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Staartsäit / Albumen / Schlagwuert Mike Auberger 117
- ADAPT (148)
Name of newspaper illegible Los Angeles Times? November 19,1984 Handicapped Stage Protests to Publicize Transportation Needs by Miles Harvey, Times Staff Writer PHOTO: Mary Frampton / Los Angeles Times A tidy looking woman in pants and a vest, with a slight smile on her face, sits in a manual wheelchair on a bus. She is sitting in the accessible doorway, the access symbol visible on the side of the doorway. Below and beneath her is a metal panel, like the barrier on some lifts that keeps the person from rolling off the front of the lift. Caption reads: Barbara Trigg rides a hydraulic lift onto a Los Angeles bus. Article reads: Washington -- It was a scene reminiscent of the 1960s civil rights demonstrations as angry protesters chanted slogans, picketed the White House and stopped traffic before they were finally dragged away by police. And the series of confrontations that ended with 27 arrests last month seemed to come down to a similar central issue— the right to sit on a bus, to have full access to public transportation. There was one striking difference, however. Unlike Rosa Parks and the black civil rights activist who battered down the Jim Crow barriers in the South, these protesters were in wheelchairs, and their goal was equal access for the physically handicapped. “It's a civil right to be able to ride public transportation," said Julia Haraksin, a wheelchair-bound Los Angeles resident who participated in the demonstrations. “In the ‘60s, the blacks had to ride in the back—and we can't even get on the buses." New, Radical Tactics Organizations representing handicapped persons long have urged Washington to require that new buses and rail systems built with funds from the Department of Transportation's Urban Mass Transportation Administration be equipped to accommodate handicapped riders. But Haraksin and other handicapped individuals like her now are beginning to press the old arguments with new, more radical tactics. Frustrated by years of negotiating, lobbying in Washington, going through the courts and staging non-confrontational protests, some members of the handicapped community now are resorting more actively to confrontations and civil disobedience. Thus, early in October, 100 members of a newly formed coalition called American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit confronted a national meeting of city transportation heads here, using the kind of civil disobedience tactics used 30 years earlier by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Protesters were arrested when they blocked entrances and buses of those attending the American Public Transit Assn. convention. The strategy was to physically be a barrier because handicapped people have to face barriers all their lives," Wade Blank, a founder of Denver-based ADAPT said. Calling the protests here " Selma," leaders of ADAPT claimed victory and promised that their struggle has only begun. They already are focusing their efforts on what they hope will be a larger demonstration at the next meeting of the American Public Transportation Assn. a year from now in Los Angeles. But they and their cause may be in for a tough battle. Their opposition comes from the Reagan Administration, from many city governments and even from within the handicapped community. And as public attention focuses on the underlying budget choices involved, the opposition may swell with the addition of taxpayers concerned about the possible costs of a national full-access program. ADAPT argues that a legal right to full access for the handicapped already exists. Federal law states that Urban Mass Transportation Administration funds — which account for about 80% of the costs of new and replacement equipment in most municipal transportation systems—cannot be spent on programs that discriminate against, or exclude, the handicapped. The law does not make clear, however, whether handicapped persons must be provided with access to regular bus lines or whether they can instead be provided with alternative transportation systems. Nor does it indicate who should make that decision. Cities Make Decisions Current Transportation Department policy, which is strongly supported by the American Public Transportation Assn., allows each city to make its own decision on what type of transportation it will provide for the handicapped. This is in sharp contrast with Carter Administration policy, which in 1979 interpreted federal regulation to mean full access. Members of ADAPT, opposing the separate-but-equal philosophy of paratransit argue that it does not meet the needs of the handicapped and that it is inherently discriminatory. "It segregates the disabled people from the able-bodied community," Mike Auberger, an organizer for ADAPT, said. Because paratrasit requires advanced scheduling [unreadable] a ride is needed, he said, “you have to schedule your life according to the system. No one else has to do that. That shows the inequality right there." He and other members of ADAPT contend that because of long waiting lists for paratransit, some cities refuse to offer the service to new users - thus cutting off thousands of handicapped persons from any public transportation. Transit authorities, on the other hand, argue that full access can be too expensive, given the low percentage of handicapped riders in many cities. Lift-fitted buses cost an estimated $8,000 to $10,000 more than regular buses. Furthermore, lift systems are often unreliable and time-consuming to operate and maintain, transit administrators say. In Denver, for example, the transportation district has spent $63 million to purchase or retrofit buses with lifts. 80% of which was paid for by the federal government, according to spokesman Gene Towne. Since it started mainline access in 1982, the district has spent close to $1 million in maintenance of the lifts and expects to spend an additional $900,000 this year. Yet of the district's total annual ridership of 38 million, only 12,000 use the lifts, according to Towne. ADAPT counters that the issue is not cost but civil liberties. “In America we have a way of hiding, our prejudices with pragmatism," said Blank, a Presbyterian minister and veteran of the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s who now supports handicapped activists. Variety of Approaches Across the country, cities are using a variety of approaches to the problems of providing mass transit for the handicapped. In Los Angeles, mainline access is required by state law. Although 1,850 of the Southern California Rapid Transit District‘s 2,400 buses are fitted with wheelchair lifts some local advocates charge that the RTD gives only "lip service" to access, complaining of broken lifts, drivers who do not know how to use the equipment or refuse to do so and an overall lack of commitment to providing access. The system provides only about 1,400 rides a month according to the RTD. Handicapped activists charge that the low ridership is attributable to the system's poor management. There were and are people in the operation department (of the RTD) back there who were and are opposed to the idea of access from day one," Dennis Cannon, a Washington-based expert who helped to plan the RTD's access program in the 1970s said. But in the last six months, the RTD has made "a major effort" to overcome the problem, according to RTD General Manager John A. Dyer. The system boosted its fiscal year 1985 budget for handicapped service by $3 million, to $4.9 million, to provide for a program to educate drivers and upgrade the quality of equipment and service. In Oakland, half the city's 800 buses are lift-equipped and all of the Alameda — Contra Costa Transit District's new buses will be lift-equipped. Seattle’s Services In Seattle, 570 of 1,100 buses are accessible to the handicapped, providing about 5,900 rides a month. The Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle also contracts with private groups to supply paratransit bus and half-fare cab service, providing a total of 8,400 rides a month in Denver. 432 of the city's 744 buses are lift- or ramp-equipped, providing more than 1,000 rides per month. The city also uses 13 vans and small buses in a paratransit system that provides 3,200 rides a month. In New York City, where an estimated 35% of all the transit passengers in the country use Metropolitan Transportation Authority vehicles each day. half of the city's 4,333 buses are fitted with lifts. The city has no figures on how many handicapped riders use the system, but one official calls the number minuscule. A new state law calls for $40 million over the next eight years to retrofit “in the neighborhood of 30" subway stops for handicapped use, according to a transit authority official. In addition the law will increase the percentage of lift-equipped buses to 65% of the fleet, as well as provide a paratransit system in the city by 1988. Minneapolis-St. Paul uses 45 paratransit buses and contracts with private cab companies to carry handicapped persons in all, the city provides 40.000 trips a month. None of Chicago's 2.400 regular buses are fitted with lifts. Instead the city provides 42 paratransit buses, which offer 12,000 rides a month. Additionally, 14 of the city's subway stops have been retrofitted for handicapped access and 300 of Chicago's 1,100 subway cars are accessible. If there is a diversity of approaches to the problem, there is also a diversity of views on the militant new tactics used by ADAPT and its supporters. The views of the handicapped people are all over the lot on what type of transport they'd like," Bob Batchelder, counsel for the APTA, said. But transit specialist Cannon, himself a wheelchair user, counters: “I'm talking to disabled people who wouldn't do what ADAPT does ... but who support what they are doing and think it needs being done." Whether ADAPT's controversial style will work remains an open question. While no negotiations are scheduled, ADAPT leaders vow to continue to harass association meetings. But in Los Angeles, the RTD's Dyer indicated that he hopes demonstrations will be replaced at next year's convention with “serious dialogue and discussion of the issues." "It’s a new thing for the disabled to see themselves with power," ADAPT's Auberger said, "but it's also a new experience for the powers that be." - ADAPT (267)
THE PLAIN DEALER, THURSDAY, MAY 22; 1986 page 19-A PHOTO by AP: Four policemen in their fancy police hats are "rolling" a man (Rick James) up a 150 degree (ie. almost vertical) "ramp" into a van. Rick is sitting with his hands up by his chest. His hat is missing and his hair is flying out in all directions. His expression is a mix of amazement, disgust and resignation. Caption reads: Cincinnati policemen push Rick James of Salt Lake City, Utah, up a ramp into a van after he was arrested outside a downtown hotel as part of a demonstration by American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation. Title: Cincy arrests disabled in protest of bus access By BILL SLOAT STAFF writer CINCINNATI — Police arrested l7 disabled people yesterday after they blockaded the entrance to a downtown hotel or chained themselves to the doorway of an adjoining office building that houses Queen City Metro, this city’s public bus service. Eleven of them refused to post bond and were in Hamilton County Justice Center under cash bonds ranging from $1,500 to $3,000. Five were released late yesterday on personal bonds. One pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct and was found guilty. Sixteen were in wheelchairs from polio, paralyzing spinal accidents, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy and amputations. One was blind and walked carrying a white cane. The arrests were made during a non-violent, noon demonstration that challenged lack of access to city buses here and around the nation. Chants of “We will ride" and “Access now” came from about 52 demonstrators outside the Westin Hotel. Some removed footstands from their wheelchairs and banged on metal barricades. Police stood behind the barricades and refused to let the demonstrators into the hotel. All 17 taken to jail said they were members of a national handicapped rights organization called American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation. “This is a civil disobedience action," said Wade Blank, 47, a Presbyterian minister who helped organize yesterday's protest. Blank, who now lives in Denver, was involved in anti-war demonstrations at Kent State University in the 1960s when he lived in Akron. Several of the people loaded onto vans and hauled away to