WE Were There . . .
Bob Liston and Marsha Katz
Nashville, 1993
Bob Liston and Marsha Katz read their narrative.
In fact, we spent our honeymoon not too far from Opryland in separate-but-equal
cells in the Nashville prison with 100 of our ADAPT brothers and sisters.
We honeymooned in Nashville because the American Health Care Association (AHCA),
the nursing home lobby, was holding its annual conference at Opryland, and ADAPT
was hot on AHCA’s trail.
We were married on September 10, 1993 in Michigan, asking our friends and
families to forego presents and instead donate money to our ADAPT Nashville
honeymoon fund. Little did we know what an exciting and exhilarating honeymoon
it would be!
On Day One of the action, 300 of us marched down Music Valley Drive to the
Opryland Hotel, crossing over a busy four-lane highway to reach the entrance. We
were met by hotel security that informed us they had graciously cordoned off an
“official protest area” in the north 40 of their huge parking lot, and if we
chose not to use that area and come onto Opryland property, we would be
arrested.
Underscoring that threat were the sounds of the police helicopter continuously
circling overhead like something out of the “MASH” TV series. It turned out that
the Nashville police had spent thousands of dollars researching how to deal with
ADAPT, and how to arrest us “sensitively.” Their advanced “surveillance tactics”
included observing us by air, hoping they could get a heads up on our next move
and thwart it, and assigning several plain clothes cops to mingle with us to
gather intelligence.
We decided against immediately entering the Opryland grounds and facing arrest
before we had a chance to deliver our message to create a national personal
assistance program that would Free Our People! from being warehoused in nursing
homes where corporate owners (AHCA) profited greatly by keeping them there. The
security personnel and police thought their threats and air surveillance had
intimidated us into retreat.
As usual, law enforcement had greatly underestimated the power and ingenuity of
ADAPT!
We quickly regrouped, filled all four crosswalks, and began to cross all the
streets at the Opryland Hotel entrance, effectively cutting off all traffic in
every direction, including traffic trying to exit the four-lane highway. We
weren’t breaking any laws, so we couldn’t be arrested. Moreover, we had created
a real traffic problem for the police, so they now “had a dog in our fight” and
so they pushed AHCA to come out and negotiate with us! Within two hours AHCA
agreed to a meeting two days later, thinking that they had now bought Nashville
two days of respite from our activism.
How wrong they were! On Day Two we decided to pay a visit to the Tennessee
Capitol to confront the Governor. The Governor and legislature had persistently
chosen to ignore the civil rights and personal assistance needs of Tennessee
citizens with disabilities, forcing many Tennesseans to leave the state and move
elsewhere so they could live in the community with personal assistance instead
of lying unattended for hours in their own waste in a nursing home.
Using the two tiny elevators accessed from the Capitol basement, we ferried
people up to the Governor’s office, which we found blocked by state security
personnel. Again regrouping, we kept ferrying people up the elevators until we
filled the halls outside the Governor’s office, trapping the Governor’s staff
and security, and creating our own version of a nursing home where no one got in
or out without our permission. Our chants of “The People United Will Never Be
Defeated” in both English and Spanish echoed through the Capitol.
We demanded that the staff call the Governor, who was in Germany, and arrange a
meeting. When staff informed us that the Governor was in the midst of dinner and
couldn’t talk, we decided we might as well eat, too, and promptly ordered pizza
for 300. As we enjoyed lunch, Capitol staff members were climbing in and out of
windows to come and go, and the police had blocked off the streets around the
Capitol, again creating enough of a problem that the Governor finally committed
to a meeting when he got back to the states. We quickly held a press conference
announcing that the Governor had agreed to a meeting and marched back to our
hotel in time for a late dinner and a celebration of two days of action with our
demands met.
Day Three began with AHCA making excuse after excuse about the meeting they had
agreed to on Day One. Not accepting these lame excuses, ADAPT went to the agreed
upon meeting place, a Ramada Inn across from the Opryland Hotel, only to find
out that AHCA hadn’t even tried to get a meeting room. They also didn’t tell us
that Opryland had offered a 250-person meeting room. It was obvious that they
had lied to us and the media, and had no intention of meeting with us.
In true ADAPT fashion, we decided that if they wouldn’t honor their commitment
to meet, we’d take the meeting to them. With the police helicopter flying
overhead, two lines started to move quickly down the two entry drives, opening
the way for a third wave to fly through the flimsy barriers that Opryland
security had constructed, thinking that a simple saw horse could keep ADAPT from
its objective. They had even parked a school bus so it blocked the entrance
lanes to the hotel, leaving the exit lanes open, and not realizing that ADAPT
had no qualms about going in the “out lanes!”
Before the hotel security had time to lock the doors to keep us out, a small
handful of ADAPT activists led by Bob, got into the meeting room and started
chanting and handing out flyers.
While Bob and the others were now locked in, another hundred of us had made it
to the front doors, and were eventually arrested by the police and kept in a
roped off area until a fleet of yellow school buses arrived to transport us to
jail. Since the local jail was not accessible, we were all carted off to the
local prison behind a chain-link fence topped with three rows of concertina
wire. Once inside, we were separated with Bob put in the male holding room and
Marsha put in the female holding room. The prison Social Worker stayed and fed
us sandwiches, and allowed us to watch all the coverage of our action on TV.
A magistrate came from town and spent the night processing and booking all of
us, and we were served with a restraining order that said we could not go back
on Opryland property.
Dawn of Day Four found us marching back to our hotel, where the Opryland lawyer
met us with a very unusual offer. Fearing we might protest at the Country Music
Awards that night, they offered us a press conference with several country music
stars, and never ones to avoid the bizarre….we accepted! At 5 p.m., surrounded
by a ton of media, the TV cameras rolled as Bob, and Paulette Patterson,
Jennifer McPhail and Mark Johnson articulated ADAPT’s demand for a national
attendant services program while flanked by Porter Wagoner, Bill Anderson and
William Lee Golden of the Oak Ridge Boys. After our presentation, the country
stars spoke in support of freedom and independence for people with disabilities,
and wore ADAPT t-shirts when they performed later that night.
We left Tennessee the next morning, exhausted and exhilarated with honeymoon
memories we will never forget, and with AHCA on notice that we would see them
again in 1994 at their convention in Las Vegas!