Rolling with the Road to Freedom Bus Tour

It’s October 2015 and The Road to Freedom Bus Tour just left an amazing APRIL 2015 Conference: The Revolution at the Beach. It's IL Baby! The ADA Bus team (Tom Olin, Janine Bertram, and Dave Fulton) remains in Virginia Beach for a day and a half planning meeting.

Next, Tom Olin takes off for Athens for the Georgia Disability History Symposium. He will connect with disability rights icons Eleanor Smith, Mark Johnson and numerous resourceful history buffs. One of the Road to Freedom Bus Tour’s goals is to promote the preservation of history.   Many of the leaders who were involved in making the ADA into law did not preserve their papers and historic objects. It is critical that we conserve the history we make. Johnson and Smith have done substantial work saving and highlighting disability rights and justice history nationwide.

Voter registration is also a key priority. Everywhere we travel, we partner with hosts on their efforts to urge all eligible people with disabilities to vote.” Get involved in politics as if your life depended on it because it does.” Justin Dart

Tom Olin and the Road to Freedom Bus Tour are media magnets. If hosts do advance media work, mainstream media is drawn to the bus and covers your issues. Make the ADA Bus a photo opportunity for you.

After Athens, The Road to Freedom Bus rolls into Columbia, South Carolina for some serious business: joining the flood disaster relief efforts for people with disabilities. Portlight Strategies, ABLE, (Center for Independent Living) and Marcie Roth at FEMA are tireless in making sure people in the disability community displaced by the floods have the services and supports to meet their needs.   The ADA Bus is honored to join this effort.

Over winter and spring, the bus will be in Florida and then travel across the southern part of the nation with a long stop in Phoenix and a meander through California.  We hope to be in Portland, Oregon in June. For the entire month of July the ADA Bus will travel through Washington State working closely with local activists. We may get to do an event or two in Idaho as well. Emilio Vela of WASILC is partnering with us in Washington.

Now that you know our route, contact the ADA Bus team and book a stop in your city or state.  The bus brings photo and history exhibits as well as supporting advocates on local hot button issues.

Tom Olin and the Road to Freedom Bus Tour are media magnets. If hosts do advance media work, mainstream media is drawn to the bus and covers your issues. Make the ADA Bus a photo opportunity for you.

Get with the ADA Bus and roll on!

Voter Registration Initiative

 Tom Olin and the Disability Rights Center are supporting the effort of national and local organizations to increase the number of eligible voters within the disability community.

This voter registration drive seeks to register to vote those who are eligible but not registered. Also this drive is non-partisan and targeted across the full disability community regardless of the voter’s party affiliation.

We strongly encourage each tour host to work with related organizations and local government agencies to achieve this goal.  Only local disability organizations understand the nuances in each district or region.

Aug 9, 2015

PS 1 - A good write up in more detail on how to do a voter registration drive is provided by The League of Women Voters at http://lwv.org/content/tips-successful-voter-registration-drives

PS 2 - Online voter registration sites are also available:  You can also register to vote using online tools available at the following websites:

1.     Rock the Vote

2.     League of Women Voters

3.     Declare Yourself

4.     Voting as a Student 

Source:  http://www.democracymatters.org/organizing-tools/voter-registration-campaign/

PS 3 – Organizations may seek RTF Tour to come at important times during this elections cycle.  The debate schedule has been posted on Politico at http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/2016-presidential-debate-schedule-dates-times-moderators-and-topics-by-120909.html   and the primary schedule is posted at http://www.uspresidentialelectionnews.com/2016-presidential-primary-schedule-calendar/

Update: Working Schedule “Beyond ADA 25”

Update: Working Schedule “Beyond ADA 25”

Only 2 weeks one day and 5 minutes* to Independence Day for People with Disabilities on July 26, 2015. It has been a rousing year with the ADA Legacy Tour. And Tom Olin and the Road to Freedom Bus will keep rolling beyond ADA 25. (* see www.ADALegacy.com for the countdown to July 26.)

But what is Beyond ADA 25? What are the key issues on which our community should focus?  We have been talking about economic justice and the Community Integration Act.  Let us know your thoughts.

Another key purpose of the tour is to support local, state, and regional efforts for systems change advocacy and other endeavors.  We found this example in our mail box recently.

Hi Janine,

Congratulations on 25 years and working on such a worthy cause. I am Emily Pambianchi of the Prospector Theater. Please check us out as we exist due to ADA!

Quick clip about us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErlzyTF54PM

Thank you,  Emily

As you think about inviting the Road To Freedom Bus to your community, consider enough planning to secure media coverage.  We can help with that, too.

July 30 - 31 -- Portlight / FEMA conference, Arlington, VA         

                        http://www.portlight.org/page.html

Aug 24 – Sep 14 -- Everybody Counts, around Gary, Indiana   

                        http://www.everybodycounts.org/

                

Sep 17 – Disability Network Southwest Michigan, Lansing, MI

                        http://www.dnmichigan.org/

Sep 21  -  Towson University, Baltimore, MD                    

                        http://www.towson.edu/

Sep 24 – Maryland Disability Law Center, Baltimore, MD

                        http://www.mdlclaw.org/

Oct 3  -  Starkloff Disability Institute, St. Louis, MO                               

                        http://starkloff.org/s/

Oct 8-9 – DARS, Richmond, VA

                        http://www.vadars.org/

Oct 15-18 – APRIL, Virginia Beach, VA

                        http://www.april-rural.org/index.php/2014-april-conference

Nov – working on stops in Georgia/Florida

Dec – working its way west

Rough outline for 2016

Jan/Feb –  California

Mar -  New Mexico / Arizona

Apr/May/June – Oregon/Washington

July – TBD

Aug – TBD

Sept – TBD

Oct – NJ Pride Parade, Trenton, NJ

            Million Gimp March, Washington, DC

As of July 11, 2015

Janine Bertram Kemp and David Fulton join the ADA 25 Bus Tour caravan. Like all of Disability Nation we are excited to celebrate the 25^th anniversary of ADA with our NCIL and Washington, DC communities.

If you are interested in having Tom Olin and the Road To Freedom Bus Tour come to your neck of the woods, please contact Janine Bertram (janinebk@mac.com).  We are very interested in having a west coast swing in 2016 and have some “irons in the fire”, but will need more Tour stops to make it feasible.