How Disabled Activists Forced Congress To Act

Eighty-three steps doesn’t sound like a policy argument until you picture someone dragging themselves up marble stairs just to be allowed in the room. We’re Kevin and Palmy, and we’re talking about the Capitol Crawl, the 1990 disability rights protest that helped break the stalemate around the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by forcing the country to see inaccessibility up close.

We set the scene in Washington, DC: activists leaving behind wheelchairs and mobility aids, cameras rolling, chants echoing, and more than 60 people climbing the Capitol steps by hand. One moment still stops us cold, eight-year-old Jennifer Keelan pulling herself upward and saying she’d take all night if she had to. That image made a simple point lawmakers could not talk around: without ramps and accessible entrances, disabled people are locked out of civic life.

Then we get into what happened after the ADA passed and why “passing a law” isn’t the same as guaranteeing access. We talk about ramps, curb cuts, accessible transit, and workplace accommodations, plus the frustrating gaps: weak enforcement, the burden of civil recourse, and how accessibility breaks down on private property like shopping center parking lots. We also dig into why fines for blocking access don’t land the same for everyone, especially across income levels, and what that means for real-world disability justice.

If you care about accessibility, disability advocacy, civil rights, or the history behind the ADA, listen now. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave us a review so more people find the show.

Transcript

Welcome And Why We Advocate

palmi 0:00

Welcome to our podcast When Life Gives You Lovements. I'm Kevin.

Kevin 0:06

And I'm Palmy. We consider ourselves disability advocates and intend to highlight some disability issues and things we find interesting that we frequently encounter when we're out and about. Also, some history on disability that we find interesting. This year we're going to include more of the interviews of the people that the disability affects. We hope you enjoy it.

palmi 0:32

Well, hello everybody.

Kevin 0:34

Hello.

palmi 0:35

Welcome back to our podcast when life gives you limits. I'm Kevin.

Kevin 0:41

And I'm Palmy. And what are we talking

What The Capitol Crawl Was

Kevin 0:45

about?

palmi 0:45

Well, we teased last week we're going to talk about the Capitol Crawl.

Kevin 0:50

What is the Capitol Crawl, Kevin?

palmi 0:53

It's the uh protest that moved a nation.

Kevin 0:58

What does that mean?

palmi 1:00

Well, here in the US we have a law that protects people with disabilities, makes, for example, builders build buildings that are, you know, have wide enough doorways to accommodate wheelchairs. Uh specifically instructs hotels they have to have disabled rooms, etc.

Kevin 1:28

But we didn't have that before.

palmi 1:30

No, we didn't have to be.

Kevin 1:31

Not before 1990.

palmi 1:33

In 1990, uh the Congress was pretty much in a some kind of stalemate situation.

Kevin 1:45

They were just being lazy and not wanting to do anything.

palmi 1:49

Yeah, there is there's nothing going through Congress. Either somebody one party or the other doesn't like it.

Kevin 2:01

It meant people had to spend money, is what it was. And they weren't wanting people to have to spend money basically, or to tell people that they had to sp spend money. So uh what they did was basically shame them. I mean, quite honestly, that's what they did. These protesters shamed them into acting.

palmi 2:18

We're gonna explain how they did it. Yeah. And this is entertaining if you've well lived in US already have these laws. It's kind of uh okay, it's nice to know how we got there, but you know, it doesn't really do much for you. But there are people out there that are living in places that don't have these kind of laws that protect resist disabled people.

Kevin 2:51

Still, yeah.

palmi 2:52

So uh this may give them some ideas. It wasn't something that came easily in America because it did involve at least initially spending

Eighty-Three Steps That Shamed Congress

palmi 3:08

money.

Kevin 3:08

All right, let me set the scene. Okay. Imagine yourself uh drag imagine dragging yourself up eighty-three stone steps before the law still because the law still does not see you, leaving wheelchairs behind, hands on concrete, chanting, echoing just to try to be seen. And that's what this the march, the capital crawl, the protest, the protest that moved nation was all about.

palmi 3:46

A bunch of disabled people got together and uh had convinced Congress that they needed to have a hearing on the subject, and Congress agreed and scheduled at the end of time.

Kevin 4:04

There was a bill, it was called the ADA bill, and it stalled in Congress. And activists were frustrated, growing after years of slow progress, um, they introduced the adaptive and uh the ADA is the adaptive American disability for access to public transport uh transit and their organized style. They had been trying to get this to pass for several years, and so on March 12th of 1990, activists gathered at the White House the decision to stage a dramatic, undeniable demonstration, um symbiotic power of leaving behind mobile aids set and to set the scene. They invited crowds, media, and it involved um perceived tension between the crowds and the media, and the crawl itself was 60 plus activists beginning to climb the steps of the Capitol stairs.

palmi 5:13

Now, I I don't know if you're familiar with the U.S. Capitol building, but these are light hard concrete. No, I think they're marble steps.

Kevin 5:26

What are they?

palmi 5:27

Marble.

Kevin 5:28

Marble. Okay. So 60 plus activists, including children. Um, the highlight was an eight-year-old child, Jennifer Keelan, who pulling herself up saying, I'll take all night if I have to.

palmi 5:47

And so basically, uh the point was to try and shame Congress because there was no ramp to get into the Capitol vaulting where they had this scheduled uh hearing to appear at. So um uh they got the point across because it if you can imagine that eight-year-old crawling up the steps, that was just one of them.