the Hamilton County Justice Center on disorderly conduct charges compared Cincinnati to Selma and Montgomery, two Alabama cities where civil rights activists were jailed by authorities in the 1960s. “The message needs to be sent out that we can’t ride a bus because we're handicapped,” said Glenn Horton, 46, of El Paso, Texas. "It's discrimination it’s segregation and it’s appalling that it could still be happening in this country." Horton said he had been confined to a wheelchair since age 9, when he fell and broke his back. Bill Bolte, 54, of Los Angeles, said handicapped people needed mainline bus service to get to jobs, movies, dates, shopping, banks and anywhere else they might want to go. “We're already in prison," said Bolte, who had polio 51 years ago. “We're going to see that what few rights we have are not going to be taken away. Our rights to public transportation are being deprived, and we will not sit for it." Organizers of the protest said they took to the streets because about 600 executives of public and private transit companies in the eastern United States and Canada were attending a convention in the hotel that ends today. Protesters said the convention should adopt a resolution supporting the installation of wheelchair lifts on all public buses in the nation. Many came from Denver, which has such lifts in use on its bus fleet. The demonstration also came a day after the U.S. Department of Transportation announced in Washington, D.C., a new regulation that allows transit authorities to establish alternative services for the disabled instead of putting lifts on regularly scheduled buses. Demonstrators complained the rule meant that buses, subways and rail lines wouldn't be made accessible to people in wheelchairs. Police Chief Lawrence Whalen said the comparisons with Alabama in the 1960s were unfair when it came to the police. Police in the South during the civil rights era often brutalized protesters. Whalen yesterday said, “Our officers handled themselves very admirably. The group has had their chance to protest and get their point across." He said the police assigned to make arrests had attended special briefings on how to handle disabled people and were instructed to ask the people in custody the best way to lift them into vans. “We wanted to be sensitive to their special needs." Whalen said. Three of those arrested yesterday were out on $3,000 bond after incidents Monday when two climbed aboard city buses, paid fares and refused to leave when ordered off by Queen City Metro officials. The third interfered with a bus. The three, Robert A. Kafka, 40, of Austin, Texas; George Cooper, 58, of Irving, Texas; and Michael W. Auberger, 32, of Denver, were charged yesterday with Criminal trespassing when they chained themselves to the entranceway of Queen City Metro's offices. Police Capt. Dale Menkhaus told his men to use bolt cutters to get them out of the building. Kafka, Cooper and Auberger had been ordered Tuesday not to set foot in Cincinnati by a Municipal judge at the time they posted bond, but another Municipal judge lifted the banning order shortly before yesterday's protests started. Police Chief Lawrence Whalen said 14 others were charged with disorderly conduct for their activities outside the hotel. Bond was set at $3,000 each, a Hamilton County Municipal Court official said. Before the demonstration began, the group gathered in a Newport, Ky., motel for a strategy session on civil disobedience. They agreed not to carry anything but identification with them when they confronted police in downtown Cincinnati and they voted not to post bail. None of the people arrested were from Ohio. The 11 who refused to post bond and were in jail last night are: Bolte; Bob Conrad of Denver; Joe Carle of Denver; Auberger; Horton; Jim Parker of El Paso, Texas; Cooper; George Roberts of Denver; Earnest Taylor of Hartford, Conn.; Lonnie Smith of Denver; Kafka. Kelly Bates of Denver pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct, was found guilty and sentenced to 30 days in jail, which she is to start serving tomorrow. Those released on personal bond are Ken Heard of Denver; George Florman of Colorado Springs, Colo.; Frank Lozano of El Paso, Texas; Rick James of Salt Lake City, Utah; and Arthur Campbell of Louisville, Ky. - ADAPT (224)
THE HANDICAPPED COLORADAN Vol. 8, No. 4, Boulder, Colorado, November 1985 [This article continues in ADAPT 115 but the story is included here in its entirety for easier reading.] PHOTO on center-right of the page and shows several people in wheelchairs (including Larry Ruiz looking away on left, as you face the bus, and George Florum on right in black ADAPT T-shirt holding a coffee and a cigarette) in front of a large bus. One person stands in front of the bus holding a scarecrow-like effigy of a person in one hand and something else in the other. A person in a white shirt is seated in the driver's seat. Another person similarly dressed is standing next to him. Above them behind the windshield is a destination type sign reading “EASY.” Caption: DEMONSTRATORS BLOCKED BUSES in Long Beach during the fourth day of the Los Angeles demonstration. One protestor (center) holds up an effigy representing the American Public Transit Association. Police arrived later and made several arrests. Demonstrators said the Long Beach police treated them properly. [Headline] Access showdown in L.A. Leads to massive arrests In a scene reminiscent of the black civil rights marches of the 1960s, some 215 people in wheelchairs rolled down Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles on Sunday, Oct. 7, to protest the lack of accessible mainline public transit in the United States. ' Chanting "We will ride!" and carrying inflammatory placards, the single-file column snaked its way 1.7 miles from the MacArthur Park staging area to the Bonaventure Hotel where the American Public Transit Association (APTA) was holding its national convention. Although the demonstrators had been denied a parade permit, police made no attempt to halt the march and routed traffic around the procession. However, the hands-off attitude disappeared once the column of wheelchair militants reached the hotel. As hotel security personnel blocked the only wheelchair-accessible elevator that gave access to the main lobby, several of the demonstrators pulled themselves from their wheelchairs and threw their bodies in front of the escalators, vowing to prevent anyone else from entering or leaving the hotel. The disabled demonstrators shouted "Access now! Access now!" while police deliberated their next move. Finally, after an hour, the police moved in. Eight demonstrators, including one woman, were arrested for “refusing to leave the scene of a riot," according to a police spokesperson. But they didn't go without a fight. George Florom of Colorado Springs thrashed about so hard that it took three officers to subdue him. One of the officers claimed that Florom kicked and bit him, During the scuffle, police said one of the demonstrators grabbed an officer's gun. Florom was removed to a specially equipped police van. He was soon joined by Edith Harris of Hartford, Conn, a veteran of other APTA demonstrations, who had been arrested during the San Antonio APTA protest. Harris had tried several times during the day to get the police to arrest her, even to the point of throwing shredded ADAPT literature in the street and demanding that police arrest her. Police merely removed her motorized chair from the street and picked up the paper, But when Harris threw herself on an escalator, the police moved in and escorted her to a waiting police van. Police and demonstrators differed as to how well the department handled the arrests. "We look bad no matter what we do," Sgt. Bill Tiffany said. A police spokesperson said the department had medical personnel on hand and tried to provide for the special needs of those arrested. That wasn't the case, according to Wade Blank of Denver, one of the founders of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT), which helped organize the Los Angeles demonstration as it has similar protests in Denver (1983), Washington, D.C. (1984), and San Antonio, Texas (1985). "The police were real nice until we got to the Bonaventure," Blank said. “But it was a real bad situation at the hotel. The cops turned into real pigs. They wouldn't let us use the hotel restroom. Some of them laughed at a lot of disabilities of the demonstrators, and a few of them pulled their clubs and threatened us with them." Blank said he learned that the officers who pulled their clubs were later given reprimands. Lou Nau, chairman of the Disability Rights Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), was also critical of how the police handled the arrests. Nau said that Mike Auberger, a quadriplegic community organizer for the Atlantis Community in Denver, was not allowed to use a bathroom for eight hours, causing hyperreflexia, while others who were arrested were not allowed to take necessary medications although they repeatedly explained the danger this might cause. Four men were handcuffed behind their backs and then left for up to five hours in their chairs in police vans, according to Nau. Of the eight arrested, Harris was released that same night and five of the men by the following afternoon. The other two men were not released until Tuesday morning. Some 53 disabled protestors maintained a night-long vigil outside the county jail. The police later issued this statement: “It must be stressed that the Los Angeles Police Department has repeatedly tried to meet with demonstration leaders in the attempt to provide legal alternatives to accomplish their objectives and avoid the distasteful necessity of arresting handicapped citizens." To that end, Jack Day, a board member of the Southern California Rapid Transit District (RTD flew to Denver earlier in the year to [print completely faded] in an attempt to talk the organization out of civil disobedience. Blank was one of those who met with Day. "We told him we wouldn't use civil disobedience if the (Southern California RTD) agreed to introduce and support a resolution at the APTA convention calling upon APTA to reverse its stand and back mandatory wheelchair lifts on buses," he said. Day said that was not possible. Meanwhile back in Los Angeles Day's other board members continued to discuss ways and means of handling the demonstrators. Ironically, Los Angeles — the city where demonstrators chose to make their point - is one of the most accessible in the country. California and Michigan are the only states that require all new public transit vehicles to be equipped with lifts. Usha Viswanathan, a spokesperson for the Southern California RTD, said that 1,891 of the district‘s 2,445 active buses were equipped with lifts and another 200 were being retrofitted. The lifts cost between $15,000 and $20,000 each. Within the next five years, the district intends to operate only lift-equipped buses, making it the first 100 percent accessible system in the country. In other parts of the country it's Up to the local transit provider to decide whether or not to offer accessible service. And that's the way it should bee, according Albert Engelken, APTA's deputy executive director. Geographical and climatic conditions have to be taken into consideration because lifts are difficult to operate in snow and on curved roads, Engelken said. In the late 1970s, the Carter administration's Department of Transportation mandated that all new buses be outfitted with wheelchair lifts. APTA, which acts as a lobbying and policy-making group for some 300 separate transit districts across the country, filed a lawsuit that eventually reversed that decision. Since then disabled groups have dogged APTA wherever it meets, insisting that the organization vote on a resolution calling for mandatory accessibility. That‘s why the demonstrators were in Southern California, Jim Parker of El Paso explained. Parker said ADAPT was very appreciative of the steps California was taking toward complete accessibility.” "This is a model city," he said. The demonstrators were in Los Angeles to embarrass APTA, not the local transit district, he said. That didn't stop the demonstrators from stopping buses, however. On Wednesday, Oct. 10, wheelchair demonstrators poured onto the streets of Long Beach, where they held several buses hostage. Protestors said they would release the buses if Laurance Jackson, general manager and president of Long Beach Transit and the newly elected president of APTA, would meet with them. A spokesperson for Jackson said that would be impossible, as Jackson had other commitments at the convention and the