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all right
well Barbara thank you for that nice introduction
I am very happy to be here I
appreciate my friendship with Barbara and Bronwen
and Julie and I have always felt very honored to be part of the PEAK family
so I'm very uh I was very pleased when Bronwen called me and said
you wanna come to Topeka and talk about civil rights I said sure
so that I hung up and I thought man that is a
serious thing to do and then I talked to her
and Barbara on a conference call
and then I really thought this is
serious Topeka is a special place
I wanna make sure that I
think about what I'm gonna say
but before I start I have a friend that came
today came over from Kansas City a good friend of mine
and a former mentor and colleague
who is now living the happy life
in Kansas City but was a big operator Washington DC
former public policy director of the ARC of the United States
and was the public policy director for the National Disability Rights network
doctor Kathy McGinley so I'd like you to welcome her
when Eleanor was born
my daughter is Eleanor she is 25 now when she was born
everything about her birth was presented to us as a great calamity
there was no joy in it
the nurses cried people came and told us we didn't have to take her home
you know a lot of you know that story her mom
was public defenders and she went back to work after 90 days after maternity leave
was over I stayed home with Eleanor for a year
I always like to tell the story because
I think it's important for the people I talk to
to know that I'm one of you this was not my boyhood ambition
I didn't grow up to be a disability advocate
I gave up
a very successful law practice to do this
and glad I did but
that's my motivation for being here today so I stayed home with Eleanor for a year
when she was an infant and i got to do all that early intervention stuff
and I really dug it I just loved
I never paid much attention to children and I never really had any great ambition to being
a parent to tell you the truth but
I really thought this is a
sexism has two sides to it you know and I think a lot of men never have the
opportunity to be the primary caregiver of
an infant baby and I loved it
and because I was ignorant I didn't know anything about developmental delay
so there never struck me for one second that there's anything wrong with her
I still feel that way
we were supposed to be active so we were active
I was supposed to stimulator her
so we listen to Mozart every afternoon we got a fish tank
which was pretty successful until I cleaned it with pneumonia and then
got up in the morning I it was
Amonia and all the fish were dead so that
didn't work out so good but Eleanor and I were pretty inseparable
and as time went by that continued and we
the first lesson I learned about inclusion was it starts at home
you gotta you know this is my kid and here she is
take it or leave it but
when she was about 8 I had the following epiphany and that's the main thing
where I wanna start this presentation today because I hope
all of you parents have had this and if you haven't think about it and this had to
do with the day that I
I went to the grocery store with out her I was just struck by how easy this was
you know like I just went out and got in the car and drove off
and I buzzed around the store really quick and I got my stuff
and I didn't trip over her
up and i got up to the line I'm waiting in line
and I also realize that I was
that nobody was looking at me
funny you know the look
I wasn't getting it I wasn't getting that
and I missed it and then it
hit me that I was on a holiday
but that they would not be one second
of her life that she could be
that there would never be a moment
that she didn't look funny and didn't get that look
and then it hit me
that this experience was not about me wasn't about whether I was a good daddy or not
wasn't about whether I learned my IDEA regs
it was about creating it was about the fact that there's nothing wrong with her
and the problems she has in her life have to do with society
and it was then that I saw that what my great calling is
is to help facilitate the creation of a world
that is welcoming to our children
and by the way another friend of mine is just walked in
the director of Disability Rights Kansas many of you know him
because he was here the other night Rocky Nichols
who'll be succeeding me as President of NDRN in a few months
Rocky I am glad you could make it good to see you
so once I realized that this isn't about me
it's about her and it's about creating a future
for our children I begin to think seriously about American history
and particularly after I had this conversation with Bronwn and
Barbara that I really got thinking about American history and
where we fit into it
and I
got here yesterday and I hadn't really had this thought yet I went outside and
sort of walk around Topeka that beautiful
spring afternoon and soaked up your pretty air
meditated on how important Topeka is
and how really more has happen here than we associate American history with
Boston and New York and Philadelphia and
Charleston and Washington DC
but none of those cities and none of the activities that ever happened there
broke the back
of institutionalised segregation
that was an issue that was too hard for the american political process to take
and it was broken by a few african american families
in Topeka so
how to summarize that and it occurred to me that the best summary I ever heard
came from a poor homeless man
