In this episode, we will examine one of the most important pieces of civil rights legislation passed since the 1960s. It was the Americans with Disabilities Act, and it insured for all Americans the basic right to equal access to all of American Life. It is hard to believe that there was actually a day when people with disabilities were forced to stay home, hidden from the rest of society. They were often discriminated against in employment opportunities, in restaurants, and other public places, and they had to figure out how to make do in a world designed to leave them behind.
That all changed with the stroke of George H. W. Bush's pen. He pushed for the law and worked to see it passed even though one of his strongest allies, the American business community was staunchly against it due to the costs it would have to bare. Strangely, George Bush would have allies in this fight, allies from unlikely sources, and places.
He had the help of Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, whose own brother was deaf, and he would have the help of an old nemesis he had had to battle to find himself in the Presidency at all. His old 1988 primary opponent, Senator Bob Dole of Kansas. Dole, a veteran of World War 2, had been gravely injured in Italy toward the end of the war. He had lost a kidney, was paralyzed from the neck down for nearly a year, spent 36 months in an Army hospital, and lost the use of his right arm, and some of the feeling in his left hand as a result of his war wounds.
Bob Dole had a daily reminder of the sacrifice he and others had made for their country in war. He also knew what it was like to go from being an able bodied person to an American with a Disability, and he wanted to even the playing field for all of them. Dole wanted to give them the opportunity for a better life and it was through this effort that Bush and Dole would work together for a cause so much larger than themselves. A cause that has helped millions of disabled Americans forge for themselves the full blessings of American Life. It is quite a story, and we try to tell it from the start to the sunny , hot day in July of 1990 when George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act into law on the White House Lawn with Senators Tom Harkin and Bob Dole by his side. It was an amazing day.
But just as the sun set on this amazing accomplishment in domestic civil rights, a war would explode onto the scene on the other side of the world that would demand the President's attention, and set the example on how to handle conflicts every President and leader could learn from. Iraq would invade Kuwait.
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