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Handicapped Coloradan Volume 9, No. 3, Boulder Colorado October 1986

[There are two articles included here.]

Headline: Rosa bows out at last minute

PHOTO: by Melanie Stengel, courtesy of UPI Three uniformed police officers surround a woman in a scooter (Edith Harris) and hold her arms. They are in front of a city bus, and behind them you can see a fourth officer and a city building. The caption reads: EDITH HARRIS, 62, of Hartford, Conn., is arrested by police during demonstrations in Detroit in early October. Harris, a grandmother who lost her legs to diabetes, was in Detroit to picket the national convention of the American Public Transit Association (APTA). Harris has participated in similar demonstrations in Washington, D.C, and Los Angeles, Calif. She was also arrested in both those cities. Ironically, Harris compares herself to Rosa Parks, the black civil rights leader who decided at the last minute not to participate in the Detroit transit demonstrations.

Title: Blacks blast ADAPT
[This article continues in ADAPT 288 but the entire text is included here for easier reading.]

Civil rights heroine Rosa Parks shocked disabled groups when she said at the last minute that she would not participate in any actions protesting Detroit's lack of accessible public transit.

“We do not wish any American to be discriminated against in transportation or any other form that reduces their equality and dignity," Elaine Steele an assistant to Parks, said in a letter dated Oct. 3 and delivered to Wade Blank, co-founder of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT). "However," we cannot condone disruption of Detroit city services."

Parks had said she would appear at a Sunday, Oct. 5, news conference and possibly lead a march across Detroit. Steele said that Parks "supports active peaceful protest of human rights issues, not tactics that will embarrass the city's guests and cripple the city's present transportation system.“

Blank said he asked Steele how their tactics differed from those used by Parks and other blacks to fight segregation in the South in the 1950s and 1960s but she was unable to provide him with a satisfactory answer. Parks is credited with igniting the civil rights movement when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Ala. bus in 1956.

Parks' defiant action caused a Montgomery minister, Martin Luther King, Jr. to organize a black boycott of that city's buses.

Detroit Mayor Coleman Young and CBS newsman Ed Bradley — both black -- were scheduled to address the national convention of the American Public Transit Association (APTA) and reportedly asked Parks not to embarrass them by participating in the ADAPT action.

Blank said that Parks had wavered once or twice in the weeks before the convention, but that he had managed to persuade her to stick to her original decision. But less than a week before the convention opened, Parks and her staff met in long session, and decided to support ADAPT.

The Handicapped Coloradan has so far been unable to reach Parks or her representatives to learn what made her change her mind so suddenly.

Blank said that he "wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Chrysler or Ford told her that they wouldn't contribute to the Rosa L. Parks Shrine if she went through with the action.” Parks is currently involved in raising money to commemorate her role and that of other blacks in the struggle for equality.

But Blank stopped short of condemning Parks, saying that the 74-year-old leader has earned the respect of everyone for her actions in the 1950s.

He said, "Maybe it just isn't her time any more. If I had known we were going to put her on the spot like this, I wouldn't have done it. She was under a lot of pressure. Apparently the phone never stopped ringing.”

However, Blank had plenty to say about Bradley, who is a regular on the highly rated television news program "60 Minutes." Before giving a speech on apartheid in South Africa, Bradley told the 2300 APTA delegates that ADAPT had asked him not to appear at the convention.

Bradley said he talked with both Young and Parks and all three agreed that they did not approve of the tactics used by the disabled group.

Blank said he tried to contact Bradley by phone on at least six different occasions during the two months preceding the convention but was never able to get
past his secretary."

"We wanted to explain our position, but he apparently wasn't interested. This may tell you just how much homework they do on ‘6O Minutes.' Maybe people who make their living by intimidating others can't take it themselves," Blank said, referring to the often adversarial approach used on the program.

“Blank said he was never able to ‘get through to Young directly but a member of Young's staff said they were welcome to ride the city's buses. "Then they
arrested us for doing just that," he said.

The state of Michigan requires that all transit systems receiving state funds be wheelchair accessible, but the city of Detroit avoids that requirement by financing its own transit system.

Representatives of the suburban Southeastern Michigan Transportation Authority (SEMTA), which is accessible, said it would be willing to introduce a pro-accessibility resolution at the next APTA convention if it can find two or three co-sponsors, according to Blank.

Young defended ‘Detroit's policy at a news conference by saying that he couldn't "make gold out of straw" to pay for the lifts.

