Rocky Mountain News
Wed., Feb. 17, 1993
Greater Denver
Deborah Goekeh, City Editor 892-5381

[Headline] Wade Blank, advocate for disabled, drowns

[Subheading] Minister who led Denver bus demonstrations and spurred U.S. laws dies as effort to save son fails

By Katie Kerwin
Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

Wade Blank, who carried the fight for disabled Americans from Denver buses to the halls of Congress, died Monday in Mexico as he tried to save his drowning child.

Violent waves and a powerful undertow claimed them both as Blank's wife, Molly, and daughter, Caitlin, watched from the shore. Their other daughter, Heather, 22, was in Denver.

Blank was 52. His son, Lincoln, was 8.

Co-director of the Denver-based Atlantis Community and a Presbyterian minister, Blank is credited with spurring groundbreaking state and national legislation guaranteeing rights to disabled Americans.

Although he was not disabled, Blank was inspired to improve living conditions for the disabled after working in a Denver nursing home in the mid-1970s.

"The Americans With Disabilities Act would not have passed without his leadership," said Justin Dart, chairman of the President's Committee on the Employment of People with Disabilities.

"Wade Blank was a great moral person-a great loving human being," Dart said. "He marched in the footsteps of the great moral leaders who have used civil disobedience combined with loving leadership to change the world. Presi-[text cuts off]

[image]
[image caption] Wade Blank, center, and Atlantis Community co-workers Robin Stephens and Ken Herd head South Broadway near the headquarters of the organization, which aids the disabled, in 1991. Rocky Mountain News file photo.

[text resumes] -dent Clinton and the 43 million Americans with disabilities would join me in celebrating the life of this great soldier of justice and extending our most profound sympathy to his family and colleagues."

Blank, his wife and children were vacationing in Todos Santos, Baja California, Mexico. He had been there since Feb. 9. The village, about 50 miles north of Cabo San Lucas, was a favorite getaway for the family.

"Lincoln was out swimming and was pulled in by the undertow, and Wade went out to get him. They were both pulled in by the undertow," said Mike Auberger, co-president of the Atlantis Community.

Molly Blank tried to summon help. "It was just too quick. The area has real rough water. It happens, and it happens quick," Auberger said.

Blank's wife and daughter returned to Denver late Tuesday. They brought Blank's body home, but Lincoln's body has not yet been recovered. Funeral plans have not been determined.

A demonstration planned for May in Washington, D.C., will become a tribute to Blank, Auberger said.

Just last week Blank and the Atlantis Community filed formal complaints with the Department of Justice protesting the lack of wheelchair access to taxis in Denver.

It was just the latest chapter in a long civil-rights battle.

Blank called the disabled "the most powerless people in our society."

"I fight the notion they should just be Jerry's kids. I want them to have control," he said.

Blank grew up in Canton, Ohio, went to an all-white high school and college, and supported Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon for president. A black friend dared him to go to Selma, Ala., to march with Martin Luther King, Jr.

Blank became pastor of a church in Kent, Ohio, which became an underground meeting place for the Students for a Democratic Society.

After the killings of Kent State students by national guardsmen during a war protest, he went back to McCormick Theological Seminary for a master's degree.

He moved to Denver and worked as an orderly in a nursing home.

In 1975, Blank co-founded the Atlantis Community to tech the disabled how to live outside institutions and, soon after, he began attacking the barriers to independent living with confrontational, non-violent protests.

In 1978, Atlantis members made national headlines when they surrounded two RTD buses with wheelchairs at Colfax Avenue and Broadway because RTD would not install wheelchair lifts, making Denver the first city in the nation with 100% accessible public transportation.

Staff writer Kerri Smith and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Created on

Wednesday 24 July 2013

Posted on

Wednesday 9 October 2019

Albums

• Wade Blank - Founder of Atlantis Co-Founder of ADAPT

Visits

249

Rating score

no rate

Rate this photo