| Disability |
|---|
ADAPT (formerly American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today) is a United States grassroots disability rights organization with chapters in 30 states and Washington, D.C. [1]
| Disability |
|---|
ADAPT (formerly American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today) is a United States grassroots disability rights organization with chapters in 30 states and Washington, D.C. [1]
The Atlantis Community was started in Denver, Colorado, in 1975, when Reverend Wade Blank, a non-disabled former nursing home recreational director, assisted several severely disabled nursing home residents to move out and start their own community. In 1978 protests were held in Denver by members of the Atlantis Community, and Blank, against the wheelchair inaccessibility of public buses in that city. These protests included the nation's first demonstration for wheelchair-accessible public buses, which was on July 5 and 6. At that protest nineteen members of the Atlantis Community (called the Gang of Nineteen) chanted "We will ride" and blocked buses with their wheelchairs, staying in the streets throughout the night. In 1983, the Gang of Nineteen started ADAPT after several years of similar local bus protests. [2] [3] Originally, ADAPT's name was an acronym that stood for Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, since the group's initial issue was to get wheelchair-accessible lifts on buses. [4]
Throughout the 1980s, the campaign for bus lifts expanded out from Denver to cities nationwide. ADAPTers became well known for their tactic of immobilizing buses to draw attention to the need for lifts. Wheelchair users would stop a bus in front and back, and others would get out of their chairs and crawl up the steps of an inaccessible bus to dramatize the issue. Not only city buses but interstate bus services like Greyhound were targeted. By the end of the decade, after protests and lawsuits, ADAPT finally saw bus lifts required by law as part of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990. At that time, the group began looking for the next logical step in disability rights advocacy, while ensuring follow-through of transportation provisions in the ADA. That year the group changed its name to Americans Disabled Attendant Programs Today. [4]
In 1992, the protest on July 5 and 6, 1978, was commemorated with a plaque at the intersection of Colfax and Broadway (which is where the protest was held). [2] [5] This plaque was replaced in 2005 to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the ADA. The plaque states that the bus stop was dedicated by the Regional Transportation District (RTD) in memory of Reverend Wade Blank, to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. [6] [2] [5]
In May 2017 ADAPT organized a protest in Washington, D.C., against changes to Medicaid as part of Representative Paul Ryan's budget proposal that would have cut Medicaid funding and given more control of the program to the states. Around 100 disability protesters were arrested in D.C., and similar protests were led by local ADAPT groups all around the country. Throughout these protests, ADAPT used their Twitter and Facebook feeds to share photos and links to the media to cover the event, which included images of protesters being arrested, to gain and mobilize support from the broader community. [7]
ADAPT's website provides information on its issues and actions. The site also archives photos and reports from past national actions. Most of the pictures posted are by the photographer Tom Olin, who has taken ADAPT photos for over two decades. ADAPT's most well known visual logo, shown on their website, depicts the international wheelchair symbol, but with the person holding their arms aloft to break the chains that bind them.
ADAPT also has a YouTube account which features short videos directly posted by ADAPT activists, documenting their support of the organization. ADAPT has a social media presence in the form of a Twitter and Facebook feed, both with over 1600 followers. This helps them connect to their followers and other activists, and to increase their public visibility. [7]
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 or ADA is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made discrimination based on race, religion, sex, national origin, and other characteristics illegal, and later sexual orientation and gender identity. In addition, unlike the Civil Rights Act, the ADA also requires covered employers to provide reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities, and imposes accessibility requirements on public accommodations.
The disability rights movement is a global social movement that seeks to secure equal opportunities and equal rights for all people with disabilities.
A wheelchair ramp is an inclined plane installed in addition to or instead of stairs. Ramps permit wheelchair users, as well as people pushing strollers, carts, or other wheeled objects, to more easily access a building, or navigate between areas of different height. Ramps for accessibility may predate the wheelchair and are found in ancient Greece.
Edward Verne Roberts was an American activist. He was the first wheelchair user to attend the University of California, Berkeley. He was a pioneering leader of the disability rights movement.
Disabled In Action of Metropolitan New York (DIA) is a civil rights organization, based in New York City, committed to ending discrimination against people with disabilities through litigation and demonstrations. It was founded in 1970 by Judith E. Heumann and her friends Denise McQuade, Bobbi Linn, Frieda Tankas, Fred Francis, Pat Figueroa, possibly Larry Weissberger, Susan Marcus, Jimmy Lynch and Roni Stier (all of whom were disabled). Heumann had met some of the others at Camp Jened, a camp for children with disabilities. Disabled In Action is a democratic, not-for-profit, tax-exempt, membership organization. Disabled In Action consists primarily of and is directed by people with disabilities.
