Understanding Advocacy
When others didn’t listen, people with disabilities held protests, used laws, and created new laws to end
discrimination against people with disabilities. For example, in 1983 a group called ADAPT (America’s Disabled
for Attendant Programs Today) began its campaign to make public buses in Denver, Colorado wheelchair accessible. Some
of the things the group did to bring attention to this issue included parking their wheelchairs in front of buses and
refusing to move, or chaining their wheelchairs to buses so the bus couldn’t move. As a result, the police were
often called to protests organized by ADAPT, and they commonly cut away the chains, arrested the protestors, and took
them to jail. Using these tactics, however, ADAPT was successful in making public transit accessible to all people in
Denver and other places. The group now is working to help people with disabilities move out of nursing homes, and continues
to work on this by holding demonstrations. People with disabilities gather to show their frustration about the way things
are and what they feel needs to be changed and are commonly arrested for doing so.
Justin Dart was a national leader and activist in the disability movement who spent his life working to help policymakers
in Washington, DC understand the needs of people with disabilities. Justin often spoke to members of both the Senate and
the House of Representatives to help them understand the needs of people with disabilities. He was also very active and
interested in helping young people with disabilities learn about their rights. The federal laws and policies that Justin
Dart worked on have changed the lives of all people with disabilities who live in the U.S. Mr. Dart was regarded as one
of the fathers of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the landmark 1990 civil rights law for the disabled. In 1998, Justin
Dart was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Clinton. Justin Dart died on June 22, 2002 at the age
of 71.
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