transferred to at-home care. “We need to reach the `rank`-and-file members of AHCA and the American public," Coleman of Tennessee said at a Wednesday news conference. At least one convention delegate said he wanted to hear more, she said. Nursing home association representatives have asked ADAPT members to meet with them. But what the activists really want is a national policy giving the disabled a choice, said Mark Johnson of Atlanta. Johnson said the nursing home industry doesn't want to allow the disabled to live at home, because it would lose out on the Medicaid money they receive. Wednesday night's news conference had to be moved from the front of the Orange County Convention and Civic Center to a room in the Clarion Plaza Hotel because police threatened to arrest them, one of the organizers said. Orange County sheriff's spokesman Doug Sarubbi denied that. He said an agreement reached with the judge who released the protesters from jail prohibited them from trespassing on Peabody Hotel property. Sarubbi said the Sheriff's Office was tabulating the time and money — estimated at least $100,000 —- it spent on the protest.
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Times Herald Record, Friday October 11, 1991 p. 36 Title: Heros for the handicapped? Militant group for disabled revels in its role of agitator The New York Times [compare with ADAPT 674 - the NYT clipping] ORLANDO. Fla. — The melee at a meeting of nursing home representatives here was in many ways a typical demonstration by members of Adapt. After smashing their wheelchairs into police barricades and blocking a hotel entrance, 73 members were arrested, creating front page headlines and a successful day’s work for the militant advocacy group for the disabled. The aim of the action last Sunday at the Peabody Hotel in this resort city was to locus attention on the organization's call to divert federal funds from nursing homes in a form of in-home care. But the means the group uses, like Sunday’s chaotic demonstration, has exasperated its allies often as much its adversaries. But even those who criticize Adapt acknowledge that the searing image of people with physical limitations engaging in civil disobedience often succeed in shattering stereo-types of how meek and pliant "cripples" are supposed to act - stereotypes often held by many disabled people themselves. “Adapt is about the issue," said Mary Johnson, editor of the Disability Rag, a weekly magazine that is devoted to disability issues. "But it is also about showing you that though you are disabled you have power already. For people who feel they don't have any power, who are often dependent, that is such a liberation." [Subheading] Antagonizing allies The Denver-based group’s style has drawn its share of criticism from other advocates for the disabled. These critics note that the group played little part in the negotiations thai led to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act and that their methods have often antagonized allies in the struggle. “l think they do get attention," said a Washington-based disabled advocate who asked not to be identified. "But that‘s true when they are playing to an audience that is not politically savy. For people out in Middle America, sitting in front of the TV, seeing people in wheelchairs demonstrating is something new. But to folks in Washington who are used to sit-ins, it's passe." Leaders of Adapt, which originally stood for Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation, say it is `groups` like theirs that push others to press forcefully for expanded rights for the disabled. “I think that even for the people with disabilities who don't participate directly in Adapt, we give them heart," said Diane Coleman, an Adapt organizer from Tennessee. And even those who sometimes criticize Adapt acknowledge that it is an effective weapon. It is a role Adapt readily takes on. “We make all the other `groups` seem real rational," said Mike Auberger, one of Adapt's founders and advocate who helped persuade the city to make all local buses accessible to people in wheelchairs. [Subheading] Drastic means to a questionable end Over the next few years they held protests over the issue of accessible public transportation in Cincinnati, ST Louis, Phoenix, Detroit and Atlanta. In addition to picketing, the protesters often would lock their wheelchairs together in front of city buses or chain themselves to a bus's bumper. Early on, Adapt made a prime target the American Public Transit Association, a group representing mass transit systems. The disabled advocates disrupted meetings and harassed officials of the group. "You have to have a bad guy in political organizing, somebody you can go after," said Auberger. These days that role is filled by the nursing home industry and Louis W. Sullivan, secretary of Health and Human Services. After Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act last year, requiring that all new buses be equipped with hydraulic lifts for people in wheelchairs, Adapt began protesting for federal subsidies for personal attendants, individuals hired by those with physical impairments to help them with basic everyday needs. Adapt wants 25 percent of the more than $20 billion paid to nursing home operators under the Medicaid program to he diverted from nursing homes to help the disabled pay for personal attendants. Though many mainstream advocates for the disabled have endorsed the goal of government subsidies for attendants, the diversion of funds sought by Adapt is opposed by the American Health Care Association, the trade group for nursing homes, and by the Bush administration. As a result, Adapt has spent the last few months harassing the nursing home association and Sullivan. This spring they blocked his car during a visit to Chicago and heckled him during a speech in Washington. in August, a handful of Adapt members rolled their wheelchairs along side Sullivan and haranged him as he participated in a fitness walk on Martha's Vineyard. Whether such methods will achieve Adapt’s stated goals is uncertain. But leaders of the group say that when they first began to put pressure on the public transportation industry, no one felt their methods would bear fruit. "You have to give complete and utter credit for that to Adapt," said Evan Kemp. Jr., the head at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
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Left to right, Mike Auberger, Diane Coleman, Rick James and 2 other people block the side entrance to the Health and Human Services offices on Independence Ave. Mike's neck is kryptonite locked to the doors. Diane has a poster that reads "Stop the money to the nursing home lobby!" Behind Rick's head is a very large access symbol sign.