who traveled the dust bowl and rode in boxcars
and even made his way all the way up to organ to pick our hops
and he became the great observer of
America and into
five-word sentences 10 words
whether he intended to or not I think he summed up
the entirety of social conflict in our country from day one
and like all the great *** Guthrie songs there's a lot of different
versions of them
but the version of this one that I like best
goes like this: this land is my land
this land is our land
and all of the conflict that we struggle with
in this country and have from the beginning has been a conflict between
the people who believe
only in the first line and the people who believe
in both lines the first line is all about privilege
and exclusion but if you believe in both lines
then you believe in community and inclusion
and we're living in a time of unprecedented opportunity
we are opportunists people who take advantage of
opportunity so as I was sitting back in Portland week or so ago thinking about
this presentation
I thought what I'm an academic to on the side so I thought you know what
where can I look in a book
to put my finger on it what it is I wanna say in Topeka
so I pulled down the book I always pull down when i'm looking for deep truths
about america Huckleberry Finn
and I read for I don't know the two hundredth time
the great description of this homeric Odyssey
on the raft
with Hoc and Jim and it
could only be on one River the Mississippi
that great artery of America that holds our country together from all direction
and these two boys sail down drift down
the river and
they are having halcyon days they're fishing they're swimming
they're playing they're talking they're telling each other outrageous lies
at night they look at the stars and like all travelers
they got a plan and like all travelers sometimes our plans don't work out quite
the way we planned them
their plan was that when they got to the mouth of the hirer
they would turn and they would panel that raft
upstream to Ohio to freedom
to a new life for Hoc and freedom
for the runaway slave Jim
but as they approached the mouth of that river
the river became shrouded in fog
and the borders became more and more indistinct
was hard to see the shore and in their fear
and confusion they sailed past the mouth
of the Ohio and they lost their opportunity
and as Mark Twain said ahead of them
inexorably lay only the slave markets of
New Orleans
and that was the nineteenth century story of America
so 20th century store opportunity lost
opportunity for real social change when it's lost
it can be lost for generation and sometimes it would be lost forever
so what I wanna talk to you today is about the uniqueness of the times that we
live in
and the opportunity that is before us
you know
every oppressed group has its own story
to tell in its own uniqueness and it is appropriate that
oppressed groups remember
and they celebrate it's important for Native Americans to remember
important for Afro-americans to remember It's important for disabled americans to remember
because each of these communities does have
its own story but in the final analysis there's a lot of commonality
and in the commonality of oppression we can come together and form coalitions that
actually have real power
and we can begin to support one another
probably the most glaring
oppression is of course slavery
and
when the Constitutional Convention convened in Philadelphia in 1795
when the first man
sat down at his desk
because of course there weren't any girls involved in this process
then they begin to create a government
and I was pretty easy to create the presidency it
has war-making powers and chief executive powers and this power that power
and the power of the presidency was limited and it was also spelled out
and then they thought well we should have a judiciary so all they said about
supreme court was will have one
that's all they said but they were going to have a legislature
so we'll have a senate and will have two senators from each state that was pretty
quick and easy to get together
and we don't really trust the people
what we really want are bunch of senators like us
so we'll have those people elected by their state legislators
and that means that the professional politicians will be able to choose the
Senators
and that should provide plenty of stability
but there is that democratic movement in those
people out there think that they're gonna get the right to elect their
government so we're going to have to create this
other thing the house of representatives and will give them the power to
raise money I'll be their power
we'll only given two-year terms cuz lord knows who's liable to get elected
and then how big should it be well will base it on
population well the southern states
were pretty agrarian compared to the north so they were like population
that's cool
there's all of us plus our slaves so
we'll get a lot of seats in the in the house representatives
and of course the northerners said wait a minute your telling me that those slaves are
just property
ain't gonna account them for a portion of the seats in the US House of Representatives and on
that point
the Constitutional Convention very nearly broke up
in the Union never happened for what we had instead was the first of many
compromises
and every time there's a compromise what that means is you have put
the problem off
so the United States of America was constituted with the United States House
of Representatives based on population in which slaves were counted as two
thirds
