For Immediate release:
March 24, 2008
For Information contact:
Bob Kafka (512) 431-4085
Marsha Katz(406) 544-9504
www.adapt25.org
www.adaptfunrun.org
www.adapt.org
ADAPT Celebrates 25 Years of Social Change through Direct Action
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has."
Margaret Mead
Washington, D.C.--- 25 years ago, Rev. Wade Blank, and Mike Auberger,
Co-Directors of the Atlantis Community, a Denver Center for Independent Living,
proclaimed their intent to take their local activism, which used direct action
to bring about positive changes in the Denver community, to a national level.
Looking at the rag-tag group of two dozen people with disabilities that had
shown up for a protest to make Denver mainline buses accessible, nationally
renown organizer Shel Trapp shook his head and said "It will never happen." Yet,
over the next 7 years, these three men and that rag tag group, along with dozens
more that came to join with them each year, achieved exactly that outcome by
forming ADAPT, then known as Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transit.
25 years later, over the course of a week, from April 26 to May 2, in
Washington, D.C., over 1000 people with disabilities and supporters from all
over the country will participate in a variety of events to remember ADAPT's
humble beginnings in 1983, celebrate the growth and progress of the disability
rights movement during the past 25 years, and set the stage for continuing
activism in the years to come.
ADAPT's humble beginnings grew into a national grassroots activist movement that
has changed the face of the disability rights movement. ADAPT has been
memorialized in photos by Tom Olin taken at ADAPT actions over the years. Olin's
photos of ADAPT have appeared in the Smithsonian, are part of the National Civil
Rights Museum, and show up continually in national press and media, in scores of
books, on posters, and in every corner of the world wide web.
Events occurring during the ADAPT 25 anniversary celebration week include:
* A Sunday, April 27 Fun Run/Roll around Upper Senate Park in Washington, D.C.
that is open to the public and serves as combination fundraiser and celebration
kick-off.. The National Fun Runner/Roller is Marca Bristo, Executive Director of
Access Living in Chicago, IL, and one of the founders and former president of
the National Council on Independent Living, and Chair of the National Council on
Disability during the Clinton Administration.
* Three days of activism throughout the Washington, D.C. area on April 28-30,
including the announcement of the 2008" Ten Worst States in the Provision of
Home and Community-based Services."
* An April 30 evening showing at the Holiday Inn Capitol Hotel of "When You
Remember Me," a made for TV movie starring Kevin Spacey, Ellen Burstyn and Fred
Savage. The film chronicles ADAPT co-founder Wade Blank's work freeing young
people with disabilities from a Denver nursing home...work that led into the
creation of both Atlantis, and then ADAPT.
* A May 1 daylong celebration at the Holiday Inn Capitol Hotel that will include
multi-room historical exhibits, multi-media presentations, StoryCorps, The Road
to Freedom Bus, an anniversary cook-out and an evening retrospective show with
live music, and remarks by former Rep Pat Shroeder (CO) and ADAPT activists from
around the country.
The public is invited to participate in the Fun Run/Roll on April 27 or sponsor
participants (www.adaptfunrun.org), and to tour the exhibits at the Holiday Inn
Capitol Hotel on May 1.
ADAPT crawled up the Capitol steps in 1990 to help push the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) toward passage when it was dangerously bogged down in
Congress. When the ADA passed, lifts on buses were the first change required.
ADAPT has assured that over-the-road buses, along with local transit, had to
comply with the ADA.
ADAPT is credited with being the reason for the 2005 passage of Money Follows
the Person legislation that allows people with disabilities in nursing homes to
move back into the community with their funding "following" them to provide
services and supports in their own homes. Over the years ADAPT efforts
nationally have been largely responsible for the federal government moving to
"rebalance" the nation's long-term care funding from being overwhelmingly
institutionally biased to a system that will equally support home and
community-based services.
ADAPT is currently working for passage of the bi-partisan Community Choice Act (CCA)
(S. 799, H.R. 1621), which would completely remove the Medicaid institutional
bias and allow people to choose to remain in their own homes with the services
and supports they need rather than being forced into nursing homes and other
institutions in the first place.
People interested in learning more about ADAPT and/or the 25th Anniversary
events can go to the websites above, or call 512-442-0252, or 303-733-9324.
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