Chicago: Not Just Another Day with The ADA

Chicago, IL (July 9, 2000) --- The Spirit of ADA Torch Relay visit to the windy city brought out a diverse representation from the disability community with its focus on "ADA and the everyday." From the mid-day game at Wrigley Field where the torch made a pre-game appearance to the afternoon celebration at Jackson Park, thousands of people in Chicago reflected on how the ADA changed their lives forever.

Karen Tamley, a local coordinator of the Relay explained that the Chicago community wanted to show through their Relay program how the ADA has "helped people in their everyday lives whether its going to the grocery store, or doing their banking, to going to school … being a part of the community." Tamley is Program Coordinator at Access Living, a Center for Independent Living serving the metropolitan Chicago area.

Historically, Chicago has always been what Marca Bristo, Chairperson of the President's National Council on Disability and the Executive Director of Access Living, called a "hot bed of disability rights activities." In the 1980s Access Life and other disability organizations in Chicago banned together to sue the Chicago Transit Authority in order to get them to install lifts on busses. Bristo explained that that case, Jones vs. CTA, became the benchmark when Congress addressed the public transportation issue in the ADA. The final result required t hat all busses purchased in the United States after the law passed had to be equipped with lifts.

As the many speakers from the national and local community gave their remarks at the ceremony at Jackson Park, there was consensus about the major results of the ADA, and in particular, that the passage of the ADA has given persons with disabilities greater independence and opportunity.

In an address to the 40,000 fans gathered at Wrigley Field for the White Sox vs. Chicago Cubs game Bristo asked the crowd in the stadium to rededicate themselves and "join us in making the promise of the ADA a reality." She continued, "That promise is independence not dependence. Empowerment not paternalism and inclusion not exclusion."

Bristo, who also helped organize the Chicago event, said in an interview that the ADA is about effecting our everyday lives. "It's not about the corporate contributions solely, it's not about the big institutional changes which are very important; it's about can an everyday person get on a bus or a subway to take off on their day wherever they want to go in the same way that a person without a disability can," she said.

Two-time Olympic silver medallist and eight-time Boston Marathon winner Jean Driscoll said in an interview prior to the main program, "I love my independence and I think ADA has done so much for my ability to be independent and that's why I love it." Driscoll went on, "I think July 26, 1990 was sort of a second Independence Day for people with disabilities because when the ADA was signed there was a new level of freedom and a new level of independence that people with disabilities didn't enjoy before."

Driscoll, who was born with spina bifida, has been a dominant force in the sport of wheelchair racing since 1990. Now a resident of Illinois, she said that sports is the vehicle she's chosen to use to educate the world about disability.

In her keynote address, Illinois State Representative Jan Schakowsky called the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act one of the most important if not the most important civil rights bills of our generation. She said "the fight for the ADA demonstrates the political power of persons with disabilities. Its passage," she went on, "demonstrates the rights of persons with disabilities and that we are truly committed to a society of equal opportunity for all."

Speakers at Jackson Field also included, among others, Audrey McCrimon, the Assistant to the Secretary of the Illinois Department of Health and Human Services, Larry Gorski from the Mayors office, and Ed Bannister, President of the Illinois Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities.

A number of local activists also shared their diverse post-ADA experiences, including Horacio Esparza, who works on disability issues in the Latino community. Esparza said, "the ADA is like a woven glove that which covers and protects us but we must continue to weave this glove bigger and stronger so that it covers all

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