Gwinnett Daily News

[Headline] Bush allows overnight protest
[Subheading] Wheelchair-bound demonstrators demand equal access

by Pat Murdock, Daily News Atlanta bureau

Atlanta — A group of wheelchair-bound protesters were allowed to spend the night in the federal courthouse after President Bush came out in support of their demonstration over the government's failure to help the handicapped gain better access to buses and airports.

Building security had been attempting to evict the estimated 150 demonstrators when a personal call from the president altered those plans around 8 p.m., said Gary Cason, a spokesman for the General Services Administration.

“These people have an inherent right to demonstrate and a right to demonstrate in this building," he said. "They're free to stay here all night or as long as they wish."

The demonstrators had staged a daylong protest at the downtown high-rise building and were being evicted by security when the president called.

Members of the General Services Administration security force began evicting the protesters one-by-one when they refused to leave the Richard B. Russell federal building at the close of business.

There were no reports of any arrests of the demonstrators, who staged a similar protest Sunday on the opening day of the American Public Transit Association Atlanta conference.

During their eight-hour protest, the demonstrators blocked the street level entrances and exits to the building. Some wedged themselves in revolving doors while others shackled themselves to door handles.

Members of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation (ADAPT) said they staged the protest to coincide with the appearance of Secretary of Transportation Samuel Skinner at the convention. They demanded that Skinner sign an executive order requiring that buses, purchased with federal funds, be equipped with wheelchair lifts to aid the handicapped. Such equipment is not mandatory now. Skinner did not speak to the protesters.

The protesters also called for the implementation of a 1986 federal law requiring equal access for the handicapped in airports.

"We feel that disabled people are still on the plantation," Wade Blank, a co-founder of ADAPT, said. “They've never been freed."

While visitors to the Russell building had to use fire stairs and alternate entrances, the protest only caused minor inconveniences, GSA spokesman Fleming James said.

“We‘re concerned with the safety of the people in the building and the building itself." he said. “We had no problem with their right to protest."

After the president's call, General Service Administration officials left the lights on in the lobby of the building for the protesters.

Prior to the president's telephone call, officials felt less comfortable with moving dozens of wheelchair-bound protesters, some of whom locked hands and clenched the wheels of one another’s chairs. Some protesters dropped to the floor when security officers approached. One protester, who already had been evicted from the building, threw himself in front of a double door in an attempt to thwart the removal of others.

“The police are caught in the middle and they try to be as humane as possible." ADAPT co-founder Mike Auberger said.

Photo (special photo): Mike Auberger and Bob Kafka sit in a revolving door with kryptonite locks around their necks attached to kryptonite locks attached to the revolving door handles. Mike faces the camera wearing his war braids, a coat, and an ADAPT bandanna headband; his arms are crossed in his lap. Bob, to his left, wears a fishing-type hat with an ADAPT bandanna and a thick sweater. Bob looks off to the left.

Caption: Wheelchair-bound demonstrators chained themselves to the door of the Richard B. Russell federal building in downtown Atlanta Monday.

Created on

Friday 12 July 2013

Posted on

Wednesday 8 April 2015

Tags

accessible transit, ADAPT, Russell Federal Building

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