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Pat Beeman George G. Ducharme: Co-Directors

VOLUME 9, No. 3 Fall, 2015

Why the ADA Matters

One candle in the

midst of a circle
represents the gift
each one of us
brings to others in a
circle of support a
circle of friends

i, I am Bob Williams and I want

to thank Bev Jackson for asking
me to share some of my
experiences as well as my perspectives on why
the Americans with Disabilities Act, which is
now a quarter century old, continues to matter
in the lives and futures of those with and
without disabilities and that of our country.
For those that do not know me, I have spent
most of my life living and working in
Washington, DC. But I was raised in
Connecticut and consider myself a proud and
fortunate son of Connecticut. Born in 1957
with significant cerebral palsy, I grew up as a
youngest in the rough and tumble love of a
family of 5 children in Willington and
Newington.
Our parents, the late Bill and Bea Williams, were part of the Greatest
Generation that came of age in the hard realities of the Depression and the
Second World War. Both lost one or both of their parents when they were quite
young in the 1930s. Mom lived in a series of foster care homes apart from her
two sisters and a brother and Dad later fought as a Marine in the Pacific in
World War II. As an 18 and 19 year old Marine corporal, Dad operated an
amphibious vehicle, able to run on land and water. He ferried hundreds or
perhaps thousands of his living, wounded and dead comrades to and away
from the shores of Pacific islands like Peleliu and Okinawa crisscrossing the
ocean under some of the heaviest bombardments of the war.
In the years that followed, Dad and Mom instilled the lifelong lessons of
the love of family, hard work and Semper Fidelis (always faithful or always
loyal) in all 5 of their sons and daughters. The belief that each of us has the
ability and responsibility to be faithful, loyal and true to each other our
family, friends, community and nation. And because it is the linchpin to all

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else; to stay true to thine self by proving our best. Doing our best ... Becoming our
best ... Semper Fi is why my parents who never had the chance to complete high
school always expected me to go to college because they saw it as my best shot at
equality of opportunity.
Growing up with significant disabilities in the 60s and 70s was not easy.
Accessibility was the rare exception and disability based discrimination was both
prevalent and often legal. Before what was then known as the Education of All
Handicapped Children Act was enacted by Congress in 1975, millions of young
people with disabilities were legally barred from the public schools altogether and
generations of people with intellectual developmental and other significant disabilities
were institutionalized often for life. I was far luckier.
When I was 8, my parents moved our family half way across the state so that I
could go to public school. This did not automatically erase the barriers or the biases,
of course. I remember what it was like for my friends not going to the same school
that our brothers, sisters and neighbors attended or to more restaurants, shops, pools
or movie theaters due to concrete barriers ... or, simply because we were not
welcomed.
I remember being told I could never go to
regular classes because I used a word board. And,
I always will remember the bullying and the still
very real scars it inflicted as well. But what I
remember most is the time, energy, hopes and
dreams my parents, family and many teachers
invested in me. When I was in high school my
parents and I had the incredible good fortune of
getting to know several young adults with
disabilities who were slightly older than me. Friends, mentors and exemplars of a life
time like Phyllis Zlotnick, Armand Legault, Bev Jackson, Eliot Dober, Stan
Kosloski, Joyce Baker, and others, who were leading lives I wanted to someday lead.
Going to college, starting careers, testifying before the legislature, writing short stories
... Making a difference in their own lives and those of others.
High school was a difficult time for me. My life and future seemed closed and
doomed. But with time energy, hopes and dreams my family and teachers invested in
me, I saw by studying and working hard that we can all create our own American
Dream and give back to our families, communities and nation. In the spring just
before I graduated high school I also saw something on the evening news that flung
opened doors of access and opportunity wide for me and many others in my and
successive generations. It was all there live on television. See it now. Branded by the
news media as an "an occupation army of cripples" with disability civil rights activists
led by Ed Roberts, Judy Heumann and others were taking over, sitting in at and
shutting down government buildings from San Francisco to New York. Demanding