of a person the southern states gave up a third
northern states gave them two-thirds that was our first
real racial conflict in the history of the United States
now as you all now and did now when you got here know even more so now
because the Hason did that wonderful
presentation the other night about York the slave on the Lewis and Clark
Expedition
and of course Lewis and Clark expedition had to do with the Louisiana Purchase
and Thomas Jefferson a
prominent slave owner in the state of Virginia
purchased what became not only Louisiana but
Kansas and the north west and the great portion of the middle of
this country that was all well and good for a while and then it was like
well as we expand West what are we going to do with slavery
and there was a tremendous
split in our country
and it was finally
in 1820 we came to what is known as the Missouri Compromise
where congress compromised by
at that time what is now the state of Maine was basically a colony
of Massachusetts so Massachusetts agreed to give up their colony and create a
brand new free stay called Main
and the South would get Missouri
as a slave state that's the Missouri Compromise and that's what held the
country together in 1820
in a minute when we get to Kansas it'll be important to remember that Missouri
didn't turn out to be a very good slave state
It's too cold you know it's turns out it's not South Carolina after all
if you're gonna have slaves you got him work you know you just get him take the
wearer of
and you don't have to keep them warm but you gotta keep warm enough that they don't
freeze to death and you gotta feed them enough to keep them alive
so wasn't very economic system in the state of Missouri
and even though it was a slave state didn't really catch on
so as time went on US got in a great war
with mexico and we acquired a whole bunch more territory
and then the question became well what's gonna happen
there was slavery because it was very
you know slavery was illegal in Mexico
so there weren't any slaves in Texas till 1846
but the minute the Texas won its independence thousands of slaves were
brought from
Alabama Mississippi Louisiana into Texas
so is very evident the whether the US Congress liked it or not
if they accepted Texas as a state it was going to be a slave state
what about the rest of it
by the rest of it I mean California, New Mexico,
Arizona what are we going to do about them
so the great compromise of 1850 was the Texas comes in
as a slave state but the rest
of the acquisitions from the Mexican War will be free
so in 1850 that's our situation
in here in Topeka and Lawrence
and settlements in Kansas
because the situation with Missouri
what was going to happen here was unclear this is supposed to be a free
state
but the South begin to bring slaves
and plantationers in large numbers from Mississippi
from Alabama in the abolitionists
targeted Kansas as a free state
and they begin to sponsor immigration from New England to Kansas on a very
large scale
hoping that people would simply vote with their feet
in the Kansas would become a free state because
there were so many have non slavers the South hoping it would become a slave
state
because there were so many slavers and this of course led to the
legendary situation a bloody Kansas
and the great many civil war of 1850s
and the rise of armed bands vigilantes
who rain tear down at each other
and the personality who
dominated that situation is of course John Breaux
who came here from New England who's a friend William Lloyd Garrison's
and brought with him militant abolitionist
state feelings this led to pitch battles
when I was driving over here from Kansas City the other day I was thinking about
these planes their perfect cavalry
the perfect places for cavalry and these
these two factions form their own arm
and mounted bands and fight pitched battles
and things like the Pottawatomie massacre occurred
and indeed this one on into the Civil War was 1863 when Kwan trails
slaver Raiders swept down on the abolitionists cap
headquarters of Lorence and burned it to the ground and killed three hundred
people
one morning this is serious stuff
and of course as you know John Brown left Kansas
and John Brown went back
to Ohio and he formed a plan to
in slavery by arming the slaves
and he was gonna do that by raiding the federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry
and he was positive that once he got the
necessary firepower slaves all over the South would really to his cause
massacre their owners and that would be the end of slavery
so on October 16th 1859 Brown
and his Raiders swept down on Harpers Ferry and they did in fact
capture the federal Arsenal that's as far as they got as you know
Robert E Lee brought the Virginia militia
to Harpers Ferry put the rebellion down most of the
people were killed Brown was badly injured and he was executed
on March 16 1860 he was hanged
by the neck in Harpers Ferry
as executioners often do they make them state letting people have their
last words John Brown's last words were these
he said the crimes of this guilty land can be expiated
only in blood
and in fact those were prophetic words
because nearly 13 months
after John Brown was killed the South Carolina militia opened fire on Fort
Sumner
and the American Civil War began now there are a lot of reasons for the American
Civil War
but certainly slavery and racial segregation
in the question of who's in and who's out played
a particularly pivotal role
in that chapter and as far as
John Brown predicting that the crimes of this guilty land can be