protestors had come unannounced. Before the day was done, police issued 33 misdemeanor citations for failure to disperse and arrested l6 protestors, all of whom were later released on their own recognizance. Blank said that the Long Beach police acted appropriately under the circumstances. Long Beach had been the scene of another confrontation earlier that same week. On Monday, 26 wheelchair demonstrators staged a roll-in at the office of U.S Rep.Glen Anderson (D-Long Beach), who is chairman of the House Transportation Committee. Anderson, who had been expected in his office that day, had been detained in Washington due to a heavy work load. The congressman later issued a statement pointing out that he had consistently voted to support accessible systems. Anderson blamed the Reagan administration, not Congress, for overturning a "requirement that the handicapped be given full accessibility to public transit." Most of the demonstrators agreed with that assessment. Blank and Parker compared APTA to the Klu Klux Klan and called upon its individual members either to fire its executive board, including executive vice president Jack Gilstrap, a longtime foe of mandatory accessibility, or to pull out and form a new national transit organization. A Gilstrap aide said he had no intention of resigning. Blank said Gilstrap and the rest of the APTA membership could expect to see them again when the organization holds its next national convention in Detroit in 1986. ADAPT plans similar tactics, since Michigan, like California, has already opted for total accessibility. "It's a question of civil rights," Blank said." And it's a national issue. Wherever they go, you can expect to find us." 3 photos filling the top three-quarters of the page. Photo 1: A man (George Florum) in a manual wheelchair wearing a black no-steps ADAPT T-shirt is loaded onto a lift of some type of vehicle by three beefy police officers Caption: GEORGE FLOROM OF of Colorado Springs is arrested for blocking buses in Long Beach. Photo 2: A dark shot of a man in a white T-shirt (Chris Hronis) being pulled upward by several sets of hands. Caption: CHRIS HONIS [sic], a California ADAPT member, is arrested at the Bonaventure Hotel. Photo 3: a couple of small groups of protesters in wheelchairs and standing, are in front of one bus and beside another, while police stand nearby. Caption: ACTIVISTS hold a bus captive in Long Beach. To the left of photo 3 is an ADAPT "we will ride" logo with the wheelchair access guy and an equal sign in the big wheel. - ADAPT (441)
DISCLOSURE September-October 1989, Issue No. 112 the national newspaper of neighborhoods [Headline] Disabled Protest Across Country: “Accessible Transit Is a Civil Right" This story continues on 436 but is included here in its entirety for ease of reading. PHOTO by Tom Olin: A large group of people in wheelchairs, on crutches, many carrying posters, are massed in front of a MCI New Jersey bus. Joe Carle is in the middle of the group with his back to the camera and on the back of his wheelchair is a sign that reads "I can't even get on the back of the bus." Also visible (right to left) are Cassie James, Diane Coleman, Brian Shea, Mike Early from CORD, two other guys in wheelchairs, Kent Killam, Julie Nolan, a white haired blind person with a big sign, and a short woman, perhaps a child, looking to her left and holding on to the back of a wheelchair. The group is blocking the bus and the street, while others walk by on the sidewalk. Caption reads: Members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) and affiliated groups stages demonstratlon on disabled rights issues in front of buses at the federal court building, Philadelphia, May, 1989. by Mike Monti The message is clear: “We will ride,” say the members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT). From a series of demonstrations to a controversial court case, this relentless group keeps fighting for accessible transit around the country. Among its victories are a July, 1989 federal court ruling that transportation agencies no longer have a 3 percent cap in providing wheelchair lifts or paratransit. For the members of ADAPT, accessible transit is a basic civil right — and is always worth fighting for. We reported in Disclosure #l08 on ADAPT’s actions in Montreal at the annual convention of the American Public Transit Authority (APTA). APTA and other transit authorities continue to make it extremely difficult for people with disabilities to use public transit. Nevertheless, ADAPT has shown that it will confront APTA wherever it shows up. Last April, at the Western Regional Conference of APTA in Sparks, Nevada (just outside of Reno), over 125 ADAPT members staged actions at the conference, calling for public transportation that can be used by everyone — including people with disabilities. Members started off with a march from their hotel to the conference hotel. When they were about halfway there, ADAPT was met by a police blockade. Obviously, authorities already knew about ADAPT: here is a group that won’t stops until it forces permanent changes. In Sparks. the marchers were able to get around the police barriers. But when they got to APTA’s hotel, they were met by private security forces. The hotel security outnumbered the city’s police three-to-one -— and were able to chain the door shut before ADAPT entered. Forty-seven ADAPT members were arrested, and seven were sent to jail. “The Sparks police had obviously decided that we weren't going to march in the streets,” said Stephanie Thomas, an ADAPT member who lives in Austin, Texas. “But we were able to go around the car barricades. it was like water going around the rocks." The following afternoon, ADAPT staged another demonstration with many crawling across the street and around police barricades, blocking traffic until they reached the front door of the hotel. It was locked from the inside. This time, 25 were arrested. The charge: blocking a fire door which was locked. Many of the ADAPT members who were arrested went on a hunger strike. Meanwhile, ADAPT members on the outside held a press conference calling attention to the problems jail staff were having providing for several of the disabled people’s needs. A final protest was held the next day. One day later, the Sparks judge who sent the hunger strikers to prison made a deal with the protesters: he let out two protesters for the price of a $100 fine. The judge had imposed a much stiffer sentence a couple of days earlier, but changed his mind in the face of a group of arrested ADAPT members who made it clear that they would rather starve and stay in jail than pay a huge fine. Meanwhile, disability groups on the east and west coasts were raising money to help support ADAPT. On the fourth day of the hunger strike, the judge relented and the fine was reduced. By the end of the day, all arrested ADAPT members had been released — and many in the group headed to Denver, for more demonstrations. In Denver — which is the home of ADAPT — the group protested at the annual conference of the Urban Mass Transit Administration (UMTA). This time, demonstrations focused on the federal government's request for a re-hearing of the ADAPT vs. Burnley case. In February, ADAPT won a major victory from the Department of Transportation (DOT) - only to have it undercut by the government. The first of ADAPT’s arguments stated that the rule saying transportation agencies should not have to spend more than 3 percent of their budget on wheelchair lifts or paratransit was unconstitutional. Second, ADAPT held that the option allowing agencies to decide whether or not to provide new buses with wheelchair lifts was unconstitutional. DOT kept flip-flopping on the issue: first it said yes, and then it backed off, asking for a rehearing to vacate the decisions. In Denver, ADAPT confronted Michael Norton, U.S. Attorney for the Tenth District in Denver. “Why is the government working against disabled rights?” asked ADAPT. Norton eventually read a 20-page statement from Attorney General Thornburgh stressing “the need for concern, compassion, and commitment” — but also saying that the law never mandated integration. “It was a really offensive statement, ” said Stephanie Thomas. “On one hand, he was affirming the government's commitment, and on the other he’s fighting tooth and nail to stop rights for the disabled.” When the case was reheard in Philadelphia on May 15, ADAPT was ready. With help from the local chapter of Disabled in Action and the Cape Organization for Rights of the Disabled (CORD), protesters gathered at the federal court building. Four ADAPT members met with the U.S. Attorney, who listened to their concerns. Two days later, a protest was staged at Independence Hall. Dressed in revolutionary garb complete with wigs, three-cornered hats and fife and drum, the “Disability Rights Patriots” marched around the Liberty Bell. Court Decision On July 24, ADAPT won a significant victory as the original ruling striking down the 3 percent cap on wheelchair and paratransit lifts was upheld. On the local option issue, judges decided that the stipulation was legal. Now, it's back in the hands of DOT, for "clarification." Meanwhile, ADAPT will be working with lawyers to plan its next strategy in the legal arena, even though the courts have dodged the issue of equal rights for the disabled. Nevertheless, ADAPT is still ready for action. “We are not going to sit around and wait for the government to put a piece of legislation through,” said Wade Blank. What's next for ADAPT? The next APTA Conference will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, September 23-28, 1989. “The court’s decision on local option will make our demonstrations in Atlanta bigger,” says Mike Auberger, a co-director of ADAPT. Sparks Nevada, Denver, Philadelphia, Atlanta. . .ADAPT marches on for rights for people with disabilities. “Someday,” says Wade Blank, “ It will be just as appalling to see buildings without ramps as it was seeing signs that said ‘Whites Only.’ ” end of article Pictures of 2 graphic symbols: One is the ADAPT no-steps logo with American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit around the outside and a circle with a set of steps rising to the right and a bar across the circle and steps with the word ADAPT on it. The other is a power fist, with wheelchair warriors written below the arm. Caption reads: These symbols are part of ADAPT’s continuing fight. Says Wade Blank of ADAPT “Someday it will be just as appalling to see buildings without ramps as it was seeing signs that said ‘Whites Only.’” - Capitol Crawl
This video covers part of the Wheels of Justice rally and then the Capitol Crawl that took place on the west (Mall) side steps of the US Capitol March 12, 1990. This action, in which hundreds of people with disabilities took part, was done to push the Congress to move forward on the landmark civil rights bill, the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA. The ADA had stalled in Congress and the disability community rose up to say enough is enough. It was part of a several day action by ADAPT to move Congress to act. It was also the culmination of a massive national grassroots effort by organizations and individuals from every state and territory in the nation to call for an end to discrimination based on disability. It symbolized the struggle people with disabilities faced in dealing with the society's discrimination, and the strength and perseverance of people with disabilities in facing these obstacles. - ADAPT (338)
