INCITEMENT
INCITEMENT
INCITEMENT

Vol 9. No. 3 November. 1993

A Publication of Atlantis/ADAPT

PHOTO by Tom Olin: In front of a brick wall with a large sign reading Opryland Hotel, a group of people in wheelchairs and standing chant passionately. From left to right: Terrance Turner, above him Tommy ____, and behind him Jerry Eubanks (closest to the sign), to their right Julie Nolan speaks with someone, Verlon McKay is at the center with a People Not Profits sign on the front of his scooter, to his right, standing is Suzy Polkinghorn, and in front of her are two women in wheelchairs. Caption reads: ADAPT did not let AHCA hide behind Opryland's picket fences.

[Headline] ADAPT GOES COUNTRY
What do Opryland, Apocalypse Now, and Mash have in common? Anyone who took part in ADAPT’ s latest action can answer in a second helicopters. Despite this new high-tech, approach to security, ADAPT’s Nashville action was the most successful yet.

[Subheading] SOUTHERN GENTILITY GONE SOUR
Opryland Hotel sits right on the edge of McGavock Pike, a four lane highway. Music Valley Drive leads to its front door. The huge hotel complex is surrounded with white painted fences and rolling green pastures. For most Americans it is the picture of gentile country charm, understated wealth and wholesome good living. But for ADAPT in September 1993, Opryland was the den of the American Health Care Association, AHCA, the professional lobby association of the nursing home profiteers. Marching down Music Valley Dr. we crossed the pike and headed to the Opryland Hotel.

Police had been prepping for months, with "sensitivity" trainings and media releases on what s PR problem this was for them. Hotel security had created a special protest area off in their multi-acre parking lot. ADAPT had other plans With four days to get our message across, we had no time to stand on ceremony.

PHOTO by Tom Olin: People in suits and casual work outfits walk past a man in a wheelchair (Terrance Turner) who is attempting to pass out flyers. The suits are ignoring Terrance. Behind him you can see more ADAPT folks in the distance.

Caption reads: NO TAKERS - AHCA tries to ignore Terrance Turner.

As we approached, security came forward with the unique message: if you come onto this property you will be arrested. Instead of charging, ADAPT's 300 activists began to cross the streets in an orderly, if somewhat crowded line, going around and around as we waited for AHCA. Police were stymied .They had blocked off the highway, but as we circled in the cross walks, traffic was backing up somewhere just out of sight. We simply continued to cross the streets, chanting as we marched. Overhead a helicopter circled and hung in the air, apparently getting a new angle on our protest.

Earlier that day we had held our organizing meetings, orienting the new folks, discussing strategies, and hammering out a plan for the afternoon and the week ahead. Over 300 activists had come from across the nation to join in the demand to stop the warehousing, stop corporate profiteering off of people’s lives, and free our people with a national attendant services program. They came with a renewed commitment and energy for the fight.

[Subheading] AHCA SETS A TRAP FOR THEMSELVES

The police soon had Al-ICA outside negotiating with us. Our leadership team did a great job demanding a meeting with the AHCA leadership, a presentation to their membership on our side of the issue, and a vote by AHCA on our proposal for a national attendant services plan.

Within two hours AHCA agreed to have their Executive Committee meet on Tuesday at 3:00 with 50 representatives from ADAPT. AHCA was to locate a room and let us know where. ADAPT left victorious. AHCA thought they had closed us down for two days, but ADAPT had other plans.

[Subheading] HUMAN RIGHTS BEFORE STATE'S RIGHTS

Tennessee has virtually no attendant services program. ADAPT members from that state have literally had to move to other states to get services. Others are trapped in nursing homes, while still others live in fear of the day their precarious support systems break down. In real life terms, Tennessee has chosen to ignore the attendant services needs of its citizens with disabilities, whether young or old. ADAPT felt it was time for that kind of unacceptable policy to be brought to light.

Beyond the problems this irresponsible policy decision causes for our sisters and brothers in Tennessee, ADAPT saw national implications. Every proposal for reform of the long term care system so far has included a strong states’ rights approach in service delivery. So a state like Tennessee which chooses to do nothing except nursing homes and a few other institutional programs might well be A.O.K. with these plans. NOT OK with ADAPT!

