2015 – Anniversaries Worthy of Special Recognition
I realized that this year is filled with some momentous occasions worth noting and celebrating…some this summer! One is my 20th year at Mile Hi Church. I have appreciated the ministry there as well as the wonderful music. I have grown so much in my spirituality in the past 20 years and wish I had known this much younger. Here are some other groups worthy of recognition!
25th ANNIVERSARY OF A.D.A.
This year the disability community in which I work especially celebrates the 25th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Many celebrations will take place, especially on July 25th at Civic Center Park in Denver. Our office will have an open house on the 27th from 1-2:30 p.m. Many have recently expressed their memories and recognition of the ADA. When you learn the history of disabilities, you will realize the significance, but also the additional strides that need to be made. Any one of us could become disabled physically or mentally in the future in an accident, or as we age. In fact, the term disability takes in a broader range than one might imagine. Please enjoy this one article:
“Twenty-five years ago, on July 26, 1990, 2,000 people with disabilities gathered on the South Lawn of the White House for the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) signing ceremony. The jubilant crowd heard President George H. W. Bush proclaim the often quoted words, “I now lift my pen to sign this Americans with Disabilities Act and say: Let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down.”
At the time of the ADA signing, I had just given birth to my daughter, Maddy. While I was not able to be on the South Lawn with so many of my friends and colleagues, I celebrated the historic event in Chicago, where Mayor Richard M. Daley, who committed to making Chicago the most accessible city in the country, hosted a local event. On that day at the White House, in Chicago and around the country, disability advocates felt as if, finally, we had done it. We passed a landmark civil rights law that would allow people with disabilities to participate in their communities and pursue employment opportunities on a level playing field. We did what so many told us couldn’t be done.
Though we accomplished a monumental feat, nothing about passage of the law was easy. There were barriers at every step. Despite the fact that there were no curb cuts, there was no access to bathrooms, there was no interstate TTY system of communication for people who were Deaf and hard of hearing, there was no emergency captioning and employers were free to discriminate based upon disability, Congress did not believe there was a history of discrimination. Without a history of discrimination, there would be no law.
Mobilizing the disability community, Justin Dart, Jr., vice chair of the National Council on Disability and the Martin Luther King of the disability rights movement, issued a call to action. Dart urged us to tell the world what discrimination looks like. Dart and his wife Yoshiko traveled around all 50 states collecting individual stories of discrimination. The community answered the call, giving Justin three large trash bags worth of testimonials, which he delivered during his testimony to Congress. As former Congressman Tony Coehlo said, in order to establish a record of discrimination, “We had to share the scar tissue of our lives, so Congress would understand how rampant discrimination was across our lives.”
In many ways, the law has changed the world. My daughter, just a few days old at the time Bush signed the law, has never known a world without the accessibility features we all now take for granted. Millions of young people with and without disabilities have grown up in a world without the physical barriers that separate us. Today, people with and without disabilities are riding the same buses, shopping at the same retail stores, drawing money from the same ATM machines and watching movies in the same theaters, making the world a better place for everyone.
The law has had enormous impact, but we can never take for granted the success we have achieved. Budget cuts, backlash and stigma all threaten to dismantle the rights everyone has come to expect. In 1999 and the early 2000s, a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions removed a range of people with disabilities from ADA coverage, people that were included under the original intent of the law. All of these things remind us that the access, accommodations and opportunity we fought for could easily be dismantled.
Similarly, while there has been success, the promise of the Americans with Disabilities Act has not been realized in many ways. Just as millions of young people have never known a world without screen readers and bus lifts, they also have never known a world without catastrophically high unemployment rates for people with disabilities (in 2013, less than 20 percent of the working age disable population was employed), without significant achievement gaps between disabled and non-disabled students and without unnecessary institutionalization of people with disabilities.
In 1990, many people played a pivotal role to get the law passed. Champions like Pat Wright, Congressman Tony Coehlo, Senator Tom Harkin, Senator Kennedy, Congressman Owens, Sylvia Walker, Michael Winter, Judy Heumann. Frank Bowe, Elizabeth Boggs, Lex Friedan, Bob Bergdorf, Chai Feldblum, Max Starkloff, Judi Chamberlin, Bonnie O’Day and many more. This year, as we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, we need new champions who will lead the way toward the unfinished promise of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Today’s children need to grow up in a world where people with disabilities have the opportunity to find work and to be successful at work, people with disabilities have the option to live with quality supports in affordable, accessible homes in integrated communities and people with psycho-social disabilities live in a world free of stigma.
The anniversary gives us a platform to bring varied segments of our community together for a common goal. In Chicago, under the banner of ADA 25 Chicago, more than 160 organizations from the private, public and non-profit sector have committed to leveraging this 25th anniversary year to create more opportunities and make systemic change in education, employment, technology and community inclusion. With commitment initiatives like this in Chicago and around the country, I am confident that the full promise of the Americans with Disabilities Act will happen. Today, there is the expectation that students with disabilities will learn alongside their non-disabled peers, commuters with disabilities will ride the bus with non-disabled passengers and public spaces will be built to be accessible by all using Universal Design.
Around the world, the Americans with Disabilities Act is the model other countries follow when building a system of human rights protections for people with disabilities. The implementation, enforcement and model of the law has launched a paradigm shift with momentum that will not be reversed. This year, and in years to come, we will ride that momentum, filling in the gaps that still exist, fighting against the barriers that remain, ensuring that the promise of the law applies to all people with disabilities and extends to all sectors of society.”
By Guest Blogger Marca Bristo, President, United States International Council on Disabilities and President and CEO, Access Living
Since UWP brought their headquarters to Denver in 1993 (and took a brief break in the early 2000’s), I have been hosting young adults from around the world. My cousin traveled with the group in the 60’s and a group came to my high school in about 1970 to recruit, so I was familiar with the group before they began asking for host parents during their stay in Denver. While here, they rehearse, do community service, and do a dress rehearsal show for their host families. Casts travel twice per year and need host families for summer and winter session for around 100 students that come from over 20 countries.
This year is extra special as it marks their 50th anniversary. Their show in Denver will be in July 29th before they head to Orlando where there will be a huge celebration and more than 2,500 alumni from 33 countries around the world will gather to celebrate this once-in-a-lifetime event!
I am thrilled to join our employees and stakeholders in celebrating Social Security’s 80th anniversary. Eighty years ago, on August 14, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt marked the signing of the Social Security Act into law with profound and relevant words:
Today, a hope of many years standing is in large part fulfilled…We have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age.
We continue to embody President Roosevelt vision of hope and protection for the most vulnerable members of the public. In field offices across the country, our frontline employees provide world-class service to millions each day. We provide secure online services for our customers who prefer to do business online—including the mySocial Security suite of services, the Retirement Estimator, and the online retirement application.
The Faces and Facts of Disability campaign offers increased public awareness of the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program through personal stories from those who benefit most from this important program.
Our Vision 2025provides a framework to shape the future of Social Security service delivery and outlines ways we can maintain clear communication with the public. I am deeply honored to be a part of such a great organization with employees who truly embody the spirit of compassionate public service. There is nothing more rewarding or longer lasting than making a positive difference in the lives of others.