Young attacked ADAPT for employing “sabotage and sensationalism” and accused the group of taking "advantage of their disabilities" to block buses and get publicity for their cause. “That's not the way to win cooperation," he said.

Blank said the only time people in power take notice of disabled people is when they engage in civil disobedience, pointing out the efforts their opponents made to discredit ADAPT. “The police told us that APTA had told them we were urban terrorists."

He said he was sure few people in Detroit knew of the difficulties encountered by persons with disabilities in using public transit before ADAPT hit town.

Blank said he tried to get Jesse Jackson and his rainbow coalition to support ADAPT in Detroit, but every time he telephoned he was told that “Jesse was in the air" flying to another appearance.

Some members of Jackson's other group, PUSH, did participate in some of the Detroit demonstrations.

Blank said he was saddened that so many blacks could not understand ADAPT's motives. “I guess it was just one human race story running up against another" he said.

PHOTO: The dark figures of 3 Detroit police officers loom into the frame from all sides. Through a small hole between their arms you can see the face and chest of a man (Ken Heard) they are surrounding. Below their arms you can see the wheels and frame Ken's wheelchair. Caption reads: Detroit police had their hands full when they placed Ken Heard under arrest.


Title of 2nd article: 54 arrested in transit showdown
[This article is continued in ADAPT 295 but the entire text is included here for easier reading.]

At least 54 demonstrators were arrested in Detroit as disabled groups once again laid siege to a national convention of their arch-foe, the American Public Transit Association (APTA).

Seventeen or 18 protesters (accounts vary) were arrested Monday, Oct. 6, when they attempted to board -- and block -- Detroit city buses, which are mostly not equipped with wheelchair lifts. Those arrested were released on a $l00 personal bond and were ordered not to participate in any actions that would lead to a second arrest.

The next day, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 37 protesters, including 13 repeat offenders, were booked by police for blocking one of the two entrances to the McNamara federal office building. Twenty-four of these were released after posting the $100 personal bond apiece, but the repeat offenders had bail set at $1,000 each.

Even as the protesters, primarily members of the militant American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT), began pouring into Detroit Friday night, the Wayne County jail was already filled to its 1700 person capacity and was turning away all prisoners charged with misdemeanors.

The 13 two-time offenders were held Tuesday night in a gym at police headquarters which has bars on the windows and which has been used on other occasions as a holding area for prisoners waiting to be incarcerated.

Ironically, the gym's facilities were not accessible to persons in wheelchairs, and police were obliged to carry their disabled prisoners when they needed to use the restrooms. Outside police headquarters, another 60 demonstrators gathered and staged an all-night candlelight vigil.

As in other cities where ADAPT has staged demonstrations in its fight to win mandatory accessible public transit, the police said they were in a [unreadable.] More than one officer complained that you can't help but look bad when you arrest someone in a wheelchair.

The Detroit police had received briefings from other cities visited by ADAPT and had given some special training to officers in dealing with disabled protesters.

ADAPT had originally been granted a parade permit to stage a march on the Westin Hotel where APTA conventioneers were meeting, but Mayor Coleman Young and police went to the city council and got the permit rescinded.

No parade permit was issued when ADAPT marched on APTA in Los Angeles, but police made no attempt to push the marchers off the streets and in fact routed traffic away from the demonstrators.

However, in Detroit police dogged ADAPT marchers for two miles, making [unreadable] protesters stuck to the sidewalks, even when obstacles such as a large puddle of water hampered, their progress.

ADAPT spokesperson Wade Blank said the Detroit action cost $20,000 and that the group was seeking additional financial assistance to continue to press their fight, which has taken them to APTA's national conventions in Denver, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, as well as to regional meetings in San Antonio, San Diego, and Cincinnati.

Blank said several reporters asked him about reports that ADAPT was being funded by lift manufacturers. “I’m sure someone with APTA planted that question to try and discredit us,” he said.

Blank said ADAPT had received contributions of $100 each from two lift manufacturers but that this was for other projects. “Besides, that isn’t enough to make bail for more than two people."

APTA'S 1987 convention is set for San Francisco and ADAPT is already beginning to lay the groundwork for disrupting that meeting. “People ask why we do these kinds of things (civil disobedience)," Blank said. “But look how much publicity we get. People are finally getting the word about what public transit really means to someone in a wheelchair.”

California has required all public transit systems to convert to accessible systems as they replace old equipment, but Blank said he’s heard that there have been some problems with the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) in recent months.

But before they head for San Francisco, ADAPT has been asked by disabled groups in Boston for assistance in setting up a program to pursue accessible transit there.

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