[This page contains two articles]

[first article] In a 1977 protest, about 50 people with disabilities demanded that the federal government start enforcing the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Among other things, the act outlaws discrimination on the basis of disability in all programs that get federal funds. After 28 days, the government issued new regulations to put the law into action. That, according to Johnson, was the longest occupation of a federal building in the history of the United States.

Eleanor Smith remembers the excitement she felt when she learned of the 1977 protest. "I remember reading in a newspaper about people who occupied a federal building in San Francisco. To have an activist, civil-disobedience group of disabled people was brand new in history as far as I know. It was thrilling."

The fight heated up in 1979, when the federal Department of Transportation mandated that all federally funded new transit buses and rail stations be wheelchair accessible. Immediately and fiercely, the American Public Transit Association (APTA) resisted. Claiming that bus lifts cost too much, APTA filed a lawsuit and won. The mandate was replaced with the much weaker principle of "local option", which says transit authorities can choose what kind of service to provide for riders with disabilities.

While many local systems are working to become fully accessible, others offer only "paratransit", a separate system of minibuses that run door-to-door by appointment. Disability activists charge that while these special services do meet some needs, they are no substitute for access to the whole system. Says Smith, "separate always turns out not to be equal."

ADAPT came on the scene to make this point In 1983 with a protest at APTA's annual meeting. Allowed a 20-minute presentation to the convention, the activists called for 100% accessibility throughout all public transit systems saying that "a society that can build MX missiles and puts people on the moon can surely put a wheelchair on a bus".

APTA, however, stood behind local option— a position it has never changed.

Since then, says Smith, ADAPT has been to APTA like fleas are to a dog. At fifteen APTA conventions and meetings In the past eight years, wheelchair users and other people with disabilities from all over the United States have joined local activist for rallies, picketing and civil disobedience. In 1988, 83 demonstrators were arrested at a St Louis convention. Last year, 28 were arrested in Atlanta.

Blocking vehicle and pedestrian traffic seems to be ADAPT's most common illegal activity. The protestors intend to give able-bodied people a taste of inconvenience. "We have to come around the long way and go in the back door all the time," says Johnson.

ADAPT groups have no dues or membership and Smith thinks It has about 25 hard-core people willing to hold elevator doors shut. However, the APTA protest in the fall of 1989 drew about 300 demonstrators. Many were from Georgia but even they were outnumbered by activists from all over the country— Including people from Hawaii and Alaska. The protest received extensive television and newspaper coverage.

Nationally, with accessible facilities becoming common in public transit, ADAPT is now refocusing on private carriers. This year, protestors will converge on Dallas for ADAPT's first demonstration at a convention the the American Bus Association— the trade group that Includes Greyhound.

Eleanor Smith believes that her activism with ADAPT is making a real difference. "Working through the system wasn't working," she says. "There was no change. Transit authorities thought the idea of lifts was ridiculous. ADAPT believes that disabled people have a right to access to public transit."

This article reprinted with permission of writer Gareth Fenley. "Wheelchair Warriors With A Cause" first appeared in Southern Voice, an Atlanta publication focusing on gay and lesbian rights.

[second article begins]
[Headline] Memo of the Decade

In 1955, a middle-aged black woman named Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man.

In challenging the Montgomery, Alabama system of segregating buses according to race, she became the catalyst for a long and bitter boycott of local transit...a boycott that disrupted Montgomery city services, "crippled" the public transportation system and catapulted the civil rights movement onto the front page of every newspaper in the country.

In 1986, when ADAPT asked Parks to publicly support their campaign for transportation equality, here's how she replied...

[the memo reads]
October 3, 1996

ADAPT
Atlantis Community Inc.
Rev. Wade Blank
4536 E. Colfax
Denver, Colorado 80220

Dear Rev. Blank,
Mrs. Parks will not be participating in the press conference on October 5, 1986 at twelve noon for ADAPT because of the traumatic manner in which you choose to dramatize disabled Americans lack of access to public transportation. Mrs. Parks supports active peaceful protest of human rights issues not tactics that will embarrass the cities guest and cripple present transportation system.

We do not wish any American to be discriminated against in transportation or any other form that reduces their equality and dignity, however, we cannot condone disruption of Detroit city services.

Please excuse the sudden withdrawal from what we originally thought was a conference to present ADAPT s issues on equal rights for disabled Americans in public transportation to the City of Detroit. We wish you success in securing equal rights for all users of public transportation.

Very truly yours,
Elaine Steele
Assistant to Rosa L. Parks
Enc.
cc: Media and Press

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Thursday 11 July 2013

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Monday 31 July 2017

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