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that then President Jimmy Carter make good on his pledge to enforce Section 5O4 of
the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, they won by holding firm. Section 5O4 requires that those
getting any federal funds not discriminate against people with disabilities. For many
like me 5O4 made more colleges and universities become accessible and made
continuing our education and creating a better future suddenly within reach. It
enabled me to be the first in my family to earn a BA at George Washington University
in the heart of DC, and to live there ever since creating a successful career and life
with my own family.
Today, I live with my wife of 22 years, Helen, in a
condo in Southwest DC that overlooks the Potomac. Her
daughter Emily, who I helped raised since she was 7,
her husband Craig and their daughter Leila who is now
3-and-a-half, lived nearby. As I write this, its 7:15 on a
Saturday morning and Leila who stayed overnight is in
the kitchen with Grandma helping to prepare one of my
favorite breakfast combos cornbread topped with
applesauce and grape jelly. The dream that once seemed so impossible is now the
everyday life I live. Indeed, I have been in DC so long I am now something of a
Washington relic. Over the years, I have seen and even have gotten to be a part of
history in the making. When I was still in college in the early 80s, worked for then
Senator Lowell Weicker when he led the fight both to preserve so many of our
fundamental human and civil rights as well as create the foundation, momentum and
pride that led to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. In the decades
that followed, I also helped create community living supports for those once consigned
to Forest Haven, worked on the enactment of the ADA, served in the Clinton
Administration and in other posts, including for the last 5 years at the Social Security
Administration where I now work.
Especially because this year marks the
twenty-fifth anniversary of the enactment
of the Americans with Disabilities Act, a
question that I am asked a lot and often ask
myself is what difference has this law made?
Answering this question completely is
difficult if not impossible to do. But to me
the most accurate answer is that like all
great civil rights law that came before it and
that will follow it, the difference the ADA has
ADA was signed into law on July 26, 1990 by
made and continues to make is both
President George H.W. Bush
enormous and not nearly enough.
The ADA was never intended to flatten the earth or bring about sweeping
changes over night. That is not the way our democracy and way of life work. Many of
the most basic changes we hope ADA will help bring about do not happen quickly or in

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To become the change we wish for the world Gandhi

ways easily apparent. Some will require generations. Yet, the effects that have occur
this far can be transformative if we as individuals, a human rights struggle, a nation
and a world build on them. Laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act, IDEA and
the Rehabilitation Act combined with the actions of countless ordinary people make
the promise of America truly achievable for millions. Changes in the built
environment, business, education, public services, transportation and
telecommunications spurred on by both the law and technological innovation
increasingly make it possible for more individuals with significant disabilities to live,
learn, work, love, raise a family and have a fair shot at success just like everyone else.
Barriers real and perceived to real careers, prosperity and inclusion in
ordinary everyday life persist. We must recognize that millions of children, adults and
older persons with significant disabilities and their families in the U.S. and around the
world are locked in untenable depths of poverty, dependency and exclusion. Yet, we
cannot allow this recognition to lull us into complacency or cripple our will and
responsibility to act. In many ways, the barriers left to eradicate today are more
formidable than some we have faced but none are invincible. Contrary to what is often
said, the greatest and most enduring power that laws like the ADA can have in the
lifetimes of individuals and our nation must lie in the transformative, continuing changes it
sparks deep in our hearts and minds. It is up to each of us to openly embrace and act
on those changes as Gandhi said, to become the change we wish for the world.
Reflections on ADA at 25: Doing Justice
Bob Williams
July 23, 2015
The Robert F. Kennedy Justice Building, Washington, DC

Equal justice is never

gained by
Dead letters on
parchment,
Half promises,
Lofty goals or arcane
procedures.
Equal justice is done by
You and I.
We, the People.

The living and the dead.

The remembered and
the forgotten.
And, most of all,
The invisible hearts,
minds and souls
We can never know.
On the battlefield,
The day room of a living
hell,

Enduring injustice
Silent.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Until someone says,
enough is enough.
Out in the streets,
In urine soaked sheets.
In legal briefs,
Congressional hearings,
In your town and mine
In page after page of
diary entries,

In a job no one else will

do.

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Crawling up the marble

steps of the Capitol.

indifference
Require to corrode.

Race, sexual
orientation. . .

Petitioning, protesting
and questioning.
Always questioning.

Demanding Equal
Justice under Law.

It is a piece of our
shared
And sacred humanity.

Laying bare the truth,

the whole truth,
And, nothing but the
truth.

With all the laws,

All the gains, we press
forward.

Serving up notice
Inequality abroad in our
land must end.

Disability is not a badge

of inferiority.
Or, license to be
regarded as less than.

For equality of
opportunity is not fated.
And, justice is not fixed.
They must be hard won.

Immigrants to Freedom,
all.

That, rather, like all the

supposed fault lines ----

Again and again.

By you and I.
We, the People.

We shatter the silence

Discrimination, hate,
Violence and

Age, creed, gender,

ethnicity,

Flying in the face of long

established dictum.
Jurisprudence and so
called science.

Creating the American

Dream Anew.

We thank Bob for reminding all of us

Why the ADA Matters. The challenges
continue
Bob has always been a good friend and
a strong advocate for equality for ALL!

For an opportunity to purchase beautiful Holiday Cards by talented artist, Michelle Johnson.
Visit rightonart.com
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