So Monday morning ADAPT members poured out into the parking lot of our Days lnn and lined up to march on the Capitol. Another helicopter hung in the air. Behind our freedom flag we marched over the Cumberland River and into Nashville. The lunch rush stopped to watch as our seven block long march proceeded through downtown, turned the corner and headed for the Capitol

BOXED TEXT
"I miss my family, but I don ‘t miss worrying about losing my freedom. I'd rather die than go to a nursing home. " —
LaTonya Reeves, ADAPT organizer who had to move to Denver from her home in Memphis to get attendant services.

The only accessible entrance led down a long basement corridor to two tiny elevators. The first folks up rushed to the Governor’s office door but were blocked by security. Our numbers quickly clogged the doorway, then the hall and finally the entire floor. They would not let us in the office, so we blocked staff and security’s passage too. The Capitol became a nursing home; no one came or went without permission. Our demand was simple: a meeting with the Governor. Since he was in Germany, we wanted staff to call him to bring his attention to a problem at home.

Our chants and knocks on doors echoed up and down the Capitol’s marble halls as we continued to press our demand Staff pretended they were not able to call Germany but soon this sham became too ridiculous even for them; they tried to call and found he was out wining and dining. ADAPT decided if the Governor was dining on fancy German cuisine we should at least get pizza. So our order for pizza for 300 at the Capitol was called in and eventually believed and delivered.

The afternoon wore on. Staff climbed in and out of the first floor office windows to come and go. We thought to up-the-ante by blocking intersections in the streets around the building, but found that the police had already done that for us. Finally the Governor agreed to meet when he returned.
We held a press conference at 5:00pm announcing our meeting and our belief that human rights are more important than states rights.

Reversing our path we marched home through a chorus of honks from the supporters in the homeward bound traffic. Our message was clearly getting out to the public and they were learning of a problem that has been hidden too long.

WE WERE THERE, THE PRESS WAS THERE,
BUT WHERE WAS AHCA?

Day three was the show down with AHCA. They started the day hemming and hawing about the meeting, claiming they could not find a room, their people were busy in another meeting, and on and on. ADAPT stood by our original agreement, we were not changing plans. We arrived at the agreed upon location (the Ramada across from Opryland) at the appointed time, only to find AHCA had made no arrangements for a room. (Later Opryland people told us they had offered AHCA a 250 person room and AHCA had turned them down). AHCA had never spoken to the Ramada. They had no intention of meeting. Instead they sent out one of their PR mouthpieces, Claudia Askew, to spout lies and excuses to the media. Amazed that AHCA would so blatantly reveal themselves, ADAPT gave them over an hour to come through, but AHCA made no attempt.

PHOTO by Tom Olin: Three uniformed police officers stand in a doorway filling the space. One is talking on a telephone. In front of them at least three folks in wheelchairs face off with them. A short person (Spitfire) in a white sweatshirt with NEVER SURRENDER printed on the back is at the front of the crowd by the door.
Caption reads: Callin' Governor McWheter in Germany, Capitol Security blocked ADAPT.

BOXED TEXT:

Incitement is available on tape. If you or someone you know needs the newsletter on cassette tape:
call Stephanie at 512/ 442-0252
or write: Incitement
1339 Lamar SQ DR #B
Austin, TX 78704

As Mike Auberger put it "if there’s no meeting here, we're going to make a meeting." Forming into a line, ADAPT began to march up Music Valley Dr. to the AHCA Hotel. As the front line people reached the fence they split off to form two lines, one on each side of the entrance. Suddenly a group rushed up the middle, heading for the front doors of the hotel, bursting through their flimsy barriers. Anita Cameron was pinned face down, and Quentin "Q" Williams was dumped on his head. Bob Kafka, Cassie James, Gil Casarez and few others were pinned in their chairs, but these few opened a way for over a hundred others to rush in.

[Subheading] THE RUSH
"It felt like we were flying" one wheelchair warrior smiled, "and we kept coming and coming." The first few up to the hotel were able to wriggle through the guards and get inside. A little later another group found a side door and slipped in, so about 15 people in all got inside and into an AHCA workshop (ironically titled "Under Siege") which was all about how to avoid litigation under patients‘ rights laws. ADAPT chanted and yelled "The People United Will Never Be Defeated" and "El Pueblo Unido Jamas Sera Vencido" until the meeting abruptly stopped.

