INCITEMENT INCITEMENT INCITEMENT

D.C. Action.

SHALALA MEETS WITH ADAPT 2,000 MARCH ON WHITE HOUSE

The line of demonstrators stretched ten blocks. Heat waves rising from the street gave the ADAPT Wheels to Freedom march on the White House a Fellini look. Waves of emotion rising from the crowd matched the heat 2,178 ADAPT activists and supporters marched for freedom and attendant services in Washington DC, May 9th.

During his campaign, Clinton had promised ADAPT action on a national attendant services program within the first 100 days of his Presidency. 110 days into the Clinton Presidency ADAPT activists from 26 states converged on DC to collect on that promise.

The event started at the west steps of the US Capitol with a. memorial melebration for the lives and contributions of Wade Blank and his son Lincoln. Prwident Clinton sent a letter of sympathy with his Aide Paul Miller (see p. 5). Congresswoman Pat Schroeder, representatives for Senator Harkin and Congressman Major Owens, former EEOC Chair Evan Kemp, President's Committee on Employment or People with Disabilities Chair Justin Dart and ADAPT leaders Mike Auberger and Stephanie Thomas. Disability rights singers Elaine Kolb and Johnny Crescendo also performed. Wade's contributions and vision were remembered, his dedication honored and comrsdeship missed. The celebration ended with the message that our struggle can not and will not die with Wade; we must continue the fight until our brothers and sisters are free. Crescendo sang his latest song "Tear Down the Walls (of the nursing home!)" On that note, the huge crowd left the Capitol and headed up Pennsylvania Ave.

When we arrived, marchers lined up along the two block long fence in front of the White House. Facing inward, we chanted "Free Our People". The President's door remained shut. A three foot by five foot list of ADAPT’ s six demands was hung on the front gate. On signal each person reached through the fence and planted a red or white cross on the lawn to symbolize the 9,520,000 people who, since 1965, have died or are at risk of dying in a nursing home. Our message planted. we turned and left Moving along the fence you saw on the crosses messages to Wade and Lincoln as well as to friends and family who had died or were stuck in nursing homes.

Monday began with an event the Bush administration refused to allow for two years Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Donna Shalala came to ADAPT 's hotel for meetings with ADAPT. Bush's HHS Secretary Sullivan ma refused to ever mm to ADAPT.

First Shalala and her staff met with a small group of ADAPT leaders who, due to lack of attendant services had been in nursing homes, were at risk of being warehoused or had similar perspectives on the issue. Although the Secretary's staff had originally wanted to discuss facts and figures, this group brought the discussion up to the real level, the level of the impact on human beings’ lives. Sharon Atkins, Lupe Vasquez, John Gladstone, Anita Cameron, Stephanie Thomas, Irene Norwood, Teresa Monroe and Rick James each shared a piece of the picture and of the demands. By the end, Shalala acknowledged the institutional bias and had a personal taste of the bitter reality. Appointing a liaison with ADAPT, she promised to respond to each of five demands within 30 days The meeting, originally scheduled for 15 minutes, had grown to 45 minutes

Next Shalala came out and met with all 500 ADAPT activists. When she saw ADAPT in all its glory she stepped off of the platform, cancelled her next scheduled appointment and moved out to the crowd to shared her goals for attendant services and health care reform. Only an inch or two taller than many of us in our chairs, she fit right in. People asked about many issues relating to health care and attendant services. In the end ADAPT said that the administration's goals sounded great, but that actions speak louder than words and we will be watching for actions to follow the rhetoric.

Adapt did not stop there. Afterwards we marched over to the Capitol demanding a meeting with Congressional leadership. Even if the Administration did everything we wanted, at least parts of any plan will need to be enacted by congress. so we turned our attention to them. However, the Congressional leadership was too busy to meet, so we said we would wait Our group took up an entire wing of the ground floor of the Capitol. spilling out into the rotunda When folks climbed out of their chairs to get comfortable (for what looked like a long wait), Capitol Security got uncomfortable and started arrests. Arrests led to chants, which led to more arrests, 115 arrests in all.

Tuesday brought the focus to the architects and main supporters of our current warehousing system: AHCA, the American Health Care Association. This nursing home industry lobby group had recently created new propaganda pap: "Quality of Life" Awards. ADAPT's response? Our first annual Certain Death Awards ceremony (to recognize the 10 worst nursing homes) held at the steps of their front door. Gathering out in front ADAPT members tried to enter the building but were locked out; so we blocked the building. Cops swarming around the building got a jolt when the second wave of several hundred ADAPT activists marched up the hill from the subway station to join the rest of our troops.

AHCA Executive Director Paul Willging was invited out to accept the awards. When he did not show up, a yellow cardboard dummy stood in for him An ADAPT representative from each of the states of the 10 worst nursing homes read the Certain Death Award and the human rights violations for which they were nominated and chosen Violations ranged from maggots in bedsores to abuse and death.

Marching home through the streets of DC, ADAPT began celebrating a victorious week of actions. We topped all our past records. Our Wheels to Freedom march was the largest disability rights march in history. We met with the HHS Secretary, she talked our line about attendant services and folks incarcerated in nursing homes, and we put her on notice that we were watching her actions. We put Congress on notice that we were serious about changing the institutional bias of our long term care system and demonstrated the depth of our seriousness with the largest number of arrests to date. We called AHCA's bluff, exposing their darker underside with the Certain Death Award Ceremony at their front door. When we got back to the hotel, we found even one more victory we found a hotel that liked us, they threw us a party.

AHCA President Willging "stand-in" accepted the Certain Death Awards. Photo: Carolyn Long

[Caption] ADAPT members at the table with HHS Secretary Shalala
Photo by Tom Olin

Author

INCITEMENT INCITEMENT INCITEMENT

Created on

Tuesday 16 July 2013

Posted on

Thursday 12 September 2019

Albums

• Washington DC, Spring 1993

Visits

281

Rating score

no rate

Rate this photo