Meet the disabled activists from Denver who changed a nation.. The
protesters held control of Sen. Cory Gardner's Denver waiting room for 57
hours. The
roughly 8- by 12-foot room felt cramped. The building designers probably
didn't take into account a nine person sit-in that included five
wheelchairs -
or the supporters who sneaked onto the closed-off floor to bring food and
medications.. The protest was organized by ADAPT, a national organization
born
in Colorado that has fought for the rights of people with disabilities since
the 1970s. The group's demand was simple: They would leave once Gardner
vowed
to vote no on the Senate health care bill. At 6:30 p.m. Thursday, 11
protesters were on the floor. The waiting room was giddy as the group
updated those
watching their livestream. The protesters were unaware that police were
already en route, unaware that their cheerful banter would soon turn to
fervid
chants and that they wouldn't reach hour 58. Nine protesters were arrested
in Gardner's office that night. Another was taken into custody downstairs.
All
were charged with trespassing, while a couple also were tagged with
additional charges of resisting arrest. Carrie Ann Lucas was the last to be
taken away.
Her ventilator gave police pause, so they decided to send her to a hospital
to be checked and released. Police called a Regional Transportation District
bus to move Lucas, who uses a wheelchair. As the bus pulled up, a lift
dropped down so Lucas could be rolled on. The irony wasn't missed. The
wheelchair-accessible
bus that carried Lucas away last week exists because of a similarly dramatic
civil disobedience action held by the same group nearly 40 years ago. In the
early morning of Wednesday, July 5, 1978, protesters waited for an RTD bus.
It rolled to a stop at Broadway and Colfax Avenue, one of the busiest
intersections
in the state. Within seconds, it was swarmed as people in wheelchairs
blocked both front and back. The group, then called Atlantis, had been
talking to
RTD for more than a year trying to get wheelchair lifts added to all buses.
A new fleet had just been released, but none was accessible. People were
angry.
Another bus pulled behind the first. Protesters surrounded it, too, locking
both in place. Traffic stalled for miles. Police of increasing rank would
come,
demanding that the group disperse. But the protesters - known as the Gang of
Nineteen - didn't budge for two days. Not until RTD agreed to add lifts. It
was the first public transit agency in the nation to do so. "(Police) were
beside themselves," said Barry Rosenberg, one of the founders of ADAPT, who
talked about the experience with a smile. He was a runner that day, watching
from the sidewalk and bringing people supplies. "They didn't know what to
do. That was the start of something big for people with disabilities. The
group had held actions before, but this was the first to garner national
attention.
It served as a turning point, with some calling it the shot heard around the
world, Rosenberg said. People with disabilities were willing to get arrested
for their rights. Arrests are laughable At 6:37 p.m. Thursday, a protester
received a text. Police had arrived downstairs. The group began to talk
hurriedly,
planning strategy for the next move. Although tension was high, no one
appeared afraid. Just an hour earlier, everyone had laughed when asked if
they had
been arrested. "No one's a rookie here," one responded. One ADAPT member
joined in January and had already been arrested three times - now four.
Arrests
are almost like merit badges. Bruce Darling, one of ADAPT's national
organizers, described the organization as akin to a volunteer army for the
disabled
community. The health care debate is stagnant because of the politeness of
the discourse, he said. Holding loud demonstrations turns the needle. "This
is about life and liberty," Darling said, referencing how many in the
disabled community fear a cut to Medicaid will take away money that allows
them to
live independently. "This country wasn't founded by a group of people who
held a press conference and said the king was unjust. Some have criticized
the
group for their actions, saying they should protest legally. But ADAPT has a
long track record of attention-getting, nonviolent civil disobedience that
extends back to when the group was founded in Denver by the Rev. Wade Blank,
a man who loved the drama of guerrilla theater. People with disabilities
used
sledgehammers to break curbs in 1980, forcing Colorado to be the first state
to install ramps on sidewalks. People in wheelchairs circled the annual
American
Public Transportation Association convention, forcing attendees to climb
over them, which eventually led to a national standard for accessible buses.