The Phoenix Gazette, Monday 3-30-87 [This article is in ADAPT 338 and 337 but the entire text has been included here for easier reading] Title: Wheelchair Activists to Picket in Phoenix By Pat Flannery Phoenix will be the next stop for a traveling road show that, despite its mayhem, carries a message that has stirred debate across the country. About 150 wheelchair-bound members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit will converge on the downtown Hyatt late this week to picket the Western Public Transit Association, which will be in Phoenix April 5-8. If ADAPT’s performance in more than a half-dozen cities over the past several years is any indication, Phoenix may witness militant wheelchair-riders defying police and transit officials by chaining themselves to city buses, obstructing routes, throwing their bodies onto the steps of buses unequipped with wheelchair lifts and generally raising havoc to make their point. The Denver-based ADAPT, according to organizer Michael Auberger, is a single-issue advocacy group with one goal: putting a wheelchair lift on every bus in every transit system that receives federal transportation funds. And it will go to great lengths to dramatize its goal. "That’s the issue, right there,” Auberger said. “As disabled people, we have the right to ride a bus down the street just like everybody else.” And the right to go to jail like other unruly demonstrators, Phoenix police say. Though Auberger said ADAPT members will meet with police and city officials on arrival to “lay down the ground rules,” neither he nor police are overlooking the possibility of arrests. “We’re looking at all scenarios, including making arrests if pushed to that point,” police spokesman Sgt. Brad Thiss said. “We’ve talked to other police agencies, and historically their goal is to get arrested...and they haven't let up until it occurs. “All we can really say is we're prepared for any contingency.” ADAPT has focused its animosity since its creation in 1982 on APTA. That year the U.S. Supreme Court struck down as too broad a federal regulation requiring all city transit systems to equip at least half of their buses with lifts. The challenger of the regulation was APTA. “They (ADAPT) want each and every bus in the U.S. to be lift-equipped for wheelchair bound people,” Albert Engelken, deputy executive director of APTA, said. “We want those decisions made locally, not nationally. We've never been against wheelchair lifts for buses, but we’re strictly for local decision-making.” Local factors include the cost of equipping buses with lifts, the availability of “parallel” services such as paratransit vehicles for the disabled, and the ability to provide adequate service with the more expensive equipment. In the end, Auberger argues, there is no excuse for denying disabled people access to every bus on which members of the general public ride. “The number of disabled people is constantly increasing, and by the year 2000 it’s going to double again,” Auberger said. “Eighty-five percent of the disabled population is unemployed, and this is a big factor. It allows you to live where you want, work where you want. It gives you options. You can participate in the community.” Whether the kind of protest that has appeared in other cities materializes in Phoenix depends on what ADAPT finds after arriving, said Auberger, who visited the Valley in February. The Regional Public Transportation Authority earlier this month adopted a broad policy statement promoting, among other things, the use of wheelchair accessible buses on all fixed routes. “That takes them out of the view of being an adversary," Auberger said. “lt’s obviously a growing system, and realizing it’s a regional system... that’s the way it should be." The Phoenix public transit department has not adopted such a policy, though director Richard Thomas said more than 10 percent of the 327 buses serving Phoenix are lift-equipped. In addition, about half of the city's paratransit fleet is so equipped. Auberger said the Phoenix bus system could be a protest target if it does not adopt a policy, which Thomas said is virtually impossible given the timing. Likewise, Auberger said Phoenix Mayor Terry Goddard may be targeted because he refused to meet with ADAPT members to discuss the issue. The end - US_Capitol_Rotunda_part_2_cap
This is part 2 of the ADAPT Capitol Rotunda protest in support of the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA. This shows the group preparing for civil disobedience to pressure swift passage of the bill. Over 100 people were arrested at this protest, which gets less attention than the Crawl but was equally intense. The film is open captioned (as are all videos on this museum site). - ADAPT (253)
The Cincinnati Post Tuesday May 20 - Photo by Lawrence A. Lambert/The Cincinnati Post: A man (Jim Parker) in a big straw hat and a manual wheelchair sits holding a wooden structure on his feet. Beside him, on his left, a man with dark hair and a dark beard (Frank Lozano) kneels, attaching a folded manual wheelchair to the crossed wood. To his left, another man (Bob Conrad) in a power chair a jacket and an ADAPT shirt, with the access symbol and an equal sign in the wheel, points at what Frank is doing and looks off to his right. Over Bob's right shoulder you can see Bobby Simpson and an African American woman (Gwen Hubbard?) up against some police barriers; the woman is talking with someone. To their right and over Frank's head you can see another man in a wheelchair watching as a woman stands beside him. Over Jim's shoulder you can see another protester in a wheelchair. In the background is the cavernous black of the hotel entrance which is blocked by metal barricades and guarded by police. caption reads: Three members of a national group protesting lack of access to public transportation prepare to lift a cross bearing a wheelchair into place today in from of the Westin Hotel as part of a demonstration. The three are Jim Parker, left, Frank Lozano and Bob Conrad. Title: Activists ordered to leave 3 protesters awaiting trial By Edwin: Blackwell, Post staff reporter Three wheelchair-bound activists were ordered by a judge today to get out of town until their trials or face being jailed on disorderly conduct charges. “This is ludicrous and unconstitutional," said Robert Kafka of Austin, Texas, one of the three. "We got on a public bus and so he is throwing us out of town." The order came after a night when 15 other members or American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation pitted their wheelchairs against the steel frames of buses in a protest over the rights of the handicapped to public transportation. The protesters rolled their wheelchairs into the paths of buses traveling 40 mph on Kings Island Drive in Warren County and carrying conferees of the American Public Transit Association to a reception. No one was injured in the protest, and no one was arrested. Kafka and two other activists, George Cooper of Dallas and Michael Auberger of Denver, were arrested earlier Monday during a demonstration in front of the Westin Hotel, where the transit association conferees are meeting this week, and the U.S. Courthouse. Kafka and Cooper were arrested on trespassing charges after they boarded a Queen City Metro bus that stopped at the boarding plaza in front of the Courthouse. Auberger was arrested for grabbing a wheel of the same bus. They appeared in Hamilton County Municipal Court today and were told by Judge David Albanese to leave Cincinnati today or forfeit their $3000 bonds. A pre-trial hearing was set for June 26. The three contended the order violated their constitutional rights to free speech but said they will abide by it. They are staying in a motel in Newport, Ky. They said they will discuss possible federal civil rights court action with their attorney, Joni Veddern Wilkens of Reading. "I can’t believe it; this is America," Cooper said. “When you invoke law like it was west of the Pecos, before Texas even became a state . .. get out of town by sundown ... it's scary, it's frightening. I feel it's a basic infringement of my freedom to travel as an American citizen." Cooper, a U.S. Air Force Korean Wax veteran, said it was the first time in ADAPT protests in half a dozen cities that any of its members had been ordered out of town. He said it was the first time they had ever faced actual barricades, as they did in front at the Westin Hotel Monday. “I thought I came from the most conservative city in the country, Dallas," Cooper said. "We just can't believe this." During Monday night's protest near the College Football Hall of Fame, Warren County police moved the ADAPT members from in front of the buses but made no arrests. Police had set up barricades by the hall earlier, but that didn't keep the protesters from roiling their wheelchairs onto the roadway. “I remember flashing in my mind that these might be the first deaths of the civil rights movement of the handicapped," said the Rev. Wade Blank of Denver, Colo., co-founder of ADAPT. “Although I trained them, it just told me how serious it is to these people." Members of the Denver based group say their action shows how far they are willing to go. The protesters want the transit officials to change their national policy on accessibility and Queen City Metro to have wheelchair lifts on all new buses. Today ADAPT members continued to demonstrate in front of the Westin Hotel by hanging a wheelchair from a 10-foot-tall wooden cross to signify “the way APTA is crucifying disabled people." Eleven Cincinnati police officers, including Chief Lawrence Whalen, watched but made no arrests as they guarded the hotel atrium and entrance from some protesters chanting “We will ride. Access is a civil right." Wade Blank said no further attempts to block buses will be made because the group does not want to inconvenience Cincinnati riders. - ADAPT (265)
The Cincinnati Enquirer Monday, May 19, 1986 Comment/A-7 PHOTO by Jim Callaway/The Cincinnati Enquirer: Three protesters in wheelchairs form a diagonal line across the picture. On the right in the foreground a heavy set man (Jerry Eubanks) sits in his manual wheelchair, a cab of soda in his right hand. He is a double amputee below the hips, and is wearing a look of concentration, and appears to be chanting. His right hand is resting on the back of a motorized wheelchair to his right. In that chair is a slim man (Greg Buchanan) who is wearing a very large sign across his legs that reads "A Part of NOT Apartheid." (The message is a bit obscured by the curve of the sign around his legs.) He is also wearing a light colored ADAPT T-shirt. To Greg's right and a bit further away and behind is a third man in a chair, a slim man with dark hair and a beard (John Short). He also has a sign on his legs but the quality of the picture makes it unreadable. Caption reads: Members of ADAPT picket in front ol the Westin Hotel Sunday afternoon. Gary Eubanks of Chicago, right, Greg Buchanan of Colorado Springs and John Short of Denver were among them. Title: Protesters converge on city Disabled demand full access to public transportation BY KAREN ROEBUCK The Cincinnati Enquirer Former Cincinnatian Mike Auberger said he left the city because of its lack of accessibility to the handicapped and because "the mentality toward people with disabilities is really 19th century at best." Auberger, who now lives in Denver, is one of about 75 members of ADAPT (American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit) in Cincinnati Sunday through Wednesday demanding full accessibility to public transportation systems for the handicapped. But the approximately 50 members of ADAPT demonstrating in front of the Westin Hotel, where the American Public Transit Association (APTA) is holding its regional convention, were denied access to the hotel Sunday. "The only people they're stopping are people in a wheelchair; that's blatantly discriminatory," said Bob Kafka, of Austin, Texas and ADAPT community organizer. Cincinnati Police Capt. Dale Menkhaus, Operational Support, said public easements can be barricaded to any group that might disrupt the hotel, which is private property. ADAPT members publicly stated they would try to disrupt the conference and have attempted to do so at other APTA conferences, police and Westin officials said. The hotel's first priority is to its guests, in this case the APTA, said Larry Alexander, general manager of the Westin. The ADAPT group blocked entrances and exits to the hotel for a short time Sunday, and rode their wheelchairs in downtown streets, somewhat disrupting traffic to the Reds-Pirates game, Menkhaus said, but did not cause any major problems. Armed with signs, T-shirts and badges, the group chanted slogans expressing their desire to ride public transportation systems. Some of the signs read, "Buses won't roll without us," and "We have a dream. . . We will ride." Kafka said ADAPT members will most likely try to stop some Queen City Metro buses. In other cities, members have sometimes chained themselves to the vehicles. Murray Bond, assistant general manager of Queen City Metro, said if ADAPT members try to stop the buses, the drivers will put the vehicles into park and let the police move the demonstrators. Menkhaus said ADAPT members will be arrested if they break the law. Despite the barricades, ADAPT members also will try to get into the convention, Kafka said, to get a resolution requiring full accessibility for the handicapped onto the convention floor. Albert Engelken, deputy executive director of APTA, said the executive committee and board of directors have discussed voting on such a resolution, but decided that decision should be made at the local level. Every system in the country has some way of transporting the handicapped, he said, which was decided upon with the advice of local agencies for the handicapped. About 30% of the systems nationwide are fully accessible, he said. Queen City Metro has an access program which will pick up handicapped people at their homes and take them where they need to go in Cincinnati, Elmwood Place, St. Bernard and Norwood, Bond said. "We understand their goals of total accessibility. It's certainly a laudable one, but also a very expensive one." The customer pays 60 cents for a ride, but it costs Queen City Metro about $10, he said. A ride must be scheduled 24 hours in advance under the Queen City's rules, but space is not always available, said Dixie Harmon, co-chairperson of the Specialized Transportation Advisory Committee to Queen City Metro and a member of Greater Cincinnati Coalition of Persons with Disabilities. "They dictate our lives to us, because we have to go and come as there's space available," she said. Kafka said ADAPT does not expect public systems to make all their buses wheelchair accessible, only all new buses. In about 20 years, the entire system could then be used by the handicapped, he estimated, pointing out that Queen City now owns 87 buses with wheelchair lifts, but the lifts have been locked down. Bond said those buses were bought with federal money at a time when wheelchair accessibility was required for any purchased with federal funds, and would be too costly to operate. The Greater Cincinnati coalition supports the goals of ADAPT, Harmon said, but chooses to negotiate for changes instead of demonstration. - ADAPT (246)
THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER Wednesday, May 21, 1986 [This article continues in ADAPT 245, but the entire text is included here for easier reading.] [Headline] Handicapped bus protests to continue [Subheading] Judge offers three protesters choice of jail or leaving city BY DAVID WELLS and JAMES F. McCARTY The Cincinnati Enquirer and ENQUIRER WIRE SERVICES The issue of handicapped people and their accessibility to mass transit reached a peak Tuesday locally and nationally, sparking protests that were expected to go on today. In Cincinnati, a judge ordered three handicapped protesters who had been arrested to leave the city or go to jail. One of the men, a native Cincinnatian, chose to ignore the edict, and his bail of $3,000 was revoked late Tuesday. In Washington, D.C., the Department of Transportation issued long-awaited criteria for making the nation's public transportation systems more accessible to 20 million handicapped people. Neither decision was well received by the handicapped community. The Rev. Wade Blank of ADAPT (American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation) said late Tuesday that a dozen or more of its members were planning an act of civil disobedience in Cincinnati today that he expected would get them all arrested. “We decided that to leave Cincinnati under the present atmosphere of basic human rights violations, would be to ignore our moral obligations," Blank said. George Cooper, who was arrested Monday said, “I thought my hometown of Dallas was conservative, but Cincinnati is more conservative." Cooper arrested Monday with two other members of ADAPT on charges of disorderly conduct during a demonstration at Government Square. Hamilton County Municipal Judge David Albanese imposed the sentence on the the ADAPT protesters. Late Tuesday, police spotted ADAPT member Mike Auburger, a former Cincinnatian who lives in Denver, driving a car through the -- city—an apparent violation of Albanese's order to leave the city. Cooper and Robert Kafka, Austin, Texas, were arrested after they crawled up the steps of a Queen City Metro bus, paid their fares and demanded the right to ride. Auburger was arrested when he tried to grab a wheel of the same bus as it pulled away from the stop. Metro's Assistant General Manager Murray Bond said disabled persons were not permitted on regular coaches because the company does not think it is safe. Metro provides wheelchair lifts on Special Access buses. but Bond said the cost of installing wheelchair lifts on regular buses would be prohibitive. Defense attorney Joanie Wilkens said after Tuesday’s hearing that she considered Albanese's order unusual but that ADAPT did not have the time or resources to fight it in court. ADAPT members were in Cincinnati to protest policies of Queen City Metro and the American Public Transit Association, which is having a convention at the Westin Hotel. In Washington, DOT's issuance of a final regulation requiring transit systems to provide reasonable alternative transportation for the handicapped contained no surprises. Many transit systems have been moving for several years toward providing alternatives such as van service or a taxi voucher system for handicapped passengers. But ADAPT and other national disability rights groups, dismayed by the new rule, almost immediately filed federal lawsuits against DOT to block the move. Handicapped representatives said the new rule fell far short of carrying out the law. A federal court in 1981 ruled that a federal requirement that all transit systems be accessible to the handicapped was too much of a financial burden. It told the Urban Mass Transportation Administration to develop new requirements that would assure that the handicapped are provided service. Under the final rule announced Tuesday, a transit authority must establish some alternative services for the handicapped if the regular bus or rail service can not be made accessible. Other members of ADAPT continued to picket in their wheelchairs in front of the Westin Hotel on Tuesday. The group suspended a wheelchair from a wooden cross. It symbolizes how the disabled are being crucified," said Bill Bolte, who helped to hoist the chair. PHOTO -- The Cincinnati Enquirer/Fred Strau: Two protesters hang a wheelchair on a large wooden cross. One man in a cowboy hat and plaid shirt (Joe Carle) steadies the cross and the chair from below, while a second man (Jim Parker) stands and pulls the manual wheelchair higher. Behind them several other protesters (including Joanne ____) watch and stand by extensive police barricades in front of the APTA convention hotel. Caption reads: Joe Carle, left, and Jim Parker chain a wheelchair to a cross Tuesday outside the Westin Hotel. The two were among several members of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit demonstrating against City Metro and the American Public Transit Association which is meeting at the Westin. - ADAPT (180)
THE HANDICAPPED COLORADAN Volume 7, No. 3 Boulder, Colorado October 1984 PHOTO: A man in a leather brimmed hat, long hair beard and moustache down vest and jeans, seated in a motorized wheelchair (Mike Auberger), leans to his right as he is surrounded by abled bodied people. Back to the camera, a man plain clothes is partially in front of him, papers sticking out from his back pocket. A uniformed officer is also back to the camera and is holding Mike's arm which in front of Mike. A second uniformed officer is doing something behind Mike's back while a woman stands up on the sidewalk to his side watching with her hands on her hips. (She was an organizer with National Training and Information Center and was assisting with the Access Institute.) cation reads: D.C. Police Arrest Denver Disabled Protestor MIKE AUBERGER, a community organizer for the Atlantis Community in Denver and a member of the American Disabled for Accessible Transit (ADAPT) is arrested by Washington, D.C., police outside the Washington Convention Center where the national convention of the American Public Transit Association (APTA) was just getting under way. A spokesperson for APTA said that the demonstrations only delayed the start of the convention by a few minutes. Inside the convention hall Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole abandoned her prepared text and said the administration was working to provide public transit for the disabled. Outside the hall, demonstrators branded the secretary's plan as another “separate but equal" scheme and demanded that the federal government require all public transit systems be made accessible to the handicapped. Demonstrators not only blocked the entrances to the convention but also surrounded chartered buses that took delegates from their hotel to the convention center. The disabled activists represented a number of cities, including Denver, Syracuse, N.Y., Boston, El Paso, Los Angeles and Chicago. Additional photo on page 4. 28 Busted in D.C. The 28 disabled activists who were arrested for civil disobedience during the national convention of the American Public Transit Association (APTA) in Washington, D.C., last month are trying to raise $1500 to make their bail money by a Dec. 3 deadline. At the same time, they're preparing to carry their demand that the APTA members buy only wheelchair-lift equipped buses to the transit organization's regional convention in San Antonio on April 20. The Texas contingent from the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) under the leadership of Jim Parker of El Paso has been especially militant in their demands. Taking their lead from an editorial in the September Handicapped Coloradan, a coalition of of Texas disabled groups met in San Antonio and voted to ask transit systems in Texas to withdraw from APTA unless it goes on record supporting accessibility. The Colorado chapter of ADAPT was planning to introduce a similar resolution to Denver’s Regional Transportation District (RTD). APTA's position is that accessibility should be left to the discretion of the local transit provider, Although the Carter administration mandated accessibility in public transit, APTA was successful in getting that ruling thrown out in a l98l court battle. ADAPT maintains that the disabled have a civil right to public transit. Jack Gilstrap, APTA's executive vice president, reiterated that position as wheelchair demonstrators seized buses in front of the White House and hurled their chairs at police lines outside the Washington Hilton and Washington Convention Center during APTA's late September meeting. Gilstrap said that the funds just weren't there to support a mandatory system, adding that the additional burden might jeopardize some transit systems. However, since the convention ADAPT has been approached by APTA's new president, Warren Franks, the director of the Syracuse, N.Y., transit system, who has requested a meeting in Denver with wheelchair activists. "The Syracuse ADAPT group has been pretty active," said ADAPT spokesperson Wade Blank. "Franks must be pretty worried about what might happen there if he wants to meet with us.“ ADAPT was organized in Denver one year ago by some of the same groups and individuals who had been involved in forcing RTD to adopt a pro-accessibility policy when purchasing new buses. That battle too was highlighted by militant demonstrations with wheelers chaining themselves to the doors of RTD headquarters. In contrast, demonstrators restricted themselves to orderly pickets when APTA held its national convention in Denver in 1983. But ADAPT only abandoned its plans for civil disobedience after APTA met its demands to address the entire convention on accessibility. APTA's national staff fought that request and allegedly threatened to pull the convention out of Denver at the last minute, but finally agreed to allow ADAPT to address the meeting after Denver Mayor Federico Pena intervened. There was no question that ADAPT would be offered the same treatment at the Washington convention. Although they didn't get a spot on the agenda Blank said his group made their point by capturing the attention of the capital's media. Even before the convention opened, ADAPT made its presence known by joining forces with local D.C. activists to seize seven Metrobuses and block the five blocks along Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House during the afternoon rush hour. Demonstrators released the buses an hour later when D.C.’s Metro General Manager Carmen E. Turner agreed to meet with Washington disabled leaders to discuss their demands for a fully accessible system. No date has yet been set for that meeting, which ADAPT said marked an historic first in the Washington area. No arrests were made during that demonstration, although Washington police moved several demonstrators out of the street. But on the following Monday and Tuesday 28 demonstrators were arrested as they tried to block buses leaving the Washington Hilton for the convention center and again at the convention center itself. The police threw up lines as picketers arrived but were unable to halt the advance of the demonstrators, who wedged their chairs in the hall's doors or hurled their bodies onto the ground. Mike Auberger, one of those arrested, said the police "were abusive -- there's no doubt of that," but he added that this was probably pretty typical. “Let's face it," he said, "these guys probably have to deal with demonstrators all the time." They don't mess around when they get started. Auberger said he was grabbed by the hair and pulled back so that his chair was resting on its back wheels. Two other demonstrators were thrown from their chairs and taken to local hospitals where they were released after being treated for minor injuries. Police had to bring in special vans with wheelchair lifts in order to cart demonstrators off to jail, where they were fingerprinted and rushed into court. "Only the doorway between the holding cells and the courtroom was too narrow to get our chairs through," Auberger said, "so they had to take us in the back way." Some of the disabled picketers were surprised that the police reacted with such force, according to Auberger. "l think it opened a few eyes," he said. ADAPT filmed the demonstration, and a 20-minute edited version is being shown as part of a fundraiser to pay the bails of those arrested, about half of whom were from Denver. Congresswoman Pat Schroeder (D-Denver) has agreed tn help raise money, but because of previous campaign commitments said she would be unable to participate until after the first of the year. - ADAPT (200)
