July 26th marked 25 years since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and TalkPoverty is commemorating this landmark legislation all week.
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To discuss how far we’ve come—and how far we still have to go—we’re joined by Talley Wells, Director of the Disability Integration Project at the Atlanta Legal Aid Society, for an overview of the ADA as well as the Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision, a critical civil rights case for people with disabilities. Courtesy of the Vera Institute, we feature remarks from Talila “TL” Lewis, founder of HEARD, on the impact of the criminal justice system on people with disabilities. We also hear from Alice Wong about the Disability Visibility Project, a partnership with StoryCorps to collect oral histories of people with disabilities. And we are joined by Michael Morris, Executive Director of the National Disability Institute, to discuss the work that lies ahead to ensure that disability and poverty no longer go hand in hand.
Here are 7 moments from this week’s episode reflecting on the ADA:
- “[Olmstead] is the most important civil rights decision for people with disabilities. It’s often called the Brown v. Board of Education decision for people with disabilities.”
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- “When the laws changed and society changed, [Kate Gainer] had the right to get in the front of the bus, but it wasn’t until much later – and the push from the disability rights movement – that she was actually able to get on the bus because she uses a wheelchair.”
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- “Tanisha Anderson, Freddie Gray, Anthony Hill, Ezell Ford. These are African American people with disabilities whose lives were cut short by law enforcement.”
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- “People with disabilities are the largest minority populations in jails and prisons.”
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- “Deaf-blind, deaf-disabled, and hard of hearing prisoners customarily experience discrimination and terrible abuse in our prisons. Punished for failure to obey commands they cannot hear.”
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- “I couldn’t believe it. It was thrilling to be in the White House and to actually say hello to the President.”
President Obama talks w Alice Wong via robot before ADA reception today. pic.twitter.com/W7BMEwWX9B
— petesouza (@petesouza) July 21, 2015
- “There’s a disability pay gap: For every dollar earned by workers without disabilities, those with disabilities earn just 68 cents.”
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