Sandra Schnur was a pioneer American disability rights leader and author, working mainly in New York City.
A wheelchair lift, also known as a platform lift, or vertical platform lift, is a fully powered device designed to raise a wheelchair and its occupant in order to overcome a step or similar vertical barrier.
A wheelchair is a mobilized form of chair using 2 or more wheels, a footrest, and an armrest usually cushioned. It is used when walking is difficult or impossible to do due to illnesses, injury, disabilities, or age-related health conditions. Wheelchairs provide mobility, postural support, and freedom to those who cannot walk or have difficulty walking, enabling them to move around, participate in everyday activities, and live life on their own terms. []
Laura Ann Hershey was a poet, journalist, popular speaker, feminist, and a disability rights activist and consultant. Known to have parked her wheelchair in front of buses, Hershey was one of the leaders of a protest against the paternalistic attitudes and images of people with disabilities inherent to Jerry Lewis's MDA Telethon. She was a regular columnist for the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, and on her own website, Crip Commentary, and was published in a variety of magazines and websites. She was admired for her wit, her ability to structure strong arguments in the service of justice, and her spirited refusal to let social responses to her spinal muscular atrophy define the parameters of her life as anything less than a full human existence. She was also the mother of an adopted daughter.
The European Union Persons with Reduced Mobility (PRM) legislation is intended to ensure that Persons with Reduced Mobility traveling via public transport, whether by air, land or sea, should have equal access to travel as compared to travelers with unrestricted mobility. Travel providers are compelled to provide and install sufficient access facilities to enable Passenger with Reduced Mobility to enjoy similar access to other passengers.
According to Abilities United, over 16% of Americans are considered to have either a physical, developmental, or learning disability. The barriers that 33.7 million persons with disabilities face within the American electoral process include: access to polling information, physical access to polls, current and future laws that deal with the topic, and the moral implications regarding the varying levels of both physical and cognitive disabilities and the act of voting.
The 504 Sit-in was a disability rights protest that began on April 5, 1977. People with disabilities and the disability community occupied federal buildings in the United States in order to push the issuance of long-delayed regulations regarding Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Prior to the 1990 enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act was the most important disability rights legislation in the United States.
The physical accessibility of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)'s public transit network, serving the New York metropolitan area, is incomplete. Although all buses are wheelchair-accessible in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), much of the MTA's rail system was built before wheelchair access was a requirement under the ADA. This includes the MTA's rapid transit systems, the New York City Subway and Staten Island Railway, and its commuter rail services, the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) and Metro-North Railroad. Consequently, most stations were not designed to be accessible to people with disabilities, and many MTA facilities lack accessible announcements, signs, tactile components, and other features.
The Disability Rag was a periodical published between 1980 and 2004 as a subscription-based print publication, and as an online publication from 1997 to 2007. In addition to covering the U. S. disability rights movement, The Rag, as it was usually called, published a wide range of articles and opinion pieces from individuals with disabilities. It was considered one of the most important publications of the disability rights movement. The not-for-profit Advocado Press was incorporated in 1981 to serve as publisher of The Rag. The Advocado Press also published a number of books and monographs on disability issues.
Hale J. Zukas was an American disability rights activist. He was a member of the Rolling Quads at the University of California, Berkeley, and a founder of the first Center for Independent Living (CIL) in Berkeley. He was active in working for accessible streets and public transit, and in the creation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
The Disabled People's Direct Action Network (DAN) is a disability rights activist organisation in England and Wales that campaigned for civil rights with high-profile street demonstrations involving civil disobedience, rallies and protests.
Barbara Greenlee Toomer was an American advocate for disability rights. She was born and raised in Southern California and attended nursing school in San Francisco. She then joined the United States Army Nurse Corps in 1953 and was stationed at Fort Bragg. In 1956, Toomer contracted polio and became a wheelchair user. She spent the remainder of her life advocating for disability rights in Utah. She founded and participated in multiple activist organizations, participated in protests against inaccessible transportation, and lobbied for housing freedom for disabled persons. Much of her activism involved ensuring that the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) was upheld. Toomer received numerous awards for her efforts; she was awarded the Woman of Courageous Action Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Organization for Women in 2000 and the Rosa Parks Award by the Salt Lake branch of the NAACP in 2017. Toomer died in 2018 and was buried in the Utah Veterans Cemetery.
Margaret Ann "Peg" Nosek was an American academic and disability rights activist based in Houston, Texas.
Edith Prentiss was an American disability rights activist.