Rochester ADAPT Joins National ADAPT in Actions, Spring 2003

Starting once again in the early hours of Saturday morning, Rochester ADAPT gathered together and loaded into vans to travel to Washington, D.C. to join National ADAPT for the Spring action. This year, Rochester's large contingent and New York City's ADAPT crew was joined also by several strong, emerging ADAPTers from Syracuse. It's great to see ADAPT's success spreading its influence across the state and more people joining the national actions!
This year's commute to Washington actually, dare I say it, went smoothly! No van breakdowns. No flat tires. No forgotten battery chargers and no one lost on the DC beltway. New York City ADAPT took the train to DC while Syracuse joined Rochester early Saturday for the drive down. Great thanks is owed to Anita O'Brien, Sue Norwood and Mary Ann Price - the team that planned and prepared for many weeks prior to the trip. Thanks go out to our van drivers including Andrea Austin, Dorrie Budd, Janet Evaniak, Ann Kaplow and U-Wen Wong and Phil Prehn driving ARISE's van, arriving in Rochester bright and early with Matt Barkley, Beata Karpinska-Prehn, John Pike and Kara Vanderveer. And credit to all of our ADAPTers for being personally prepared and ready to go without any hitches along the way.
We arrived in DC Saturday evening, found our rooms and settled in. Many of us caught up with friends from ADAPT all across the country while others got to sleep early to have rest for the long days ahead. By the looks of the agenda for Sunday, it would be a long and productive stay in DC. Sunday morning found Rochester ADAPT trying our hand at fundraising with a table for selling our New York State ADAPT T-shirts. Marlene Moronski and Tracie Crandell did a great job of selling our wares and by the end of the week, many people from all across the US were proudly wearing their NYS ADAPT "Freedom Now!" shirts. In addition to our NYS ADAPT shirts, Tracie, Marlene and William Daughtry were able to sell hundreds of tickets for our raffle of one of a kind Bob Kafka and Jimmi Schroede T-shirts developed in our offices as a biproduct of our "Stolen Lives" banner. Too many hours over the hot irons no doubt inspired Bruce Darling in his creation on the Warhol-esque Kafka shirt.
ADAPTers then participated in morning trainings to orient new people to ADAPT and actions about to take place. Others participated in a training and update about the status of nationwide demonstration "Money follows the individual" programs. In several states, we have seen the successful implementation of "Cash and Counseling" and other flexible programs to allow people to use institutional money to fund needed community support services. It's great to hear about the successes of these programs and we hope to see them spread to every state, instead of being just demonstration projects in a few select states.
After the trainings, all of the ADAPTers gathered into the main meeting room to begin the week's activities. Bob Kafka and Stephanie Thomas led the discussion of this year's push to get MiCASSA (S. 971 and HR 2032) passed this year! Our theme for the spring action and carried throughout the year is "Stolen Lives: Real People, Real Voices, Real Choices." ADAPT's plan was to put real names, faces and stories at the front of the battle to end the institutional bias and get people out of institutions.
Rochester ADAPT had put a lot of extra time and effort into preparing for the Stolen Lives theme. In January, Bruce volunteered to coordinate a collage of pictures and stories of people that have lived in institutions and now live in the community. For the past several months, we've been receiving faxes, emails and postal mail of stories from across the US. In the final weeks before the trip, we coordinated the stories and entered them into computer documents. We also scanned pictures and printed them and the stories onto T-shirt transfers. With the stories and pictures ready to go, we purchased a white banner that would be 150 feet long and hold all the stories from across the country. Rochester ADAPTers Sue Norwood, Tara Nesbitt, Bruce Darling, Norita Darling, Janet Evaniak, Diane Phillips, Mary Ann Price and Tracie Crandell spent each day and evening leading up to the trip ironing on the theme, pictures and stories. We were never sure how it would end, but knew that it looked great.
In the end, great was not even the word. As we unfurled the banner along Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House, the banner of Stolen Lives was absolutely awesome! During ADAPT's action at the White House Sunday evening, the banner made its first full appearance. The banner-holders, too many to name, had quite a task all week and deserve our thanks for holding steady throughout the actions. With approximately 450 ADAPTers lined up along the curb at the White House, people whose stories appeared on the banner began to tell their stories. For many, it was their first chance to tell their story to the powerful people who have chosen not to change the system that locks away people with disabilities.
ADAPT continued to demand an apology from President Bush for all the people who had wasted part of their lives while trapped in institutions. Each speaker told their personal story of life in, and escape from, an institution. When no one from the White House came to meet with ADAPT, we moved to the White House fence and over one hundred ADAPTers handcuffed themselves to the White House fence. The Police were quick to intervene and remove handcuffs (some of us used several pairs) but ADAPT held tight to the fence, demanding an apology while more people told their stories.
As evening arrived, the police began to, literally, put on their gloves. It was clear that the time for arrest was coming. All of the ADAPTers along the fence held steady as the police began to read our first warning. The only problem was that we couldn't hear it!! The police microphone was not strong enough. National ADAPT volunteered one of our bullhorns and the police accepted and continued to issue the initial warning. Second Warning. Third Warning. More than 100 ADAPTers arrested along the White House fence - charged with "Protesting without a permit." We were cited, IDs reviewed and pictures taken - then ADAPT marched proud back to the hotel, arriving at approximately 10 PM, Sunday Night. While waiting to be cited, I called my mother to tell her "Happy Mother's Day, we're getting arrested!" She could only reply, "already?"
