Journal of Community Choice Act Day - Washington DC
ADAPT Action Report: Wednesday, April 29, 2009By Tim Wheat
I wake up at six, but technically the day began for me at the Hart Senate Office building. As the clock made its way from PM to AM I was still waiting for my brothers and sisters to be released from their eleven hour ordeal under arrest.
Earlier in the day 99 activists, angry that Congress may consider Health Care reform without including action to end the institutional bias, blocked the two largest streets on the north and south of the Capitol. The activists arrested had been kept by the police on Capitol Hill and out of touch with the rest of ADAPT for the day. The police were cordial and professional; they gave ADAPTers plenty of water, but no food. The activists were anxious to get to the pizza waiting for them at the hotel.
ADAPT is a non-violent direct-action group and today we had engaged in civil-disobedience to show our anger at Congress being cold to the idea of including long-term services and supports in any healthcare reform this year. Long-term services and supports are part of Medicaid that will pay for your life in a nursing home. We are people with disabilities that can say by experience that an institution is not where anyone would choose to live. Do you want to live in a nursing home?
When the police had released everyone that was arrested in the street I joined the group of about 60 who made our way back to the Holiday Inn Capitol. It was cool and breezy walking through the quiet Washington DC streets at night. Brilliant lights illuminate the Capitol dome at night to make a unique cityscape that has always given me a feeling of awe. Even as I criticize our federal government for condemning citizens to horrible institutions because they have a disability, I have respect and admiration for the great marble buildings and the institutions they contain.
Returning to the hotel was one of the reasons I am out here and why I want to work hard do my best for ADAPT. I look down and see straight-up 1:00 A.M. on my watch. Ahead of me are about 80 ADAPT members chanting loudly for the returning group. I rush ahead to capture on video the reunion. Even though I was not arrested, I walk down the center of the welcome gauntlet and it feels great. I feel accepted and appreciated. There were hugs and tears as the main body of those arrested returned. I am sure everyone returning strongly felt the love and gratitude of the welcome home.
The police probably kept the ADAPT activists those many hours to cool the group off and to logistically make organizing the next day’s action more difficult. The difficult conditions and long hours however, had the opposite effect: Our group became more powerful from the ordeal, more motivated and more united.
9:AM
It is cold with a wind blowing through the urban setting of our hotel. ADAPT members in the lobby are fully engaged in preparing themselves for the rain and cold. Someone is passing out multi-colored rain ponchos and there is an assembly line to protect our lunches from the rain by putting them in plastic bags. The crowded lobby is alive with intent conversations as the anxiety level rises and the time to leave gets closer.
9:58
I took about 15 minutes to help organize the hand-outs for Congress today. I put a cover letter in the ADAPT Community Choice Act summary and put them into stacks of 25. I made three stacks before I just had to get outside to be with the ADAPT line. I joked with the other volunteers by loudly stating that “I quit!” They still had a lot to do – they did not think I was funny.
10:16
ADAPT moves out into the rain. I make a final check of my gear to try to make sure that everything is in a plastic bag to survive the rain. I am also in a plastic bag; I have a bright yellow poncho that someone handed me in the lobby. Strangely, and what you may expect from ADAPT, the variety of colored ponchos creates an unintentional ADAPT statement on diversity. All colors and types are accepted in any order and fashion; but rather than chaos, as someone might expect, the assortment makes a harmony of colors.
11:00
The last of the ADAPT line reaches the Upper Senate Park. I took some photos of the group climbing Capitol Hill in the rain, but the contrast from yesterday is striking: brilliant sunlight and sharp images, compared with the misty rain and soft lines today.
All ADAPT gathers facing the fountain in Upper Senate Park as if a stage was there to hold expected speakers including Senator Tom Harkin. But there is no stage; instead, everyone eats lunch in the rain facing the empty space. We are waiting on members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to join us for the rally.
11:40
Johnny Crescendo gets some music going out of stage speakers covered by trash bags to keep dry. The rain has given us a small reprieve, but no one is so confident that the rain has stopped that they have removed their poncho. Johnny has created the vision of a stage in the empty space in front of ADAPT and he sings to warm up the crowd as SEIU members gradually arrive in their purple attire.
12:00
Cassie James and Mike Oxford for ADAPT get the rally started. I have enough confidence that the rain has stopped that I take off my poncho, most ADAPT members leave their ponchos on expecting more rain or just to keep warm. ADAPT and SEIU speakers take turns reminding the crowd of the importance of the Community Choice Act and preparing the group together to visit members of Congress to ask for their support.
Mike Oxford introduces Senator Tom Harkin as the name most associated with the Community Choice Act. Sen. Harkin strolls comfortably through the rally to the microphone; he begins by recognizing SEIU and thanking them for their joining to support CCA.
Sen. Harkin then turns to ADAPT, or has he says: “A-dapt.” He thanks the group for what it did Monday, referring to the arrests at the White House, and thanks ADAPT for civil disobedience. He points out the important role of civil disobedience in the struggle for civil rights and tells us that he referrers to Bob Kafka of ADAPT as the Martin Luther King of the disability rights movement.
Sen. Harkin’s speech is truly great and right on target for the crowd. It is fantastic to hear the things that each ADAPT member believes being stated so clearly by the Senator. He makes the commitment to fight for CCA to be included in healthcare reform. He says that like ADAPT committing civil disobedience, if long-term services and supports are not included in a healthcare reform package, he will “commit senatorial-disobedience.”
2:25
We took the energy from the rally and split up in various groups to visit all of the members of Congress. Larry of Kansas was the leader of the group I was with and our goal was to visit a dozen Senators on the third floor of the Hart Building. The best visits were those that we had a chance to tell real stories about choice in services.
Larry delegated different tasks to each of us as we visited the Senate offices. Dorian and Greg were with our small group from SEIU and they took up the responsibilities right beside ADAPT in each office that we visited. We were often asked about the cost, but the real reason for CCA is not that nursing homes are so expensive; it is because it is discrimination to only give Americans a choice that forces them away from their homes and families. ADAPT and SEIU have joined to support the CCA because it is a civil rights issue and a step that America must take to support citizens with disabilities.
4:30
Finished with the legislative visits, the group has to get back to the hotel and ready for our final meeting at 6:30. I am exhausted, but the first thing I do when I get to my room is transfer the Harkin speech I videotaped to my computer. Hearing the speech again as the video plays still moves me. Overall, ADAPT showed its power in Washington but it is difficult to explain the success to the average person on the street.
The typical American may think access to Congress is a simple thing, sending emails and phone calls. Of course, voting is important and a typical citizen may get really passionate about an issue and get involved in many ways. Behind the dark walls of nursing homes all over this country however; are one and a half million Americans that are locked away because they are disabled. ADAPT is working to bring those real life stories out of the urine-soaked halls of the nursing homes and into the mainstream. This week ADAPT worked to get that message to the halls of Congress.
I am going to end here. After ADAPT’s final meeting, there was a riotous party. Come to the next action in October and experience it yourself.