Protesters
left their wheelchairs to crawl up the Capitol steps in Washington,
influencing legislators to finally pass the Americans with Disabilities Act.
And as
Denver saw last week, ADAPT has been holding sit-ins and die-ins in
legislators' offices across the nation, including Majority Leader Sen. Mitch
McConnell's
office, hoping to persuade senators to vote no on the proposed health care
bill. It's not that ADAPT doesn't use other avenues. The organization
lobbies,
works with lawmakers and helps with policy. But often advocates won't be
able to go anywhere doing just that, Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition
Executive
Director Julie Reiskin said. "I see ADAPT's role kind of where it's always
been as the people who are willing to go to the mat when needed and engage
in
nonviolent civil disobedience when needed," she said. "They're really
representing all of (the disabled community). Look at the health care bill,
for example,
she said. Despite the national attention it was getting, no one was talking
about how people with disabilities would be affected. In Colorado, people
with
disabilities make up 7 percent of Medicaid participants but 27 percent of
the program's funding. Now it's on the front page. By federal law, Medicaid
is
required to fund nursing homes. Many in the disabled community have a
tumultuous relationship with nursing homes, saying they take away individual
freedoms.
Many feel home- and community-based services that allow people to live
independently will bear the brunt of the cuts. Darling said people are
afraid they
will be dragged into homes. Reiskin said many members of her organization
can't participate in drastic protests. But many, ranging from liberals to
conservatives,
have written her to say they're glad ADAPT is taking a stand for them. "It's
times like this that make people realize there are things that have to be
done that aren't very comfortable," she said. "People are so grateful that
people are willing to do this. The minister Mollie Brainard pointed to a
photo
of the Rev. Wade Blank in a newspaper clipping during a tour of the Atlantis
Community Center. "I think he kind of looks like John Lennon," she said. The
walls of the center are covered with newspaper articles, separated by years,
cities and significant national events. Brainard, an administrative
assistant
there, said she has been at the center for 14 years and still hasn't read
them all. In the early 1970s, Blank began working as the recreation director
for the youth wing at the Heritage House, a nursing home in Denver. He had a
reputation of stirring up trouble, Brainard explained. It started small. He
let patients choose which color of shirt they wore. Then residents asked to
have pizza delivered. Young people wanted portable cassette players so they
didn't have to listen to the same music as their 70-year-old roommates. And
as people with disabilities gained more and more freedom, they began to push
back against nurses, not wanting to take behavioral medicine. When the
Grateful Dead came into town, Blank took the youth to the concert. When he
returned
to Heritage House, his desk had been packed. While still working at the
home, Blank became close with the young residents, including Michael Smith,
a teen
with muscular dystrophy who couldn't leave his bed. Smith had been put in a
nursing home when he was 11. He didn't have a long life expectancy. Smith
made
Blank promise that he wouldn't die there. Blank returned to Heritage House
soon after he was fired. The moment he stepped inside, he was told to leave.
He just needed to talk quickly with Smith, he said. When Blank left the
nursing home, he wheeled Smith out the door with him, taking the hospital
bed and
ventilator, too. Blank found Smith a garden-level apartment. He hired a
friend who was a certified nursing assistant to be Smith's attendant for $20
a
week. It was the first time someone had made a nursing home transition. In
fact, it was the first time the idea of home-based services was even
conceived,
Brainard said. Blank eventually moved more people from the youth wing into
their own apartments. During that time, he created the Atlantis Community
Center,
and ADAPT grew from that. Brainard finished the story. She pointed to a
picture of Smith in his own apartment. He looked happy. Life and liberty
With his
feet still planted in the hallway, Gardner's state director leaned into the
room to read off a piece of paper. Building management had informed
Gardner's
office that it was in violation of the lease by allowing the protesters to
stay. Everyone needed to leave, and Denver police had been called to assist.