expiated only in blood that was certainly brought home
at places like Gettysburg and Antietam
and Chancellorsville in Fredericksburg in Vicksburg
and Shiloh and Cold Harbor
Transylvania courthouse, Petersburg
everywhere when that war ended
out of a nation of 30 million 646,000 men
had been killed in action I really think it's important before we talk about
14th amendment that everybody let that sink in for a minute
in world war two about 400,000 American soldiers were killed
and we're still talking about it now it's out of a nation have a population of 200
million
by todays standards if the Civil War
occurred at that level of lethalness
the total fatalities among american soldiers would be six and a half million men
in three years so the
expiation in bloody
happened in spades now
many if you've recently seen the movie Lincoln so everybody hears all hip to
the 13th amendment
and the process that went into the abolition
of slavery a big moment
that was in 1865
and of course as you know Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and a southerner
became president
but that southerner Andrew Johnson was very committed to reconstruction
and
in a lot of the readmitted southern states
people were not allowed to vote if they had born
arms against the United States so suddenly the freed slaves had all
political power and the congress filled up with
didn't fill up but it had lots have Afro-American senators Afro-American
representatives
the army occupied the south but what
really came out of the Civil War in it
it was only politically possible because the white segregationists in the South
were temporarily out of the picture
was the adoption in 1868
up the 14th amendment now I know you guys hear these things
it goes off our backs like it was just
another verbiage another something to say
I wanna read the important part of the Fourteenth Amendment to you
but I want you to consider it
in relationship to the compromise of 1820 into the Missouri Compromise
and to the Civil War and the emancipation proclamation
and the freedom of freeing of the slaves quote
nor shall any state
deprive any person
of life Liberty or property
without due process of law nor
deny to any person within its jurisdiction
the equal protection of the laws
us so what I just read to you
is the famous equal protections clause
which is going to ride to the rescue
in the next century of a whole bunch of us
uhm
at this point the US was on a
reconstruction phase in the south
and nobody could really see what was gonna happen
Grant served two terms as president in the election of 1876
the contest was between James Tilden
and Rutherford B Hayes and in that election
James Tilden won Handley with a huge margin of the popular vote
Tilden's electors
in the electoral college however went
or Hayes' people went to those southern electors
and said I'll tell you what if you will vote for
us even though we lost the election if you vote for us in the electoral college
we'll withdraw the federal army from the south
you can have your country back and that is exactly what happened
the greatest fraud in American history Rutherford B Hayes became president of the
United States
the federal troops were withdrawn from the south
and a great
period of horror
set in of a portae of
racial segregation of violence
disenfranchisement
of a people enforced poverty
according to the chestnut archives that keeps track of these things
between let me check
my notes to make sure I'm not giving you bad information
1862 or 1882
and the enactment of the
voting rights act in a in 1966
their 4774 documented lynchings
of Afro-American males in the south it is estimated that that is probably only
about a tenth
if you except the figure 4400 that is one week
if you accept the figure 44,000 it's one about every 22
hours and
that was the reality of life
in the south no
Afro-American participation in voting and we all pretty much know that story don't we
the Afro-American community in America
was squashed terrorized
and excluded but like
all oppressed communities it held on to some things that we're going to become
very
powerful in the future and one of course we're Afro-American churches
which were allowed to thrive and the other was
oddly because of that period between Lee surrendered appomattox and the
election of 1876
a lot of black colleges got founded
and they thrived hundreds of them and
would ultimately be the seed the kernel
that would provide a small but effective
educated minority of Afro-Americans who could make
war non-violent war through the church's
and one of them was born in Baltimore
on July 2nd 1908
and his family name him Thoroughgood
T h o r o u g h g o o d
and when Thoroughgood got to be in seventh grade he thought that was a big
pain in the butt to have to write that so he changed his name to Thurgood
T h u r g o o d Marshall
Thurgood Marshall
was the great-grandson
of a slave and the grandson of a slave
his father William
worked as a pullman porter
at a time when being a pullman porter was a big deal
he was an affiliate of Jay Philip Randolph
who Attorney General Palmer in the 1920s would refer to as the
most dangerous
*** in America because he wanted to organize a union for
pullman porters and waiters Thurgood's mother
was Norma would graduated from a black
normal school in the state of Maryland and was a school teacher
so Thurgood Marshall was born into a family of a father who was politically
active in the labor movement
and a mother who was an educator
and when it came time he of course attended segregated schools in Baltimore