Meanwhile outside over a hundred people had made it to the front doors, which security were struggling to keep shut. Overhead the helicopter loomed, as everyone wondered what its purpose was. Hotel security had apparently underestimated ADAPT; one muttered "that was the damnedest thing" as his
mind replayed the rush on the hotel. Finally the police began arrests, corralling people in the hotel driveway, thereby extending ADAPT’s blockade.

[Subheading] OFF TO JAIL AGAIN
Loaded into yellow school buses, 97 protesters were eventually driven off to a local privatized jail run by Corrections Corporation of America. This facility certainly took from Sparks, NV the title for most accessible jail visited by ADAPT. Booking took hours, and while we waited a couple of people were served with a restraining order, telling us ADAPT was forbidden to return to the Opryland Hotel.

By 5:00 AM everyone was processed, released and back at the Days Inn where we were staying. The police tried to badger hotel staff into releasing all kinds of information about who was staying with ADAPT, but, impressively, the Days Inn staff felt no need to cater to such harassment.

[Subheading] AN UNUSUAL OFFER

The next morning the lawyer and chief of security for Opryland Hotel arrived at the Days Inn asking to meet with ADAPT. The leadership team listened to their offer to coordinate a media event with Country Music stars to endorse and publicize our issues if we would agree not to protest at the Country Music Awards that night. Hotel personnel were underwhelmed with AI-ICA’s double cross of ADAPT the day before. (They had offered AHCA a 250 person room for Tuesday’s meeting, and had been turned down.) After some negotiations the leadership team took the idea to the group at large and it was agreed we would do the event at 5:00 that evening.

The event was a typical bizarre happening which ADAPT finds itself in from time to time. Country music stars Porter Wagoner, William Lee Golden (of Oak Ridge Boys fame), and Bill Anderson arrived at the appointed time. Live TV coverage and lots of other media swirled around as Bob Liston, Paulette Patterson, Jennifer McPhail and Mark Johnson presented ADAPT’s desire for a national attendant services program and an end to the institutional bias of our current service system. Wagoner, Golden and Anderson listened and spoke in support of freedom and independence for people with disabilities. The event ended with ADAPT vowing to confront AHCA again in Las Vegas at their convention next fall.

"Many people were critical of ADAPT or simply wished it would go away. The demonstrations should be understood as what they were: the desperate, brave cry of people who know too well the isolation and everyday misery of many who are needlessly confined to nursing homes. " — Gordon Bonnyman JR, Ietter to the Editor of the Tennessean.

PHOTO by Tom Olin: A long line of ADAPT folks, several people across, marches down a wide street. A police car bocks the wide intersection. The ADAPT flag flies overhead and Paulette Patterson rolls beneath it.
Caption reads: ADAPT marches under the Freedom Flag in Nashville.

BOXED TEXT:
INCITEMENT IS LOOKING FOR YOUR NEWS

What's up in your neck of the woods? Been to any good disability protests lately? Know any horror stories? Won any victories? Working on an outrageous issue? We want to know about it. Drop us a line. Your pictures, cartoons, flyers and graphics are also welcome, and your newsletters!
Send your stuff to: Incitement/ADAPT
1339 Lamar SQ DR #B
Austin, TX 78704
Fax: 512/442-0522

[Headline] HAPPY ANNIVERSARY AND MANY ACTIONS

[Subheading] WE WILL RIDE! FREE OUR PEOPLE!

ADAPT celebrates its first decade of disability rights this year. Ten years of hard driving advocacy have brought us a long way. On Page 3 of this issue you'll find a chronicle of the national actions. We've lost some friends and gained many others along the way. Some of us show the wear a trifle more than others, but our collective power has grown exponentially. People power really works. The next issue of Incitement will have a section featuring the last decade in photos and words; watch for it!

Looking ahead there's still much more work to be done, so keep your calendars free for the following:

January, 1994 Freedom Day

April, 1994 Philadelphia Action

October 1994, Las Vegas Action

More later, but in the meantime happy holidays!! And when you are making your holiday toasts, remember to toast each other and ADAPT. Remember it wouldn't have happened without you!

Created on

Tuesday 16 July 2013

Posted on

Tuesday 4 February 2020

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• Nashville, fall 1993 Opryland

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