[ID: Video by tiktok user @ myelasticheart. They are centre screen, holding a white mug with a drawing of people on, and is wearing an orange jacket, white frilled shirt and orange snake and spoon earrings. There are yellow subtitles at the top. /end ID]

[Video Transcript:

“In 1990, a group of disabled folk said, if you wanna make us a spectacle we’ll be a spectacle!” (quick frame jump)

“Welcome back to Disability 101, and today we’re talking about the Capitol Crawl!” (quick frame jump)

“Let’s set the stage: it’s 1990 and the Americans with Disabilities Act, federal legislation that would prevent discrimination on the basis of disability, is just a Bill that has been languishing in Congress for months, in part due to lobbying from religious organisations and business groups that do not want this bill to pass.” (quick frame jump)

“ADAPT, a national grassroots disability rights organization, decides that disabled folk cannot afford to keep waiting for this bill to pass.” (quick frame jump)

“So much of the world was inaccessible to us, and you see, people will stare at disabled folks and make a spectacle out of us as long as they want, but when it comes to inaccessibility and ableism that we face, they wanna look away.” (quick frame jump)

“So ADAPT said, if we’re gonna be a spectacle it’s gonna be on our own terms.”(quick frame jump)

“And we’re not gonna let them look away this time!” (quick frame jump)

“So on March 12th 1990, over 1000 people showed up in Washington DC to march from the White House to the US Capitol, a building that at the time was not accessible.” (quick frame jump)

“Disable activists in the crowd then set down their mobility aids, climbed out of their wheelchairs, and began to crawl the 83 stone steps to the top of the US Capitol building.”

(transition to photograph of people in blue shirts climbing a set of stairs with cameras pointing down at them. There is a crowd of people and wheelchairs at the bottom of the stairs)

(transition to image of three people in blue shirts, a woman and two young children, climbing the stairs with a group of people standing around them and at the top of the stairs. One child has a paper roll in her hand and the smallest has a headband and a paper roll in her back pocket)

“Among them was 8 year old activist Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins,” (zoom on smallest girl in picture), “who was born with cerebral palsy and proudly declared, ‘I’ll take all night if I have to’.” (quick transition back to show speaker)

“This time, people couldn’t look away from the obvious reality of inaccessibility in front of them, and the lived experience that disabled people had to navigate day after day.” (quick frame jump)

“ADAPT continued protesting in DC for a week and over 104 people were arrested for civil disobedience.” (quick frame jump”

“But it was worth it- the bill passed the House on the Senate and on July 26th 1990, President George H W Bush signed the Americans at Disabilities Act into law.” (quick frame jump)

“Now, the ADA isn’t perfect and let’s be honest, we have a long way to go before the world is accessible. But the Capitol Crawl was a huge victory for disability rights (quick frame jump) and I think a beautiful, powerful example of disabled innovation; taking this narrative that exists about us and completely flipping it to our advantage.” (quick frame jump, speaker leans back in chair)

“Gosh, I just love talking about disability history because wow, like, we are so powerful and it makes me so proud every time I learn something new about us!” /end transcript.]

this was also a huge inspiration for disability rights in the UK!

the Disabled People's Direct Action Network (DAN) were a group of activists and performers who cite ADAPT (as well as the Black Civil Rights movement) and their work on the ADA as a huge influence on their protest tactics and organisational skills.

DAN were known for being punks - their slogan 'Piss On Pity' was their response to the inspiration porn fuelled Telethon - a charity fundraiser that depicted disabled people as subhuman.

[image ID: small group of protestors holding banners. one is held by a person who is holding a white cane, and it reads 'ACCESS NOW' in bold black lettering on orange and yellow. one is held in front of a person and reads 'PISS ON PITY' in bold black lettering on yellow. one is mostly obscured by the person in front, but it reads 'RIGHTS NOT CHARITY' (only a couple of letters are visible). one protestor, using a crutch, wears a black t-shirt that reads 'DISABILITY RIGHTS: THE FINAL FRONTIER: TO BOLDLY GO WHERE ALL OTHERS HAVE GONE BEFORE'. end id]

they also worked with Campaign for Accessible Transport, and frequently handcuffed themselves to buses to protest lack of accessibility

[image ID: black and white photograph of a group of disabled people protesting in front of a London bus. two wheelchair users are at the front: one is a blonde person turned away from the camera (who I believe is barbara lisicki, the co- founder of DAN), the other is a man in a hat with wavy hair, wearing a disability rights: the final frontier shirt. he is also in a wheelchair. this man is alan holdsworth (known by his stage name johnny crescendo), who is the other co-founder of DAN. to their right, a person standing up holds a banner with writing on it - it says the word 'AGENDA' and has a disability symbol on it. end id]

DAN's activism led to the passing of the Disability Rights Act in 1995, which was even worse than the ADA, but it was still a huge leap forwards in terms of legal recognition of discrimination against disabled people

SOME SOURCES i highly recommend, if you want to learn more about the disability rights movement/disability arts movement in the uk (mostly england. actually mostly the north of england)

the NDACA - the main collectors of the disability arts movement artifacts, there's some fantastic video interviews on here too

the People's History Museum - if you scroll down the page for their Nothing About Us Without Us exhibition, you'll find a ton of accessible links

(also if you're interested in the art aspect, i wrote about this for my politics and art module for uni, if u dm me i can send u the link)

anyway! disabled people are cool and powerful and we have so much fascinating history!