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Photo by Tom Olin: Close shot of Diane Coleman, bundled in her fluffy coat, and Rick James, in his black mountain man hat and a sweat shirt, chained to a glass door. Through the door you can see people standing up against it. Diane and Rick are chanting with intense looks on their faces.
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Disabled Activists Blockade Transit Expo By Jack Fletcher Frontline, October 12, 1987 PHOTO by Frontline: In a medium close up, man and a woman in wheelchairs (Bob Kafka and Diane Coleman), sit side by side in a downtown street and tall buildings in the background. Both wear the ADAPT T-shirt with the no-steps logo, Diane has on a white jacket. Bob is speaking and has his hand over Diane's, which is on her joy stick. Behind her head is a poster, partly blocked from view, that reads "We the People..." There is no caption. San Francisco Hundreds of disabled activists, demanding accessible transit, dramatically confronted “the world’s largest transit exposition” here September 27-30 as they blockaded streets, chained themselves to cable cars, and generally besieged the 15,000 mass transit officials and manufacturers’ representatives at the American Public Transit Association (APTA) Expo ’87. Over 100 protesters were arrested as they pressed APTA to approve a resolution by the September Alliance for Affordable Transit (SAAT) calling for the right of the disabled and elderly to access public transit. SAAT organizer Marilyn Golden called the APTA protests “the largest in disability rights history.” The disabled community has fought against APTA since 1979 when APTA brought a lawsuit that succeeded in overturning a federal regulation requiring that all transit vehicles be accessible to the disabled. Since 1983 the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) has organized demonstrations at APTA conventions in Cincinnati, Detroit, Phoenix, New York, and Washington, D. C. to urge a policy change. Until this year when they scheduled two workshops on the issue, APTA has been unwilling to even meet with protestors. Mark Johnson, a demonstrator from Georgia, drew the parallel between these protests and the civil rights movement saying, “There was something wrong when Black people weren’t allowed to sit in the front of the bus, and there’s something wrong when we can’t even go on the bus.” APTA claims that accessibility would cost $15 billion and would bankrupt the nation’s transit districts; they propose instead a system of “paratransit” which would theoretically provide disabled people with flexible door-to-door service but in fact translates into long waiting lists and call-ahead requirements, weekday-only buses and restricted ride purposes. SAAT counters that APTA’s $15 billion figure includes completely rebuilding subways in New York, Chicago and other cities, while the disabled community’s actual demand does not include rebuilding rail systems or even retrofitting existing vehicles, but only that new buses include wheelchair lifts. Also, while arguing that paratransit may be a useful supplement to public transit, Susan Schapiro of SAAT criticized existing paratransit systems as designed with a view of the disabled as “pathetic people in nursing homes going to see the doctor twice a month . . . . It all boils down to discrimination and the belief that these aren’t really people. The APTA delegates could not miss the powerful statement made by the tenacious lines of wheelchair bound demonstrators who spanned several generations in age, were multi-racial in composition, and came from every corner of the U.S. – including eight from Alaska. As demonstrators were being arrested they drove home the irony of being taken away in a lift-equipped paddy wagons chanting, “They can take us to jail but not to work.”