40 Years of Denver’s Disability Rights Movement Inspires National Action

A woman holding the ADAPT flag overhead and looking down.

Dawn Russell, member of the Denver Chapter of ADAPT, in front of the ADAPT flag, 2005. Photo: Glenn Asakawa/The Denver Post via Getty Images

Denver is the birthplace of American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT), a prominent grassroots organization that uses civil disobedience and mass arrests to fight for disability rights.

why it matters: Four decades after its official founding in 1983, ADAPT’s non-violent direct action tactics have inspired a national movement with 36 active chapters in 25 states.

Deeper: See iconic photos of ADAPT’s struggle for disability rights in Denver and across the country over the past 40 years.

Denver, 1978: Members of the “Gang of 19,” which later became ADAPT, blocked buses in the city of Denver for two days to protest the lack of wheelchair lifts.Photo: Dick Davis/Rocky Mountain News by Denver Public Library’s Western History Collection

A group of people in wheelchairs are hitting a sidewalk curb with a sledgehammer. — Denver, 1980: George Roberts (left) and Les Hubbard run into a sidewalk curb as other members of the Atlantis community look on. Members of Atlantis, an independent community living center, formed the “Gang of 19” and later he started ADAPT. Photo: John Sunderland/The Denver Post via Getty Images

Why Representation Matters According to movement photographer Tom Olin:

Most ‘people with disabilities look like ‘poor’. It’s really important for groups to say ‘Hey we are strong! We need a picture’. [that show that]’” Olin told Axios.

“I was in action and there were three photographers taking the same picture. [for] For one photographer, the chair was the most important. [as] symbol of disability. I focused on the man’s face, how he exuded a power that had long been repressed. ”

People in wheelchairs protest outside a McDonald's restaurant. — Denver, 1984: ADAPT members Mike Overger, Bob Conrad, David Sheckles, and other demonstrators called on McDonald’s to make its current and future restaurants wheelchair accessible.Photo: Bill Wunsch/The Denver Post via Getty Images; Brian Moss/Rocky Mountain News, from the Denver Public Library’s Western History collection.

A group of people in wheelchairs hold protest signs outside an American Airlines airport terminal. — Denver, 1986: At Stapleton International Airport, a line of pickets protests a Supreme Court ruling that only airlines funded directly by the federal government must comply with the Disability Discrimination Act.Photo: Rocky Mountain News by David Cornwell/Denver Public Library’s Western History Collection

Tom Malone Shyla Jackson (pictured below, left) and 8-year-old Jennifer Kieran Chaffins (right), protesters climbing the steps of the Capitol to persuade Congress to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act was one of

Years later, an adult Kieran-Chuffins thought, “It was the image of me climbing those stairs that made the final decision to let the ADA pass.”

1990, Washington, DC: The Capitol Crawl.Photo: Tom Olin

Diptych: On the left are people in wheelchairs running down the street. Right: A person walking down the street using braces. — Edon, Pennsylvania, 2003: More than 200 ADAPT members, including Adam Neilson (right), from Philadelphia to Washington, D. Home Care.Photo: William Thomas Kane/Getty Images

In 2017, the group made headlines when actions across the country helped defeat Republican attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and cut the Medicaid budget by more than $800 billion. I was.