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On part two of our series commemorating the fight for the passage of the ADA, we have on long time activist Jim Dickson. Jim talks with us about the challenges they faced in getting the ADA passed, what changes he’d still like to see, and surprises us with a fun story about a former guest and friend of the podcast.
Full transcript available at: https://www.ndrn.org/resource/ndr-jim-dickson/
Jack Rosen:
You know, Michelle, we feel like this part of your life is more mysterious. What was living in St. Louis like?
Okay, started that wrong. I’m trying to just get you to give us some St. Louis trivia. Mysterious was the wrong choice of word there.
Michelle Bishop:
Mysterious? Is it the biscuit?
Jack Rosen:
I wanted you to talk about the spaghetti and chili. That’s what I’m trying to get to, and I didn’t know how to get there.
Michelle Bishop:
I don’t know anything about that. I don’t even know what you’re referring to.
I do know there’s definitely fish fries every Friday, and it’s always fried catfish with a side of spaghetti, if that’s what you’re thinking of.
And we invented toasted ravioli, and most things that matter, like ice cream cones were invented at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis.
And there’s St. Louis-style pizza, but it doesn’t have mozzarella on it. It has Provel cheese, which is I’m pretty sure only exists in St. Louis.
And pretty much everyone has some sort of connection to Nelly or Nelly’s mom. That’s about it.
Jack Rosen:
You know what? I was thinking of Cincinnati.
Michelle Bishop:
Gotcha. I gave all that, and you were thinking of something from Cincinnati.
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
Is Cincinnati famous for its pizza?
Michelle Bishop:
Is Cincinnati famous for-
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
For anything? No offense to any Cincinnatians.
Michelle Bishop:
Shout-out to Disability Rights Ohio. We love you.
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
Yas.
Michelle Bishop:
Our bad. Our bad. I was just in Cleveland. It was cool.
Do you not know Midwestern cities, Jack? Can you not tell them apart? Is it all the same to you once you get past like Buffalo?
Jack Rosen:
Well, then there’s Los Angeles on the other side of the country.
Michelle Bishop:
Hi. Welcome back to National Disability Radio. I’m Michelle Bishop, one of your co-hosts and the voter access and engagement manager at NDRN.
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
And I’m Stephanie Flynt McEben, public policy analyst, and also one of your hosts for this wonderful podcast here at NDRN.
Michelle Bishop:
And then we also have a producer, who’s just a producer. Why don’t you tell them hi, our producer?
Jack Rosen:
Hi, Jack Rosen here, one third of the podcasting team, as you know, a host.
Michelle, do you want to tell the people who we have on today?
Michelle Bishop:
Yes. This is a continuation of our series on the anniversary of the ADA, and allow me first to say, Go ADA. It’s your birthday. Go ADA. It’s your birthday.
Okay. I’ve been wanting to get that out since the last episode for the ADA, so thank you for humoring me.
So this episode, we have Jim Dickson. He has over 30 years of experience with nonpartisan voter engagement work, particularly in the disability community. He served as the co-chair of the Civic Engagement and Voting Rights Committee for the National Council on Independent Living.
He is a former vice president for organizing and civic engagement at AAPD, the American Association of People with Disabilities, where he led AAPD’s Nonpartisan Disability Vote Project, a coalition of 36 national disability organizations, whose mission was to close the political participation gap for people with disabilities, focusing on nonpartisan voter registration, education and get out the vote.
He actually played a central role, along with the leadership conference on Civil and Human Rights, in passing the Help America Vote Act of 2002, and he was part of the leadership team, which passed the National Voter Registration Act, which you probably call Motor Voter.
He’s the past chair of the board of advisors of the United States Election Assistance Commission, and prior to joining AAPD, where he was for a long time leading this work, Jim organized the campaign to place a statue of President Roosevelt in his wheelchair at the FDR Memorial and the National Mall in Washington, DC.