when it came time to go to college he went
to one of those traditional black colleges
in this case Lincoln University which is located right outside Gettysburg
Pennsylvania
and his roommate and lifelong friend was Langston Hughes
so we have a pretty tough guy
here we just got a labor
a labor union dad mom teacher
long history of the Baptist Church and his
best friend is radical poet is gone go on to be one of the
great writers of American History
So Thurgood's ambition to come back to Baltimore and attend the University
Maryland law school because it was in his hometown
it was racially segregated they wouldn't let him in
so like lost of other people
he crossed over the border into DC and went into Howard
and Thurgood Marshall graduated from Howard University Law School
1933 number one in his class
passed the bar and in 1936
beginning the thought of using the Equal Protection Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment that I just read to you
he sued the University of Maryland law school
and force them to become racially integrated
the first American institution of higher learning that was forced by courts
to integrate that was Thurgood Marshall in 1936
he argued his first case the United States Supreme Court when he was 32
President Kennedy appointed him in 1961 to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals
first Afro-American to be appointed to a federal appeals court
James Eastland of Mississippi held the appointment up for two years
because he just couldn't abide the idea about a black face on a federal appellate
court
however after President Kennedy's assassination before Thurgood Marshall
could
take his seat on the Supreme Court Lyndon Johnson appointed him the
Solicitor General of the United States in 1966
and that is that's the position that is the guy who represents the United
States before the Supreme Court's it's our country's top lawyer
so much to in it this is a presidential appointee nothing southern senators can do about it
all of a sudden they have an Afro-American solicitor General
this is serious stuff and why was Thurgood Marshall so famous
Thurgood Marshall was famous because he became general counsel in WACP in
1936
and school desegregation was the number one target
and you know it's all well and good to look at Thurgood Marshall
and I must say I argued a case in the Supreme Court
and I was about as far away from him as I am from you Connie
he was probably 80 at the time
and as I sat there listening to the solicitor general tell a court all
things were wrong with my argument
I was just struck by how lucky I was to be
in the proximity of Thurgood Marshall
like seeing a living legend and I must say a smart guy too cause he agreed with me
when it came time
In any event the question of racial segregation of schools
in separate-but-equal had already been visited by the Supreme Court case of
Plessy vs Ferguson and they had held it
to be constitutional to be a state issue
so when they accepted review in 1954
nobody really knew exactly what was going to happen here
but as a parallel to we parents
you know you go over to the Brown Center you look at the pictures of plaintiffs
a bunch of women and then they got mister Brown cause they needed a guy
I think they needed a guy you know to get his picture taken
I was looking at those faces yesterday and
at how well presented everybody is you know they're all dressed up
got their church Sunday clothes on and the men got their beautiful pressed white
shirt
these are proud people but they're coming up
there's this is happening in Jim Crow lynchings
segregation can you imagine how much love those people had for their children
think about that, think about your little children
how bad you want them to go to school
these people were risking their lives
to put their name on a lawsuit
in a redneck place like Topeka Kansas
and say you can't send my little girl to a black only school
because separate is inherently unequal
nobody knew how that would turn out
lo and behold
by a vote of nine to nothing with Warren Burger presiding
or Earl Warren presiding
the Supreme Court ruled and I quote
separate educational facilities
are inherently unequal and inherently
violate the Due Process Clause
and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment
eighty-nine years after the Civil War
ended that
14th Amendment rose up
and broke the back of institutionalised segregation
now it didn't end we all know that
but what it did is it put the separatists
and the white supremacists on the defensive
and they've been on the defensive ever since sometimes a great strategic moment
happens and we don't recognize how significant it is
1954 changed America
not only did open the door to integrated education
but it opened the door for us for people with disabilities
we don't even know their history the in the 19th century
what about your children what do you think their lives would have been like in 1880
without Brown they wouldn't be much different today
now I mentioned when Congress
was forming our government they sort of said we're gonna have a Supreme Court
and enjoy it that's all they said
so everything about the court system in America is result of congressional
action
and bluff because you know when Marbury vs. Madison came up in 1804,
1805, 1806, the supreme court said something was unconstitutional
everybody went oh, ok
it's unconstitutional because the court said so there's nothing in the
constitution that gives the court the right to make those decisions