Kevin 6:16

There was multiple. Yeah, yeah.

palmi 6:18

Yeah. Uh photographers, I'm sure, had a field day with the pictures that came out of this. And basically the public outcry, and yeah, they gained a lot more support, you know. Why are you making these kids crawl up these steps?

Kevin 6:39

Yeah, the aftermath math and the um legisl uh legislative impact um of the protesters, um, it effectively made the ADA bill pass in four weeks or four months later, which still that's a long time, but progress is slow.

ADA Wins And The Enforcement Gap

palmi 7:04

Well, I think most Americans have a problem with uh once it did pass. It didn't like okay.

Kevin 7:15

Here's the problem with it. It had no legs.

palmi 7:18

It passed.

Kevin 7:19

Yeah, it provided uh the long-term impacts were the the ramps, the curb cuts, the accessible um transit transit workplace um protection, but it didn't have legs, and so there's no reinfor there's no enforcement of it.

palmi 7:34

Right. If you recall correctly, our last interviewee, Wendy, had a job. It was a job she'd acquired shortly before it passed, and she had her accident just about a couple weeks after it passed. She was a spinal cord injury and it was a car wreck. And suddenly she found herself in kind of a hostile work environment because they didn't want to make the accommodations for her to work there, but she pretty much needed the accommodations to work there.

Kevin 8:18

In order to be able to have a income. Yeah. What is what people don't under able people don't understand is people who have these disabilities, they don't want uh they don't want money just handed to them. They want to be able to work and earn their way to for their income. Yeah. In most cases. I mean there are some people that don't just want to be handed money, but in most cases, these are people that want to have a a um life that is a normal life like they used to have when they before they had these in these um disabilities. It's it does a lot of damage to your self-esteem when you can't be a working member of society anymore.

palmi 9:15

It sure does.

Kevin 9:16

Yeah.

palmi 9:17

Um also because like I said initially, they had to spend money, but nowadays I mean boulders just automatically order the right size door frames for doors, you know. So it's no that's not true, no extra costs. When we were looking at houses to buy houses and stuff, it's built after I think 1982, it just has to automatically uh no, we had to buy the 36-inch doors, they were 32, and we had to ask for an additional 36-inch doors.

Kevin 10:02

Well, our contractor is cheap. They should they make then you I think if it's public, if it's a public, but I don't think housing-wise they do it automatically.

palmi 10:16

I think that's one of the problems that uh discovered it that was frustrating for Americans, is it doesn't really apply as much to private as it does to public.

Kevin 10:33

Right, yeah. And also the fact that there is no reinfor that no enforcement of it.

Private Property Barriers And Unequal Fines

palmi 10:39

It's uh the only recourse you have is a civil recourse. Right.

Kevin 10:45

It's not like there's you get a citation or because if if there's a handicapped parking on a private uh like a shopping mall or something like that, that property is owned by the the shopping company, and so the police don't monitor those. You know, you can call the police and say someone's parking in a handicapped spot and they won't won't give a ticket. Um, you know. It's up to the because it's on a private parking lot.

palmi 11:19

The other problem I have with it is uh almost every handicapped spot in this country, anyway, has a to-way minimum, whatever it is, 250, I think it is, a fine dollar fine. Well, fines don't really impact everybody equally. Fines really impact lesser income people as opposed to like wealthy people. Right. I you know who could care less and get a ticket or have to pay a fine. It's not a a big thing.

Kevin 12:09

But so those are ongoing uh um accessibility challenges that you know the that weren't fought. They the b the bill was passed, but the di there are still challenges that need to be fought against. Maybe we need to do another crawl.

palmi 12:26

Uh perhaps we do. Yeah.

Kevin 12:29

Uh did you say, I heard you say um when we were teasing this last week that um they re they redo this every March it in is it in Washington?

palmi 12:40

I believe so, yes.

Kevin 12:41

Oh, really? I didn't I didn't know that.

palmi 12:44

I don't guarantee that. I just read that somewhere. I can't remember why I read it.

Kevin 12:51

Hmm. I'm I don't think I've ever seen it.

palmi 12:55

Well, actually, uh Washington, DC is really pretty to visit this time of year in spring. It's when the cher blossoms that were uh gift from Japan bloom. You have cher blossom trees blooming all over the place. The weather's not as hot and humid as it will get in a month or so. So yeah.

unknown 13:22

Yeah.

palmi 13:23

Now's the time to do it. I guess I picked a good time to do the the crawl too in March. Yeah, it should be a good time not in the winter, not in the summer. They have winters kind of like they do in Missouri. I think where you have high humidity, it just seems so darn bitterly cold.

Kevin 13:49

Yeah.

Should We Do Another Crawl

Kevin 13:50

Okay. Does that sum it up for the crawl then?

palmi 13:53

I think it does. Just uh recall that's what it took. And the generation that was prevalent during that time is responsible for it. It's helped us to keep moving forward, not let it go away. Yep.

Kevin 14:15

Any housekeeping?

palmi 14:18

Just a little bit. A gentle reminder, please visit our website at www.winlifeky lens onword dot net. And give us a like if you got some value from this. And go ahead and subscribe if you want to hear more.

Kevin 14:40

All right. We'll see you in a couple of weeks.

palmi 14:46

Bye now.