The Torch Relay Continues in Austin

American Association of People With Disabilities Logo

Under blue skies, and with the support of thirty of Austin's disability-related agencies, over 500 people gathered on the steps of the Capitol building to celebrate what some have called a journey for civil rights. James Hill welcomed the audience and urged them to remember four words: "Same Struggle: Different Difference." Invoking a comparison with earlier civil rights struggles, he said, "In the beginning our civil rights legislation helped us sit on the bus and the ADA will now help us all get on the bus." He called ADA the capstone of civil rights legislation. Rosalyn Millman, representing the Department of Transportation, continued the comparison saying, "Since Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, transportation has been a touchstone in the civil rights movement. The ADA is another important milestone in our national journey toward equality." Moreover, she promised that all transit bus fleets nationwide would be fully accessible by the year 2012. Millman also said the D.O.T. was working to make air travel easier and safer for the disabled through the Air Carrier Access Act, which prohibits discrimination by U.S. and foreign air carriers on the basis of physical or mental disabilities.

Later, the Freedom Flame was lit outside the Supreme Court building adjacent to the capital and began a 3.5 mile relay route to the Brown-Heatly Building, home to the Texas Rehabilitation Commission.

The torch was handed off every 1/10 mile along the course to 32 individuals representing a range of disabilities. Jimmy Turner, a hearing-impaired torch bearer said through his interpreter, "It's a real honor for me to be involved with this and with all of the people who have been involved through the years and see what they've been able to doâ| I'll have the opportunity to look back upon this for many years to come and I think it's a real honor." Another torch bearer, Bill Washburn from the Texas Federation of the Blind, explained that he got involved in the relay to keep the ADA going on its journey. In a compelling speech earlier in the morning, Tim Rarus, Director of Visual Communications and himself hearing-impaired, made perhaps the most salient point of the day, "We shouldn't call it Americans with disabilities," he said. "We should call it Americans with different abilities. That's what the ADA should stand for from now on. [It would] change our perspective of how people look at us."

15% of Austin's population of 750,000 are people with disabilities.