that just became part of our accepted
government but one thing that the Constitution did not give to the Supreme
Court is enforcement power
the Supreme Court of the United States doesn't have police force they can send
out
and make sure that everybody in McPherson Kansas
is running a racially integrated school
so basically nothing happened
outside of this city
except reaction
almost immediately in the state of Florida
predictably passed
an interposition resolution
which said that by God
non of those federal courts are gonna we don't recognize the authority of federal
courts in our state
they can just write all the opinions they want we're gonna ignore them
but when you can hear in your own ears the ringing words Martin
Luther King on
"I Have A Dream Day" and the says
the bitter bitterness of interposition
the way he says it that's what he's talking about state resolutions that say that
we don't we don't care what you think
also predictably the Old Dominion state of Virginia
closed all its public schools and said we'd rather not have school
than make our little white kids go to school with those black kids
so we just won't have school when in fact in 1955
all the schools in Virginia were closed
in Arkansas governor Orval Fabus
nationally activated the National Guard
and had them lock and load
and show up at the Little Rock High School
because there was this
horrible little girl name Ruby Bridges
who claims she was gonna go to high school
and that little girl Ruby Bridges was such a threat
to the sovereign state of Arkansas that they had to call out the National Guard
in fact president Eisenhower
sent a battalion of the 101st Airborne Division from
Kentucky and he also ordered the
Arkansas National Guard to stand down
and there were a few hours during that day where there's some question as to
whether the Arkansas National Guard would stand down
or whether they would be open warfare over the question of
one little child registering herself to go to school
that was in 1956
and I wanna say one more thing everybody knows the
story of Ruby Bridges we all read it to our kids and we've seen the movie
but I i think for special ed parents it's important there to stop and think
about that too you know
what Eleanor was gonna go in the middle school our neighborhood middle school
had a principal who was a
first class jerk and
he didn't want underachieving kids in his school
and I could see real clearly how I could fix that
but at the same time I really did not want Eleanor going into
unwelcoming environment but I could see in my own mind how if necessary I get
the National Guard escort
her to that school but we strategically the way families do we decided to
let her go someplace else but
talk about love what about Ruby Bridges parents
and what kind of commitment do you have to have to your child to put
to go to that link and not back down
to get the president of the united states to send an elite formation of
american fighting men to your community just so your little girl could go to
school
that's what we're talking about here that's what's special education moms to every
day
that's what we've been doing for a long time
and you know one of the last exciting moments a course was when the
late and greatly missed George Wallace of Alabama
stood in front of the doors in Tuscaloosa to keep
James Meredith from registering because
James Meredith registering represented the end of western civilization as we know it
and certainly there was no way on earth that the University of Alabama
could survive
even a second with an Afro-American student
and it's funny what people believe isn't it this is like
1966 public opinion the South was all up in arms
people believe that stuff
and once again you know I took federal authority to force the
integration the Universe of Alabama but I got I got friends from Alabama
thank you and I got fifteen minutes all be done
I watch the national championship football game on
New Years last year God there are a lot of Afro-American football players on the
University of Alabama
And you know as far as I can see that schools is doing okay
alright I now I have 15 minutes so I'm gonna hurry up
our opinions is 1954 December 1955 Rosa Parks refused to get
up of her seat in Montgomery and an unknown young preacher named Martin Luther
King Jr.
was elected to chair the Montgomery Improvement Association
and began the 12 thirteen month long
boycott which ended
with the city of Montgomery capitulating
but also ended with the Southern Poverty Law Center suing
the state and in the case a Browder vs. Gayle getting the
segregated buses of Alabama declared unconstitutional and that was the first
big victory
of what began to be the civil rights movement in you
a way of looking at the civil rights movement is that it is the
enforcement mechanism
thats stepped in for the Supreme Court
to enforce Brown because there was no other way for it to happen
of course you know August the 63 was a great march on Washington DC in 64
Dr. King became a Nobel laureate and a famous
person around the world
all of this culminated in the passing of the voting rights act of 1965
which essentially destroyed the old political power of
the South at least as far as local
government goes the segregation is the reaction of Gerrymandered the States
pretty well so they still have a lot of power in Washington
but as far as Afro-American people having opportunity to participate in
local governments in the south its a vast improvement and a
very important thing okay
and of course as we know Selma was 1965 Dr.
