Hello Everybody,

This week I went to the ADA Day I had mentioned last week, hopefully some of you had a chance to come out.  I was a part of a panel that dealt with the history and founding of the ADA, I figure this would be a good chance to look back at the beginning of the law and why it was introduced.  Before the ADA there was no legal protection for people with disabilities regarding discrimination specifically.  In 1990 there were 43,000 people with disabilities in the United States.  This population could not necessarily always enter buildings because of inaccessible entrances; people with sight loss did not have as many aides such as talking cross walks or adapted computers with screen reading technology.  People with disabilities also did not have access to services like public housing and public transportation.  This also affected their rights to vote because there were no accommodations to help disabled people fill out a ballot.  The fight began long before this bill was passed in the 1990s.   Beginning in the 1970s, a coalition called the American Coalition for Citizens with Disabilities which was founded by Jack Anderson, was formed and became the first organization created, ran, and administered by people with disabilities. Originally the group was concerned with the need for more independent living. One of its members Ed Roberts, a student at California Berkeley at the time, led a sit-in to protest the lack of personal care attendants for students living on campus. He later became one of the prominent leaders of the movement when he and some other students created the first Independent Living Center. Currently there are hundreds of centers around the country helping people with disabilities live on their own. Later in 1977 the group led a sit-in to protest the government’s lack of implementation of the 504 plan which is a law that requires equal access and opportunity when it comes to education. This law laid the foundation for the ADA.  All of these actions by these people helped pave the way for the life your child will live now and in the future. When I was at Wright State in my freshman year, I took a course in disability history where I learned all of this information for the first time. That course cemented my interest in social work because there are still issues with the ADA and how it is implemented that need to be dealt with.  True physical accessibility is still an issue- I don't know how many times I've arrived at a place that was supposedly accessible where there is one or two steps at the entrance and a non-accessible bathroom. The standards for accessibility need to be re-examined by people with disabilities because I believe that whoever makes the law doesn't understand how hard it is to squeeze into a bathroom stall with a power wheelchair.   I also believe the history of the ADA and the disabled activists who helped shape it should be taught in schools right next to Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders, which is not currently the case. I'd like to know some of your experiences - have you been taught about the history of ADA?   Do you or your children have issues with accessibility to buildings, jobs, schools?  Leave comments in the comment section below or look me up on Facebook.

While I listed some possible improvements in implementation and access to knowledge of its history, I know how lucky I am to have been raised after the ADA went into effect.  The ADA has greatly impacted the lives of people with disabilities and it provides people like me with opportunities we would not have had without it. Whether it is having interpreters at events or public buildings being accessible with pushbutton doors, all of these things wouldn't have happened without the ADA. This helps me on a more personal note with my job search because employers are required to provide “reasonable accommodations” which includes providing programs such as Dragon NaturallySpeaking (which I'm using right now) so that people like me can type our work, as well as provide things like a wide and high workspace that I can get my chair under. Without the ADA, I wouldn't be in the position I'm in right now! It is important to know what you're entitled to as a person with a disability.  I'm including a link to the ADA home page, as well as some history about the American Coalition for Citizens with Disabilities. 

Whether you are a person with a disability or a family member of a person who has a disability it is important to know these inalienable rights. If you are a parent, I believe it can benefit your children at any age to learn about where the laws he or she benefits came from. Hopefully learning this can inspire you to participate in the previous topic of advocacy. Before they were activists, the people discussed above were just like you- remember that. As always, knowledge is power.   The more we can learn from our past, the more we can impact our futures.