Protesters had been waiting 57 hours for this moment. They lay on the ground
to make removal more complicated while chanting "Rather go to jail than to
die without Medicaid. The sound consumed the room. A police officer used a
bullhorn to warn protesters that they needed to leave or face arrest. They
continued
chanting. One by one, police offered a protester the chance to leave before
arresting them. Some held onto wheelchairs with death grips. Others simply
refused to tell officers how to operate their chairs. Robin Stephens, Dawn
Russell, Karyn Heffernan, Dawn Howard, Lonnie Smith, Lucas, Caryn Sodaro,
Jacqueline
Mitchell and Hope Moseley were arrested on charges of trespassing. Jordan
Sibayan was arrested while protesting downstairs. "People are a little
surprised.
They're surprised by the reaction of disabled protesters. Part of the issue
is the level of threat," Bruce Darling said. "When Americans' life and
liberty
are threatened, they take it really personally.
Denver Post
July 5, 2017
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2017 6:50 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] A Sit-In Almost Turned Into A Shit-In At Cory
Gardner's Office
A Sit-In Almost Turned Into A Shit-In At Cory Gardner's Office
Kalyn Heffernan of Wheelchair Sports Camp is heading into the second day of
a sit-in with the disability rights group ADAPT, at Republican Senator Cory
Gardner's office. Kalyn Heffernan
Resist! Health Care, Senate, Sit-In
For Kyle Harris, www.westword.com
June 29th, 2017
Above Photo: Kalyn Heffernan of Wheelchair Sports Camp is heading into the
second day of a sit-in with the disability rights group ADAPT, at Republican
Senator Cory Gardner's office. Kalyn Heffernan
A sit-in almost turned into a shit-in when disability rights activists with
ADAPT started needing to use the restroom - which had been shut down - after
they had spent the night in Republican Senator Cory Gardner's Denver office,
trying to force him to vote against a Republican healthcare proposal that
the Congressional Budget Office says would leave 22 million uninsured by
2026.
"We brought in a makeshift shitter," says activist and musician Kalyn
Heffernan, the MC with Wheelchair Sports Camp, which won Best Hip-Hop Group
at the 2017 Westword Music Awards on Tuesday, June 27, the same night she
was occupying the senator's office.
When the DIY toilet arrived, "I think that's when they they decided to let
us [into the restroom]," she says. "Once that came in, shit got real. We had
so much coffee, someone was bound to shit."
It's not like the activists were holding back their bodily functions. After
they had been denied the restroom on Tuesday, several activists urinated in
the senator's office in cups, bottles, a trash can, diapers and through
catheters.
"We all just peed in his office! Victory," Heffernan texted me on Tuesday.
Gardner's state director narrowly avoided a shitty situation by opening the
bathrooms up today, June 28, ADAPT activists say. The state director has
been accommodating, although he has not responded to the activists' demands,
laid out below.
img_8623
ADAPT is demanding Gardner sign this statement pledging to vote against any
bill that would reduce Medicaid funding for seniors and people with
disabilities. Kalyn Heffernan
Gardner's office, which has yet to say whether the senator will support the
Republican-led bill, has not returned e-mails and phone calls from Westword
about the situation.
Volunteers brought the activists food throughout the night, and the
protesters have no plans to leave until Gardner commits to opposing the bill
or the police drag them out.
"People are spoiling the shit out of us," Heffernan says. "We have so much
food. It was like the most privileged protest we've ever been at - minus
sleeping in here. That was not great."
Most of the activists slept on the floor, others in their chairs. Heffernan
says it was like sleeping at the airport: hard floors, bright lights and
crammed conditions. But as a touring musician, she's more accustomed to
roughing it out than some of her comrades.
The MC has taken to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram throughout the protest;
Wheelchair Sports Camp is trending on Twitter, and a live-stream of the
sit-in has garnered more than 20,000 views.
img_8625
The ADAPT protest at Gardner's Denver office continues for a second day.
Kalyn Heffernan