The Handicapped Coloradan, vol.8, no.7, Boulder, CO February 1986 (This article is continued in ADAPT 198 but the entire article is included here for ease of reading.) PHOTO 1: Along a street a large line of people in wheelchairs and others move past a shady park with vendors with small umbrellas over their stands. Several of the protesters carry placards in their laps, one of which reads: A PART OF NOT APART FROM. Faces are too dark to tell who is in the line. Caption reads: In the shadow of the Alamo a wheelchair column moved along the streets of San Antonio, Texas in April 1985. Protestors were heading for the hotel headquarters for the regional convention of the American Public Transit Association. PHOTO 2: Mike Auberger, with his mustache, trimmed beard and shoulder length hair looks at the camera with his intense eyes. Wearing a light colored sweater and shirt with a collar, he sits in his wheelchair which is mostly visible because of his chest strap. Caption reads: Mike Auberger of Denver was one of some 16 Coloradans who went to Texas to protest the lack of accessible public buses. [Headline] The eyes of Texas are on outside agitators -- and a lot of folks from down the street There's never been much love lost between Coloradans and Texans, at least not since those folks from the Lone Star State first wandered into the Rocky Mountains and discovered deep powder in the winter and cool valleys in the summer. As Winnebago after Cadillac after pickup poured across Raton Pass, Coloradans greeted Texans with open cash registers and - increasingly -- ridicule. Our scorn for Texans even reached into the highest office in the state when Governor Dick Lamm greeted his Texan counterpart with this joke: A Texan died here recently and we couldn't find a coffin large enough, so we gave him an enema and buried him in a shoebox. Texans were not amused, though by now they should have come to expect such treatment. We've been squabbling ever since a detachment of Colorado militia turned back a Texas Confederate army at Glorietta Pass during the Civil War. Each summer now we give Texas a chance to even the score down near Alamosa in a rotten tomato battle. OF course we always make sure our army's bigger. That animosity, however, doesn't carry over to the disabled population of the two states. In fact, a dozen or more militant wheelchair activists from Colorado have been rolling onto the streets of several Texas cities during the past couple of years to aid their counterparts in the battle to force Texas transit systems to make their buses wheelchair-accessible. "After Colorado, Texas is out best organized state," Wade Blank, the long haired ex-preacher who helped found American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) in Denver two years ago. ADAPT chapters have sprung up in several other states, notably Illinois, Maine, and Connecticut, but none have garnered as many active members as Texas. Scores of Texans have blocked buses in San Antonio, Houston, Dallas and El Paso in recent months to focus the attention of the state's media on the lack of accessible buses. Part of ADAPT's success in Texas lies in the fact that there are so few lift-equipped buses in this huge state. Some Texas cities did order accessible buses when the Carter administration's Department of Transportation ordered mandatory accessibility in the 1970s. However, most of these lifts were never used as the American Public Transit Association (APTA), a national lobbying and policy making organization for transit systems, successfully fought the regulation in federal appeals court. APTA maintains that the local transit provider is the best judge of whether or not accessibility is feasible. Adverse climatic and geographical conditions are generally cited as the chief obstacles to lifts. Texas ADAPT leaders point out that few areas in Texas experience severe winter storms and that the state's larger cities are generally laid out on flat plains. That was one of the points wheelchair activist tried to make when they picketed in April 1985 regional APTA convention in San Antonio. A sizable contingent of Coloradans joined those picket lines, leading to a charge by the local newspaper, the San Antonio Light, that the demonstration was the work of outside agitators and that most of the city's disabled population was quite happy with using paratransit. Spot demonstrations and bus seizures soon followed in other Texas cities, while some Texas ADAPT members turned outside agitators themselves by participating in demonstrations at the APTA national convention in Los Angeles in October 1985. Several Texans including Jim Parker of El Paso and Bob Kafka of Austin, were among The dozens arrested. Supporters of lifts point to cities like Seattle and Denver where most of the buses are accessible -- and increasingly free of breakdowns. Denver's Regional Transportation District (RTD) maintenance crew made a few simple changes in some of their lift systems and managed to operate experimental buses without a single breakdown. ADAPT argues that some transit providers have deliberately sabotaged their lift systems to justify removing them. Opponents of lifts argue that paratransit--usually vans that pick riders up at their residences -- is more cost effective. Supporters point to Seattle where the cost per ride on mainline buses is less than $15 a trip, which compares very favorably with the best deals offered by paratransit systems. Convenience is a major factor too, according to Mike Auberger of ADAPT-Denver, who points out that most paratransit systems require two days' advance notice and users might have to travel all day just to keep a 15 minute dental appointment. "Me, I like being able to roll down to the corner bus stop," Auberger said. ADAPT grew out of coalition of Denver disabled groups who were successful in battling RTD over wheelchair lifts. Protestors seized buses and chained themselves to railings at RTD headquarters before the battle was won. Two years ago they went national when their arch foe, APTA, held its national convention in Denver, APTA refused to allow ADAPT to present a resolution to the convention calling for mandatory accessibility until pressure was brought to bear by Denver Mayor Federico Pena, a pro-lift advocate. APTA declined, however, to vote on the issue, and ADAPT picketed the group's 1984 national convention in Washington, DC, in October. Twenty-four protestors were arrested during the demonstration, including Parker. Parker, who was joined in Washington by four other Texans, isn't through with APTA yet. When that group holds its Western Regional Convention in San Antonio April 20, Parker said they can expect almost as many demonstrators as went to Washington. "I can't think of any place in Texas where it (public transportation for the disabled) is as good as it is here in Denver -- in fact it's poor everywhere here. Dallas just decided to buy 200 or 300 new buses without lifts." The situation isn't any better in his home city of El Paso, according to Parker. "It's very poor here," he said. "There are 30 city cruisers here with lifts but the city has shown no desire to use them." Parker thinks too many people in wheelchairs are too passive. "They're not used to pushing people, but we're starting to see some changes." However, Parker points out that Texas is a very conservative state and people -- including the disabled -- are slow to change. People wishing to participate in the San Antonio demonstration should call Parker (915-564-0544) for further information. PHOTO: Two bearded, bare chested wheelchair activists (Jim Parker, and [I think] Mike Auberger) are in the foreground. Parker, his shoulder length hair tied back with a bandana, sits with his foot up on his opposite knee, hands in his fingerless gloves. The two are facing away from the camera and talking with another man who is kneeling down beside them looking up at them. Caption reads: Jim Parker (center) of ADAPT-El Paso meets with a newsman during a picket of McDonald's. Many disabled persons objected to the fast food chain's refusal to immediately retrofit all of its restaurants so that they would be accessible to wheelchair patrons. Parker is currently involved in helping organize a demonstration at the Western Regional Convention of the American Public Transit Association (APTA) in San Antonio Oct. 20 - 24 [sic]. - ADAPT (223)
MAinstream magazine [No date] [This story continues in ADAPT 222, but is contained here in its entirety for reading ease.] [Headline] ADAPT takes the fast lane to make transit accessible By Michael Ervin San Antonio—The first indication that something was about to happen came when an oversized, stretch-limo of a van pulled up beside the Alamo and a wheelchair lift uncurled out of the back door. The colorful banner on the side of the van read: ACCESS FOR ALL. Six more people in wheelchairs were in another van parked in a lot down the street. As they proceeded down the sidewalk to join the demonstration in front of the Alamo the pedestrians stopped and looked them over. A parade of people in wheelchairs is bound to draw stares. But the expressions accompanying these stares were unique—welcoming, supportive, somewhat star struck. Maybe they knew they were coming. Before the 50 or so members of various chapters of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit even arrived here there were stories in the media about previous ADAPT confrontations with the American Public Transit Association (APTA.) Television news showed footage of the mass arrests that occurred last October in Washington, D.C. when ADAPT members tried to force their way into the center where APTA was holding its annual convention. That's the kind of escalating media coverage Wade Blank likes to see. He’s the main force behind ADAPT. “We're becoming famous. When we had our first ADAPT meeting in Denver in 1982, our goal was to make the officials of any city we were coming to nervous. We wanted them to say, ‘No! Not here! We don’t want ‘em!’” They were certainly nervous in San Antonio. When a horde of people in wheelchairs showed up at the offices of the local transit authority for a noisy demonstration, the employees locked themselves in a large office as if they were afraid ADAPT was going to take them out one by one and shoot them. And when the march that began at the Alamo turned into an equally raucous occupation of the lobby of the posh hotel where APTA people were staying, hotel security had no idea what to do. And the bewildered looks of the innocent tourists were amusing. They’d certainly never seen anything like that before. “Seeing a bunch of disabled crazies blocking buses and doing things like that redefines everything everybody’s been conditioned to believe about the disabled," Blank says. This radical redefinition of what the disabled are (in the eyes of both the disabled and nondisabled) is what ADAPT is all about. And having stuffy APTA conferences and conventions as a backdrop helps make that point. APTA’s primary sin, according to ADAPT, is that it spent big bucks on a lawsuit that struck down the federal mandate that all fixed-route public buses be lift-equipped. ADAPT sees equal transit access as the most basic civil right. “It's the same segregation as when blacks had to sit in the back of the bus or yield their seats to whites. Except it’s even worse,” says Blank. “The disabled can’t even get on the bus.” By using APTA as a symbol of the stifling paternalism that keeps the disabled in a position of dependency, ADAPT makes the immorality of inaccessible public transit quite clear. *** Wade Blank is an ordained minister who never goes to church. “It’s in the true Jesus tradition. He was kicked out of the synagogue and never went back.” Blank worked in a nursing home for a few years after seminary. It frustrated him to see the disabled friends he made there stuck there simply because they had no place else to go. So in 1976 he and some others began Atlantis, an independent living center in Denver. ADAPT was born of Atlantis. Blank says Atlantis likes to “do the impossible” in terms of working with clients who have the deepest holes of dependency to dig out of. Frank, a man with cerebral palsy who was part of the ADAPT Denver caravan to San Antonio, was sprung by Atlantis in 1976 from a nursing home he had been in since 1934. Another woman began feeding herself for the first time when she became part of Atlantis. She was always physically able to. Her mother just didn't want her making a mess. Another woman had never seen a head of lettuce. Her salads had always come to her prepared. It’s rather stunning seeing people who were mired in the world of please and thank you traveling around the country, blocking buses and maybe getting arrested. It’s gotten ADAPT and Atlantis in trouble with irate relatives. The father of a woman arrested for blocking buses in Denver told Wade that since he was a reverend he must be brainwashing his daughter into joining his cult, just like Jim Jones. He said he was going to tell the newspapers so they could investigate. But Blank says, “All we’re saying to people in Atlantis and ADAPT is, ‘You are an important person.’ I just tell them (the irate relatives) that people get excited when they see that they are important and that they are expected to be somebody.” In 1978, it became clear that the mission of Atlantis could never be fully accomplished as long as Denver’s public transit system was totally inaccessible. What good was it to set someone up in an accessible apartment if they couldn’t move beyond it? They might as well have still been in the nursing home. So the Atlantis people took to the streets of Denver. They blocked buses. They held sit-ins in the transit authority offices. They got arrested. But four years later, they won and Denver is on its way to full access. [Bordered text box in center of page: “We created a drama and let it unfold . . .I guess we raised consciousness.”] The next year, APTA made the mistake of holding its convention in Denver. The target was too tempting for Atlantis to resist. Here was the personification of everything Atlantis opposed right on its step and begging to be hit. Atlantis formed a permanent transportation component call ADAPT. They organized confrontations around the convention and vowed to follow APTA everywhere until it passed ADAPT ’s resolution renouncing the lawsuit and the damage it did. These confrontations would also provide a focal point and a training ground for activists from other cities so they could form their own ADAPT chapters. Mike Auberger of Atlantis is a quadriplegic resulting from a bobsled accident during the 1972 Olympic time trials. “When we started ADAPT, we were a bunch of crazy nuts. A year later, we were a possibility. Now, we’re a reality. We started in one city and here we are about 20 cities. We must be selling something everybody needs.” The hope is that the feeling of self-importance that inspired the disabled of Denver will be as infectious in San Antonio and in cities all over America. ADAPT paved the way in San Antonio by creating a three-day headache for the police and transit authority and forcing them to take the issue very seriously. They also permanently etched the issue on the minds of the people of San Antonio with pictures on the front page of the newspaper of disabled people blocking APTA tour buses. “We created a drama and let it unfold,” Blank says. “I was talking to a reporter and I said, ‘I guess we raised consciousness.’ She said, ‘Boy did you! That’s all this town is talking about.’ ” “Now you can’t say that about too many political movements today.” But even if it doesn’t play in San Antonio, Auberger sees what happened there as another battle won. “Again we took on APTA and beat them. You’ve got this guy in a $300 suit and a designer tie with his initials and a soup stain on it. More and more people are starting to see APTA that way.” If success can be judged by police reaction, ADAPT is accomplishing a lot. Knowing ADAPT ’s penchant for blocking buses, the police routed buses away from areas with high ratios of wheelchair-users. They obviously did their homework by talking to police in other cities who had to deal with ADAPT. A television news report even told of how San Antonio police intelligence photographers were following ADAPT members around. And it’s clear that transit authorities are taking ADAPT very seriously too. The next target is Los Angeles, where APTA will hold its convention in October. ADAPT has obtained a copy of a private memo of the Southern California Rapid Transit District that speaks of the authority’s plans to spend $10,000 to $15,000 to “handle vast numbers of wheelchair bound people” who will be coming to town. “While confrontations cannot be stopped, they can be blunted.” It speaks of how the RTD is “searching for ways to diffuse or ward off demonstrations,” perhaps by pacifying everyone for a few days with a conference on accessible transit [ibid]. “Can we take control by creating a hospitality center for the handicapped?” the memo says. Who can resist such an opportunity. ADAPT is on its way. - ADAPT (395)
St. Louis Post Dispatch 5-22-88 PHOTO by Ted Dargan/Post Dispatch: A Line of ADAPT people roll down a city street. The first person in line (Mike Auberger) has two long braids and sunglasses. His arms hang on either side of his motorized wheelchair and his ADAPT shirt is somewhat covered by the chest strap on his chair. Next to Mike is a man in a manual wheelchair with curly hair and a beard (Bob Kafka) who has is legs crossed and is wearing the same ADAPT shirt as Mike. Behind them a man (Jerry Eubanks) with no legs in a manual wheelchair is being pushed by a blind man (Frank Lozano) who is smiling. Behind them is another man in a maual wheelchair. Behind him is someone in a motorized wheelchair who is looking off to the side. Behind them is another person in a wheelchair. The photo is grainy so it's hard to make out many details. Caption reads: Disabled people demonstrating downtown last week for more accessible bus service. Title: Bus Stop By Joan Bray Of the Post-Dispatch Staff ACTIV1STS FROM local advocacy groups were absent from the scores of protesters who took to St. Louis streets last week asserting the rights of the disabled to accessible bus service. Leaders of the local groups say tactics, not goals, caused them and their members to opt out of the demonstrations. About 150 people blocked entrances at Union Station and surrounded buses at the Greyhound terminal. A majority of them were in wheelchairs, on crutches or otherwise disabled. And they were out-of-towners. They belong to a loosely woven group, American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, called ADAPT for short. The group was protesting the policies of the American Public Transit Association, which was holding a regional meeting at the Omni International Hotel at Union Station. As a result of ADAPT's civil disobedience, 78 arrests were made, two group court appearances were held and a lawsuit was filed by the group over treatment at the City Workhouse. We support ADAPT's policies on access 1,000 percent," said Max J. Starkloff. He is executive director here of Paraquad Inc., which advocates rights for the handicapped. "But we have not participated in the demonstrations." "Our methods are negotiation, public testimony and organized public rallies," Starkloff said. "Our goals ore the same" as ADAPT's. Both the local activists and ADAPT want the transit association to push for installing a wheelchair lift on every bus in the country. They see 100 percent accessibility as a civil right. Rut the transit association notes in a written statement that no such accessibility is required by the Constitution, the Congress or the courts. It says the number of lifts on buses has increased to 30 percent now from 11 percent in 1981. In that same period, the administration of President Ronald Reagan has slashed the federal transit program's budget by 47 percent, the association says. The association says each local transportation agency should be allowed to determine how it will provide access for the disabled. Special services — like the Call-A-Ride service operated by the Bi-State Development Agency — may work better than lift-equipped buses in some areas, the association says. Local groups' methods for effecting change include working within the system. Starkloff serves on Bi-State's committee on transit for the elderly and disabled. The chairman of that committee, Fred Cowell, is executive director of the Gateway chapter of Paralyzed Veterans of America. Bi-State has made a commitment to install wheelchair lifts on all its buses, Cowell said. But the committee wants the agency's board of directors to adopt a policy stating it will do so. "We know that the buses are here to stay," Cowell said. "If or when budget cuts come, special services such as Call-A-Ride would be the first to go." Cowell and Starkloff said they feared that between the bureaucracy and the protests, the primary point — the need for equal transportation — was being missed. "A disabled person is not unlike any other person," Cowell said. Disabled people need to get to their jobs, to medical care and to social engagements, be said. "There is absolutely no difference in their need to get around," he said. Starkloff noted that the cost of a van equipped for a wheelchair — a minimum of about $20,000 — was prohibitive for most people. But the disabled should not have to wait at a bus stop on the chance that the next bus may be equipped with a lift, be said. Nor should they have to plan their trips 24 hours in advance, as Call-A-Ride requires, he said. Cowell said, "The main thing the (BI-State) committee has been trying to do is develop a deepening concern for services for the disabled and elderly." The fact that the committee has been successful in persuading Bi-State to buy only buses with lifts prevented the agency from bearing the brunt of ADAPT's effort here, one of the protest leaders said. The Rev. Wade Blank, a Presbyterian minister from Denver, is a co-director of ADAPT. He has a daughter who is disabled. Two months ago, representatives of ADAPT met with State officials in preparation for their trip here and learned of the agency's commitment to lifts, Blank said. As a result, ADAPT aimed its protests at the transit association's meeting and Greyhound Bus Lines. Greyhound is bidding on local routes in some metropolitan areas — Dallas, for one, Blank said. But it does not equip its buses with lifts, he said. A spokesman for Greyhound said last week that, instead, it provided a free ticket for a companion for a disabled traveler. Regarding the transit meeting, Blank said: "Our whole intent is to go after people who are so much wrapped up in the system that they insulate themselves from the issue. They have to live and breathe (ADAPT's protests) when they go to these conventions." Demonstrators here represented some of ADAPTs 33 chapters across the country, Blank said. He said his headquarters was with a group in Denver called the Atlantis Community, which moves disabled people out of nursing homes into independent living arrangements. Funding comes primarily from church donations and foundation grants, he said. From 1978 to 1981, ADAPT protested — and "caused a major disruption" — in Denver every month, Blank said. In 1982, the buses there became 100 percent equipped with lifts, he noted. ADAPT has since protested in all the cities where the transit association has met and where it has been invited by other activists, for a total of about 15 cities, Blank said. [unreadable] ...only buses with lifts, he said. Blank said the failure of local groups to join ADAPT's protests did not weaken the cause. Another success that ADAPT points to is a ruling by a federal Judge in Philadelphia in January striking down a regulation of the US. Department of Transportation that allows transit authorities to spend only 3 percent of their budgets on the disabled. The Judge postponed the effect of the ruling while the Justice Department appeals it. Three percent of Bi-State's budget for the current fiscal year Is $2.6 million, said Rosemary Covington, an agency official who works with the advisory committee. But Bi-State will spend only $1 million because of delays in getting bids on new buses and in expanding the Call-A-Ride service. "We are having budget problems, but that wasn't the reason" the money wasn't spent, Covington said. The remaining $1.6 million does not roll over to the fiscal year that begins July 1, she said. She said that by early next year, Bi-State expected that 221 of its fleet of about 700 buses will be equipped with lifts, 12 of the more than 120 routes will be operated entirely with lift-equipped buses, the Call-A-Ride service will include all of St. Louis County and the city and a voucher system will be available for back-up cab service. Equipping all the agency's buses with lifts will take six to seven years, Covington said. Meanwhile the committee will help evaluate the services for the disabled, she said. "If ridership doesn't materialize" on the buses with lifts or "if it costs thousands or millions (of dollars) to maintain them, that will enter into the decision making," Covington said. Bi-State is training drivers how to use the lifts and plans to promote and advertise the service heavily, she said. - ADAPT (530)