Kings was assassinated in April
of 1968
how does this parallel briefly our own movement
well the education of
the handicapped act in 1975
which morphed into IDEA
really to some degree is a mini Brown
because it established for that it was the policy of our country
a FAPE that every single child has the right to a free
and appropriate public education
now we're all here this week because we're still fussing and fighting
over what that means
but we don't come here to defend FAPE
that's a given that's the basis of our movement
for special education and educational opportunities education handicapped act
start in 1974 we're in
we get to go to school they can't keep people with disabilities
out
in 1973 the Vocational Rehabilitation Act
pretty much mistakenly included section 504
and when after Congress had passed it and then they read it said jeshhh you can't
discriminate against people with disabilities
everyone went well uh they don't know about that
so then they held up the regulations for couple years
came down to president Carter have to do the regulations
and the only did that because a massive civil disobedience I don't know how many of you know this
people with disabilities occupied Health and Human Services buildings all over
America
the one in San Francisco for three months and they finally embarrass the
government
into issuing those regs
the 504 regs so that was another significant moment for us
adapt was founded in Denver in 73
Ed Roberts founded the first independent living center in Berkeley
the rolling quads and of course
the coordinating moment was 1990 when the Americans with Disabilities Act was
passed
which prohibits discrimination based on disability
and as congress sometimes does the same stuff they don't really mean
in the ADA there's a thing called the community integration clause
which gonna come back and bite them on the butt her in a minute because I've only got a few minutes left
alright so
down in Alabama down in George in Atlanta
lived and lives a young woman
and she became the name plaintiff case called Olmstead
vs.LC well LC turns out to be Lois Curits
and you can go put Lois Curtis
art.com in your computer and go to her website and buy her art
because that's how she supports herself now at the time Lois Curtis lived in an
ICU
not because she was particularly sick but because they didn't know what to do
with her because she was label
a person with mental retardation and mental illness
well I've gotten to know Lois pretty well and Lois wasn't gonna have any of it
she was like let me outta here and they were like no
and she was like yes and they were like no
Lois we liked to let you go but we just don't have any place to put you
so she got in touch with the Georgia Advocacy Center and
Olmstead vs. LC goes to the US Supreme Court and by voted of 5 to 4 the
court rules that the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process
Equal Protection Clause combined with the ADA
means that people with disabilities have the right
to live in the community if they want to that
is the community integration mandate
which like Brown has no enforcement power
so it's up to all of us
to make sure that olmstead plans are active in our states
and that they are implemented but the opportunity I'd
mentioned at the beginning is the community integration mandate
we now have the opportunity to end
institutionalization we have the opportunity end sub-minimum wage work
and we can do that by beating people over the head with the homestead case
like Brown there's a lot of pushback
and that could be topic of another conversation
keep in mind the question of what are your children are here to enjoy a full life
or if they are just here to be fuel
to run the disability business because that's really the
where the struggle comes in at the moment
last
I want to share quickly
3 advocacy
lessons I've learned because I want you to think about them I want you to
adopt them
in this opportunity for us to move ahead now
there's lots of questions when somebody ask you to do something
don't waste your fine eye energy unless it's something you can believe in
test number one does this advocacy
initiative truly believe that disability is a normal and natural part
the human condition if it does click
that's a good principle
the biggest enemy of adults in America with disabilities
is social isolation does
this initiative promote community living
and inclusion because if it promotes social isolation
you were sensing your children to
an adulthood of loneliness to spear
and isolation and lastly never underestimate people with disabilities
there are a lot more clever than you think as all those parents know
Eleanor had an IEP goal to tie her shoes good God
we had it for like seven years finally we said lets forget that goal
so by that time velcro come along so it's all fine
so like five years later I am typing away on my computer one day and she is sit over here
and I see her tie her brand new pair she got a brand new pair of sneakers
she's tying them I said where did you learn to tie your shoes
first-grade what's the deal she says
and this is what she said it was a dumb goal
It's a long journey It's the hardest thing you can do
social changes is hard build community
trust each other I know
I'd could see in the face that many of you did see Lincoln and
It was a good screenplay I liked it and there's towards the end there's a great
scene where Daniel Day-Lewis is reading the screenplay
and of course I can't do it that way but he says
when I became a surveyor I learned to use a compass
and that compass would point
the way to true north it's clear
as could be but what the compass would not show me are the hills
and the rivers and the swamps and so sometimes to reach your goal you gotta
go around the side a little bit
what good does it do to pursue it
straight ahead just to become mired in the swamp
and that's a little bit what social change is about
be smart be strategic
take your victories where you can get them celebrate each other
love your children I want to end with
when I became President of NDRN
Justin Darts daughter gave me this book and this was published in Japan
when he and Yoshiko still live there it's a very first publication
that Justin ever did the first time he ever came out as a
a great potential leader and as you know
or if you don't know he and Yoshiko
Justin was an alcoholic and very bitter man
because of his broken back met this beautiful woman in Japan
when he was head of tupperware and they went to live on a mountain top
