Signing Photo Fundraiser

Special Fundraiser - Signing Photo - Limited Edition

Concurrent with the celebration of 25^th Anniversary of the signing of the ADA in Washington D.C.  on July 26, 2015, the widows of Evan Kemp and Justin Dart signed 250 copies of this wonderful photo (long time activists Yoshiko Dart and Janine Kemp).  Tom Olin and the Disability Rights Center are proud to offer these numbered and historic signed photos for sale at the price of $150.00 including shipping.  Proceeds will go to keep Tom Olin and the Road To Freedom Bus Tour on the road.   Photo size – 11” x 14”, not framed.

The limited edition photo will make a wonderful gift for a friend, coworker, or yourself.

To place an order, email your request and mailing address to Dave Fulton at thedtfgroup@gmail.com.  We will reply and ask that you make payment through our donations page at https://disabilityrightscenter.wordpress.com/donations/   Once the transaction is complete, your photo will be sent on its way.

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!

It’s Independent Living baby!

Tom Olin, Janine Bertram, and Dave Fulton will be congregating in Virginia Beach (in, you guessed it, Virginia).  Besides getting sand between our toes and making the patios look good, Tom and Janine will be assisting in the 3:30 pm session on Sunday.  We look forward to seeing you there.  Just take a look at the program description!

Taking the Reins, Rolling Out the Revolution, and Seizing Your Seat at the New Public Media Table                   

Presenters: Tom Olin, Janine Bertram, Lawrence Carter-Long, Stephanie Hydal

Presenters will discuss non-violent revolution ahead in regards to funding cuts, institutionalization, and more, including how CILS are getting involved. These experienced organizers will teach basic organizing methods.  Then Carter-Long and Hydal will teach us how anybody with a YouTube account (which is free) can, if they are creative and savvy enough, make something go viral.  Podcasts can be produced in your bedroom or basement. Producing our own work also gets us around the persistent issues the disability community continues to face with media representation. To be blunt, "they" (conventional media) can't screw the story up if we produce, write, and edit it ourselves. The workshop places an emphasis on the different ways we could and should go about telling our own stories including: podcasts and audio storytelling in the IL movement, as a way of getting our stories out there, to build a skill set helpful in seeking employment, and how the stories we tell ourselves, and others, can motivate and provoke civil and social action. Join us and launch a disability rights and justice airwaves takeover. It’s Independent Living baby!

PRESS RELEASE     Contact: Janine Bertram janinebk@mac.com

RTF Bus heads back to Indiana

                                         

The Road to Freedom ADA Bus Tour Made a U-Turn From Michigan

The national Road to Freedom Bus Tour joins others in the disability community by cancelling its appearance at the Lansing ADA 25 celebration. 

The Lansing event’s primary funders are Peckham and Michigan Association of Rehabilitation Organizations (MARO).  Peckham is considered one of the largest and most exploitive industries paying subminimum wages to people with disabilities. It was featured on CNN as part of the SourceAmerica federal contractor investigation for taking federal funds and not hiring a sufficient number of people with disabilities as required under the terms of the federal contract.  MARO members include Peckham and other segregated sheltered workshop “providers” that pay people with disabilities (capable of working in integrated settings for minimum or prevailing wage) sub minimum wage.

“The ADA bus hit the brakes and made a U turn on our way to Lansing, Michigan for their ADA celebration,” explains Tom Olin, Director of the Disability Rights Center and Captain of the ADA Bus.  “The Freedom Bus has crisscrossed the U.S.A. bringing displays to celebrations and educational forums. We’ve supported advocates for consumer control and independence. A question that is asked time after time is 'has the promise of the ADA been fulfilled?' And yes, we have gained some tools in our fight for civil rights but economic justice and equality for all is still elusive for many with different disabilities in our community. Until we come together and say 'You and I are equal,' the ADA will be unfulfilled and justice denied. The ADA was written by us for us, not to make money from oppressing us. Let that stop here and now. “

Tom Olin, Janine Bertram and David Fulton  (RTF Bus Tour) are acting now to support real consumer control in Michigan. We cannot collaborate with or condone the businesses profiting by oppressing our community.

This year’s Road to Freedom ADA Bus Tour is a project of The Disability Rights Center. The Bus has made two full tours around the United States: once in 2007 with Wired on Wheels and again in 2014-15 with The ADA Legacy Project. The 2015-2016 tour is to educate about disability rights, assist local groups in their work and help preserve the history of the disability rights movement. Tom Olin has “captained” the ADA Bus on all three tours. 

http://roadtofreedomtour.blogspot.com Like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/roadtofreedomtour

Road to Freedom ADA Bus at HCBS Conference

Washington, DC.   Tom Olin drove the ADA Bus back to our nation's capitol on September 1 and 2 for the Home and Community Based Services 2015 conference hosted by NSAUD.  Many of our friends were there including Merrill Friedman, Liz Weintraub, and Kathleen Kleinmann. This is a key resource for information and networking with others who want people with disabilities to live in their own homes and communities rather than nursing homes and other institutions.   Some are from HMO's, some are medical model professionals, and some are advocates with the independent living perspective.  It is a stellar opportunity for all of us to pull together so no one has to be institutionalized because of a disability. Tom Olin reports he had a great 2 days talking policy with top experts and visiting with old and new friends.

Advocates are calling for enforcement of the Supreme Court's Olmstead decision (Olmstead v. LC, decided June 1999).  The Court said that, under the ADA, people with disabilities had the right and should have the choice to live in the "least restrictive environment."  That means we can choose living in our own home with the services and supports we need to go about our lives.

ADAPT is calling for the Community Integration Act, which would codify Olmstead.  A separate title VI of the ADA would outline the right to live in our own homes and designate the government agencies responsible for regulations and enforcement of the amendment.  Many have worried that "opening up the ADA" would allow Congress to decimate our civil rights.  However this is a separate title and does not "open up"ADA.

ADAPT will be holding a training with hands on sessions later this month.

The HCBS conference is a great reminder to push for the Community Living Act. ADA is 25 years old...time to grow a few more teeth!

Huge Kudos to those that brought the Road to Freedom ADA Bus Tour to the HCBS Conference.  Tom's spending so much time in the wonderful South that he says "Thanks Y'all."

Photo 1: Road to Freedom ADA Bus parked at the Washington Hilton. Bus says "Keeping the Promise of the ADA and shows classic Olin photos of disability rights pre 1990 history.

Photo 2: Head shot of Tom Olin taken at his photo exhibit at the conference.

Disability Rights ARE Civil Rights!  

http://www.nasuad.org/community-opportunities/events/2015-hcbs-conference  

Road to Freedom Bus Tour: Beyond ADA 25 launches in Indiana

The Road to Freedom Bus Tour: Beyond ADA 25 with Tom Olin is in Indiana for a multi-week launch of the 2015-2016 tour.  

Exhibit Hall Schedule

The celebration, which includes Tom Olin's photo exhibit, is sponsored by Everybody Counts, The Great Lakes ADA Center and the South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority.

On the way to Indiana, Tom and the Road to Freedom Bus stopped to visit long time disability activists Carol Gill and Larry Voss.  Tom always calls Carol the mother of disability culture. One of the founders of Society for Disability Studies, Carol is a full professor and Larry continues with grassroots organizing.

Garol Gill and Larry Voss

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/