Different TIMES THE NEWSPAPER DEDICATED TO THE PROPOSITION THAT ALL PERSONS ARE CREATED DIFFERENT, BUT EQUAL $125 Vol. IV, No.4 April, 1990 Protesters disable capitol Photo (World Wide Photos): Three protesters in wheelchairs sit in front of the Capitiol building beside the crowd. One sits, back to the camera, Walter Hart faces the camera with a bandanna and dark glasses, and Joe Carle sits sideways. Behind them in the far distance is the dome of the Capitol and directly behind them between the dome and the group is the ADAPT flag (an American flag with the stars arranged in the access symbol.) Caption reads: About 1500 persons of disability rallied for protest outside capitol in Washington, D.C. last month. STORY 1: by Vonne Worth Protest marches last month may influence passage of a strong Americans with Disabilities Act soon. 1500 join in Washington, DC demonstrations to pass ADA in House On March 12, Americans with Disabilities for Accessible Public Transportation (ADAPT) marched from the White House to the Capitol Building, said Mike Auberger, an organizer with ADAPT. About 1500 people from all over the country with many different disabilities took part, he said. At the White House, a spokesperson "reaffirmed President Bush's position that he wanted to see the Senate version of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) passed intact," Auberger said. The ADA is a civil rights act for persons of disability which prohibits discrimination in employment, transportation, public services, public accommodations, and telecommunications. It has passed the Senate and is now in the House of Representatives, where some business interests are lobbying heavily against it. ADAPT was demonstrating to work for passage of the ADA, according to Auberger. After the march to the capitol, several speakers talked to the crowd. They included Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.); Rep. Major Owens (D-N.Y.), one of the sponsors of the ADA; Justin Dart, of the Congressional Task Force on Rights and Empowerment of Americans with Disabilities; Jim Brady, former President Reagan's press secretary; Auberger, and others. Then there was a crawl up the steps of the capitol. "The reason for the crawl was to let everybody in the House know that we're not going to let any obstacle stop us from having the ADA passed," Auberger said. “It wasn't to gain sympathy or to gain votes." ADAPT protesters marched to the rotunda the following day, March 13, and took over the rotunda. 104 of them were arrested. March l4, ADAPT demonstrators went to the Sam Rayburn Building. “We took over [Rep.] Bud Schuster's (R-Pa.) office who's the minority chairman of the Transportation Committee," Auberger said. “He's been the one within the Transportation Committee who's tried to add amendments like ‘Cities under 200,000 would not have to lift-equip their vehicles." “Also he was going after inclement weather—if you had too much snow, like we have here in Denver, you wouldn't have to have lift-equipped vehicles even though we already do. We have an average of 60 inches of snow a year," Auberger related. “Most of those amendments were defeated," Auberger added. “At the same time, we met with Hamilton Fish, (R-NY) who is the minority chairman of the Judiciary Committee," Auberger said. The ADA is undergoing constant attempts to weaken the remedy section; however, Fish didn't seem aware of this, according to Auberger. But Fish sat down in his office with about 30 disabled people and "talked with us probably for about a half hour and made a commitment that he would do everything within his position as minority leader of that Committee to see that there isn't any weakening and we were also at the Judiciary Committee Offices and we were working on setting up a meeting with Attorney General Thornburgh because he was the one who had been raising the issue of weakening the remedies section," Auberger said. “They were working on that and they tried to stall so at about seven o'clock, they were closing the capitol, we all refused to leave from Bud Schuster's office and from the Judiciary Committee and there were 60 people arrested in those offices and we got out about one o'clock that night," Auberger related. He said the demonstrations seemed to work. “lt clearly had this real effect on the hill when you went up there." PHOTO (by Tom Olin): Looking from over the shoulders and head of a woman (Cassie James) on the floor sitting between the back of a power wheelchair and a desk, she is holding onto the desk with her left arm and is scrunched in. Over her head on the other side of the room 3 other people people with disabilities out of their wheelchairs (Eric von Schmeterling, Carol Marfisi and Kent Killam) are sitting on the floor. Behind them is a desk and the wall with photos on it, Congressional meomentos. Caption reads: Demonstrators sit in Rep. Bud Schuster’s (R-Pa.) office to protest his sponsorship of amendments that would have substantially weakened ADA sections dealing with transportation. All of a sudden, these representatives knew the ADA was an issue and that disabled people were here and they [the congresspersons] had that look of ‘Are you one of them that are raising all the hell?’ They had a whole different understanding of disability—that you need to see a different side of disabled people, not the side that you want to think of as poor and helpless. They clearly were educated very fast over those two days,” Auberger commented. “Now as a result of that demonstration and one in Philadelphia, the Department of Transportation (DOT) has rewritten the final regs to require all mainline systems to be lift-equipped into the future and to provide paratransit for those people who cannot get to the bus stop. These are new regs that have 90-day comment periods—the transit industry is not going" to oppose them,” he explained. Also, ADA should come to the House for a vote soon. It will be brought the the floor within 60 days and there is a lot of support for the bill, said Charles Siegal, from Speaker Foley’s press secretary’s office. ADA went through the Energy Committee without any amendments and no changes from the Senate version, Auberger indicated. “That happened while we were there and I'm sure that's why it happened that way," he said. STORY 2: by Vonne Worth A protest in Washington, D.C. by a disability group has resulted in the filing of a half-million-dollarlawsuit against the District of Columbia Court System. Americans with Disabilities for Accessible Public Transportation (ADAPT), many in wheelchairs, crawled up the stairs to the nation ’s capitol and took over the rotunda on March 13. They demanded to talk to Speaker of the House Tom Foley (D-Wash.) and Minority Leader of the House Robert Michel (R-Ill.) about passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). “He [Foley] was not happy to come to meet with us" said Mike Auberger, organizer with ADAPT. "He didn't seem to have met with a lot of disability groups, he didn't quite know how to respond to that many disabled people and he talked about him pushing and speeding up the process and he tried to explain ‘we don’t understand the legislative process,’ and we said, ‘of course, we do, we're not totally stupid, just disabled.” “And Michel pretty much came out with the same sentiment and we let him know that he and other Republicans could be targets of the demonstration later in the week simply because they put more and more and more weakening amendments into the ADA,” Auberger added. The talk seemed to break down and the Capitol Police were called. “They were continuing to speak, we heard enough and so we were pretty much just chanting at that point ‘ADA now, now less,"' Auberger said. “At the point where we decided people could get arrested, all went to the center of the rotunda and circled there and several of us chained ourselves together with kryptonite locks," Auberger related. Within 15 minutes, 104 people, most of them in wheelchairs, were arrested, Auberger indicated. Then the police couldn’t cut through the locks. “They tried bolt cutters, they tried two different types of bolt cutters, they didn't work, so they had to bring in a hydraulic bolt cutter and it finally did work on the first one, but it broke on the second one, so they finally tried the bolt cutters again and they went through this whole process of getting these 104 people who were chanting in the middle of the rotunda ‘ADA now’ out," Auberger said. “It took about two and a half hours to get everybody out of the building since they only used one elevator which could take only one person at a time," Auberger explained. “At 1:28 Eastern time, they had to close the capitol to the public so that they could ‘get rid of all those rowdy disabled people." “They didn't have lift-equipped vehicles, so they had to lift everybody into vans and it took four or five officers to lift each chair into a van and they drive off with two chairs to a van to the police station, and then it took four or five more officers" to get them off, Auberger said. “They took everybody to police headquarters where they booked everybody and released them the next moming about one o'clock," Auberger related. It took 12 hours for the police to book 104 people. “This was a major process, them getting everybody out there," Auberger said, “lt was just a nightmare for them." The next afternoon, they went to the Sam Rayburn Building and took over offices of the congressmen on the Transportation and Judiciary Committees. About 60 people were arrested that day. The next two days were spent in court, Auberger said. “The majority of people ended up paying $10 in court costs and suspended sentences and that was pretty much it,” Auberger said. “There were five people who were given probation in their own cities from six months to a year just for being, I would suspect, ringleaders," he said. The judge in the case was disabled. “He had an arm that he couldn’t use at all,” Auberger said. Auberger said he felt the judge wasn’t sympathetic to the case. “His position was ‘You write your congressman if you want to change things,”’ Auberger said. “We all did that, clearly. It didn’t do a damn bit of good, but he wasn’t going to hear that. He pretty much gave out fines, four of them were for $100 and ten day suspended sentences and mine was $500 and a 20 day suspended sentence plus I have the longest, a year probation in-my city.” Auberger said it was rare for courts to send probation orders back to one’s home city. “Ironically, what was so incredible was the next day, when we went to file our probation papers, the building we were supposed to file our probation papers in was inaccessible,” Auberger said. “We come back to the courthouse, we talked to our attomey; unfortunately, the judge wasn’t around.” “They [had] put us all on probation and then we couldn’t get into the building to do the probation. Well, then, they told us, ‘Do it out in the hall by the courtroom.’.No. That's unacceptable. If everybody else goes into the building, we should be able to as well.” “So we’ve now filed a half a million dollar lawsuit against the District of Columbia Court System for denying us our civil rights.” About 250 people took part in the action. Copyright 1990, Different TIMES