Those arrested from Rochester were: Dorrie Budd, John Bumbery, Tracie Crandell, Janet Evaniak, Anthony Griggs, Chris Hilderbrant, Ann Kaplow, Marlene Moronski, Shelly Perrin, Joe Santacesaria and Pat Taggert. The following morning ADAPT came together in line in our color groups and ready to go. Shelly Perrin and I were Color Leaders within the Green group and Nadina LaSpina, NYC, and Bruce Darling were Day Leaders with National ADAPT for this trip. Everyone from the Rochester, Syracuse and New York City did a great job of taking care of themselves and their fellow ADAPTers so that those of us in ADAPT leadership roles could focus on making the actions successfully. It's hard work, you all did great!
Shortly after noon, Monday, ADAPT arrived at the Department of Justice. We took over the two intersections at the front of DOJ, one intersection included the on-ramp to I-395 and shutting it down created gridlock for many blocks surrounding. ADAPTers also flooded the front doors and forced them closed. The primary demand was simple: meet with John Ashcroft, US Attorney General. ADAPT controlled Constitution Avenue and representatives from DOJ were quickly on the scene to negotiate. Assistant Attorney General Ralph Boyd was in Baltimore (not too far, eh) and John Aschcroft was nowhere to be found. Boyd is the Attorney General's assistant on Civil Rights matters and had recently issued DOJ's findings in our protests and lawsuits against Laguna Honda, in San Francisco - he would actually be a great person to meet with immediately, because he is aware of our issues and the findings in the Laguna Honda case were very favorable of our side. ADAPT accepted the meeting with Ralph Boyd, to take place that evening at 7 PM - in the middle of Constitution Avenue - in front of our Stolen Lives Banner!! Boyd arrived on time and met with us as promised, but only after a rather paranoid set of security guards made sure that ADAPT wasn't planning to pull any 'funny stuff.' As always, ADAPT is good to our word so long as the powers that be keep their word. Boyd spoke and listened to concerns brought up by ADAPT's leadership. A favorite moment from my perspective was actually when it began to rain and Greg Jones from Kansas quickly produced an ADAPT umbrella to keep Boyd dry. Seeing Boyd shielded by the red, white and blue umbrella with the big ADAPT logo was beautiful. But still better than that was Boyd speaking with the people who had been personally trapped in an institution. Boyd walked the entire length of the Stolen Lives banner, reading the stories and listening while ADAPTers told Boyd of their terrible experiences in Nursing Homes, Group Homes and Adult homes for people with mental illnesses. Hopefully, these real people and real voices will begin to weigh on the people at the Department of Justice and get them to do their part in making sure America provides real community support choices to people of all ages with disabilities! We were finished with two big actions and not about to rest on the successes of the first two days. Tuesday morning we again lined up at 11 AM and were ready to roll. Most of our group had become accustomed to fairly long marches in order to get to our target, so they were surprised when our Tuesday morning march ended just two blocks from where it started! ADAPT's short march led us to the doors of the American Nurses Association. ADAPT had previously been in talks with the American Nurses Association (ANA) to get their support of MiCASSA. After all, why wouldn't nurses support people living in their own homes?! Good question. The ANA had blown off previous commitments to meet with ADAPT and to have ADAPT present MiCASSA at an ANA board meeting. The ANA negotiators were not in any more receptive mood this week than when they had blown off ADAPT in the past. While initially ADAPT lined up along the backside of the building, closing off only the rear exits (and the ATM), when the negotiations for a meeting went sour, ADAPT bumped it up. Quickly ADAPT flooded the front side of the building, with those of us who could, climbing the stairs to sit against and block the front doors. People with Powerchairs and Scooters blocked the garage. No one could enter, no one could leave, and all ADAPT wanted was a written commitment to resume the meeting with the Board as previously agreed.
The confrontations at the front of the building got pretty hot at times. There were a number of angry construction workers that were picking fights and taking occasional swings at people nearby. ADAPTers did a great job of staying calm despite the confrontation - we are non-violent, and we only wanted a meeting. ADAPTers ran our "Stolen Lives" yellow caution tape around the pillars, stairs and anything else we could cover. The Stolen Lives Banner was held in position behind the building, near the main doors for the ANA. It all looked great. Despite walking out of negotiations during the day, the ANA committed near the end of the day to a meeting with ADAPT the very next day! This was actually better than we had been asking for, so why they were so resistant is still a mystery to me. Let us hope that the ongoing discussions with the ANA bring them to supporting MiCASSA and the freedom for people with disabilities to choose to live in the community.
On Wednesday ADAPT had our traditional trip to Capital Hill. Despite the Washington Post's reports that we were planning one more day of protests and blocking traffic, ADAPT went in small groups and obeyed all the applicable traffic laws! And for a change, we also had appointments with many of our Senators and Representatives in Congress. New York State ADAPT split into three groups in order to pay a visit to every Representative, explain MiCASSA and ask for support. While we were already ahead of other states with both of our Senators signed on, we were able to sign on two more Representatives that same day! Again, fantastic congratulations to everyone in our group involved in those meetings. We are still discussing co-sponsorship with several other Representatives and we expect to continue to follow up until all of New York State supports MiCASSA. In the mean time, everyone of us should be calling our Congress person to make sure they support MiCASSA. If you are part of an agency or organization, please contact me to become an official MiCASSA supporter. Let's do everything we can to get MiCASSA passed and stop the institutional biases which are stealing the lives of seniors and people with disabilities!!
How do you spell POWER?? A-D-A-P-T! Chris Hilderbrant Director of Advocacy Center for Disability Rights 412 State Street Rochester, NY 14608 (585)546-7510