On 12 March 1990, dozens of disabled people descended on the US Capitol and carried out a protest which became known as the Capitol Crawl. Participants were protesting against the stalling of a proposed law, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which would prohibit discrimination against disabled people. Around 1000 other protesters watched and cheered while dozens of members of ADAPT, a group campaigning for public transit access for disabled people, abandoned their wheelchairs and mobility aids and began crawling up the steps of the building housing Congress. It was a powerful illustration of the difficulties faced by many disabled people faced with a hostile environment which had been constructed without their needs in mind. Michael Winter, one of the participants later reflected: “Some people may have thought it was undignified for people in wheelchairs to crawl in that manner, but I felt that it was necessary to show the country what kinds of things people with disabilities have to face on a day-to-day basis. We had to be willing to fight for what we believed in.” In the wake of the protest, Congress passed the bill and it was signed into law in July 1990. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.1819457841572691/2229212140597257/?type=3
35 Years ago Today (12 March, 2025)
Today, the BBC World Service aired an interview with one of the ADAPT activists who participated in the Capital Crawl. (Unfortunately, and supremely ironically, there is no transcript at the site where this interview streams, but if you can, and want to, you can listen to the interview here):
(9 minutes)
