The Capitol Crawl
On March 12, 1990, invincible customers shed their crutches, wheelchairs, and other assistive devices, and ibegan crawling up the marble steps to the west Capitol entrance.
The Capitol Crawl
In the months before the A.D.A. was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush on July 26, 1990, it was stalled in Congress.
"All the i's have been dotted and all the t's have been crossed," Rep. Major R. Owens, a primary backer of the A.D.A., said of the law at the time. "There have been enough negotiations -- delay is the real enemy."
On March 12, hundreds of demonstrators on the National Mall abandoned their wheelchairs and crutches and began crawling up the marble steps to the west Capitol entrance. The Capitol Crawl, as the event came to be known, underscored the injustices of inaccessibility that the A.D.A.'s "reasonable accommodations" clause was intended to fix.
Many of the protesters were arrested, including Anita Cameron, who said she had been arrested 139 times in her fight for disability rights.
"I think on that day and at that time, more people learned about disability discrimination and equal opportunity than we can imagine," said Lex Frieden, a disability policy expert who helped shape the A.D.A.
SOURCE: 15 Moments Within the Fight for Disability Rights
Carmel, Julia. New York Times. 26 July 2020: p. F.4.
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