and when he came down it was like Moses had an epiphany
spent the whole rest of his life struggling for Disability Rights
so this poem was written in the mid 60s
by little girl named Naney Wiki
who was in third grade
at the Komio school for handicapped children
in Tokyo and it's called The Knapsack
and I and she writes now I carried the knapsack on my back
when I walk the pencil case begins to dance
inside the knapsack because I walk jerkily
I wonder if mister pencil
will ever keep quiet when I get to walk
well and I think the answer to that question
lies with you we all have an opportunity now
go do good work make sure that that little girl gets to not can walk as
jerkily as she wants in a world that loves people
that walk jerkily free our people thank you
Any body have a question for Michael be I have a question What's
your strategies or approaches when your trying to advocate for someone like it seems
like a lot of times I have all this information and I know it but I diverted to a bunch of people and I try to advocate and it's kinda like
oh yeah but you know just kinda you know gets pushed to the side
just wondering if you could tap on that NO
laughing
you know what I think it's ah I know exactly what you're talking about
sometimes we aren't speaking the same language
you know
I was in this workshop on early intervention earlier
she's using the presenter here from montana
whose name escapes me at moment sorry Sarah
was giving this example of you know Special Ed people saying well its really in
the best interest
of your child to go over here to the segregated place because that's where
the resources are
and what you want is to stay in the neighborhood school
so first of all what irritates me when the functionaries from the school district
start talking about what's in the best interest to my child
when I know perfectly well what is being done for the administrative and
cost convenience
of the district you know
I think that when I first started doing this I came out of a background of
serious criminal
defense and I thought that best way to do this
I used to really like love to take on FBI agents who just like to destroy them
in cross-examination
and the thing about the FBI agents is they go way and I never have to see them again
but at IEP meetings what would happen Is I do that but people were still
there the next day
and so that turned out maybe that wasn't the best strategy
so I think a lot of it has to with relationship-building persistence
taking a timeout never giving up
I mean I don't know what to tell you there's I'll tell you this I tried 31
death penalty cases before Eleanor was born and I argued in Supreme Court
and I have never been so stressed
as I have been doing one of her IEPs
it's too personal and
you know I do think that when your kid gets a little older bringing them to the IEP
helps
because it's
it's harder for the adults to be rude to the kid than it is to you
and I think we were probably about in 10th or 11th grade I said to
Eleanor was coming to do one of her IEPs she did the last one
all by herself we didn't even go what's an IEP I said to her
she said an IEP is when a bunch of adults get together and say mean things about
me
well you know that's not pretty telling
thing so if you can control the tenor
you know if I knew the answer to that question we wouldn't need this conference
or any conference I mean it's just damn hard
and I appreciate the fact that we spent all this time this week
talking about regulations rules but the fact of the matter is in my state their are 144
independently elected school districts
and they are accountable to their boards and every one of them has a whole slew of
principles
and the number of special education policies
in the United States is equal to the number of principles
because you either get along with the principal in that school and stuff
happens or it doesn't
and you know we can talk about we're gonna file a department of ED
complaint
we're gonna file due process non of those things are
very useful due process is a major commitment of time and money in federal
court
most people can begin to imagine it in the state
what's the state revenue for violation withholding funds
you think there's any state education agencies in Americans that is gonna withhold funds
just because somebody didn't do the IEP right
so really does come down to relationships patience and persistence
Other questions
What is Eleanor doing right now
Well Eleanor graduated from high school with the regular diploma
she did a very good transition program in Portland State University
I she went to community college for two years and learn American Sign Language
she's a very good interpreter she's very keen on deaf culture
she sings in a choir in Portland call the Portland Piece choir and she signs all
the
lyrics she works at sort a high end grocery store in Portland three
days a week
and then she does
this and that and she's got friends and boyfriends and she's mastered
public transportation system and she was all set to move out of her moms house
and into her own apartment then we had some
some physical issues a year ago that put a hold
the skids to that but that's her next ambition is to
live independently but she went with me to the
self advocates becoming a parent conference in Minneapolis in September
had a wonderful time and
she's been you know to lots of these things she keynoted at the National Down syndrome
Congress one year
and she's a very strong spokesperson for inclusion
Her latest outrage are sub-minimum wage
I employment slots and she's really just been doing great work
bringing that to the attention of people and
refusing to have anything to do with them so
I think you know pretty happy young woman
that is a guy she was with the Johnny Crescendo
the name is Allan Holdsworth actually but he's a troubadour is an Englishman and
he
writes beautiful folk songs civil right songs for people with disabilities
and so that's who that was in that's Shoshiko Dart
in the red vest and then Senator Tom Harkin on the left who is Chair of the Senate
Health Education Labor Pension Committees adapt action
Washington DC
when she graduated from high school I think thats
here at PEAK okay then this is another presentation she did
there she is again with Alan so she gets around
I loved being here I like being with you
I like its much more fun for me to be with families than with politicians and
bureaucrats which is where I'm
mostly am but was really fabulous to be in Topeka
I really feel like I got to do some special coming here
so thank you