He has a long history of grassroots organizing with multi-issue organizations all over the country. I know definitely in Rhode Island, Connecticut and also in California, so that covers three states Jack has probably heard of. And with the support of the Sierra Club, he organized the first grassroots congressional mobilization for the environmental movement, which resulted in the passage of the first Clean Air Act.
So Jim has a long history of civil rights work and grassroots organizing, but if you know him, you probably know him for his leadership with the disability vote work. That’s how I know Jim, who’s actually been a mentor of mine for a long time. Welcome him to the podcast.
Jim Dickson:
So Justin Dart really used his appointment to the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities to lay the groundwork for the ADA.
He and Yoshiko, his wife, went around to every state, held a public meeting and prior to going, they sent out emails saying, “Sit down for a few minutes and write down all of the experiences of discrimination that you experienced.” I don’t remember whether he said in the last week or the last month.
And then in every state, they held a hearing, and people stood up and said, “I experienced discrimination because I got in an elevator, and there was no braille on the buttons, and I had to go to four floors before I got to the right floor.” That was turned into a report to Congress, and that report was used for Congress to hold hearings.
The hearings were fascinating, very important. This whole process, which took years, was really the first time that anything approaching the cross-disability community existed. The blind, we were off doing our stuff. The ARC was doing their stuff. There were a few organizations like Nickel and NDRN who were cross-disability and active in more than one disability silo. But the struggle to pass the ADA really eliminated those silos.
And it was really interesting both first for me, because I had never thought that the lack of a braille button in an elevator was an act of discrimination. I just thought it was a pain in the ass. And many of us began, because of the way Justin and Yoshiko framed the discussion, we really began to think for the first time in terms of civil rights, is this a discriminatory structure or situation statement?
And some people got that very quickly. But I think for much of the community, not the advocates, not the lobbyists, but for the rank and file, I would say it took a good year for that perception of accesses to civil rights to really be absorbed emotionally and intellectually by much of the rank and file.
Simultaneous with Justin and Yoshiko’s going around the country and collecting stories and giving a report, Evan Kemp and his partner played bridge with George Bush and Barbara Bush. They were social peers, class, old aristocratic families. And Evan got, between the shuffling, would talk about discrimination that he felt and experienced. And Evan graduated fourth in his class from Harvard Law, at the time walked with crutches and did not get one single offer from a major law firm to come and go to work, totally because using crutches, he was perceived as somehow less competent.
Pat Wright with CCD, Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, formed a strategy committee. And again, there would be 20 to 30 people at every meeting representing 20 to 30 different organizations, different segments of the community.
And in the initial stages, there was a lot of talk about if you weren’t blind, the fact that there wasn’t braille on the buttons or an audio announcement on the elevator never occurred to you. So there was a lot of sharing of this experience and recognition that it was discriminatory and a violation of civil rights.
And I can’t emphasize enough that the concept of it being a civil rights violation was just stunning and extremely powerful prior to this whole conversation. Those of us who had jobs, careers, when we faced a barrier, our attitude was, “I got to find a workaround. I got to fix this. I got to find a way for me to operate in light of this barrier.” Very, very few of us talked or thought in terms of this barrier is a violation of my civil rights. So the most exciting thing about the process of passing the ADA was meeting with people with different disabilities, sharing our stories.
And while there would be meetings in DC, led by Pat Wright and Curt Decker, the then director of NDRN, was very important in the whole process, there were meetings with members at the grassroots level, in the beginning mostly with the staff and a few places with the members. I won’t go into the lobbying strategy and the fact that the committee, the Congress, divided the bill up and had it heard in four different committees, two in the House, two in the Senate, that required a lot of fancy footwork.
What was a very important strategic decisions that, in retrospect some of us regretted that we made, was a decision that we had to exempt the churches because the conversation went something like, “We’re picking a fight with business, we’re picking a fight with state and local governments, with school boards. We can’t fight everybody. Let’s not take the churches on, too.”
And that was thought through, essentially agreed to. I was one of the minor voices who said, “Yeah, we should not take the churches on.” In retrospect, I’m not sure that was the right decision, but it was made. I guess I’ll move to the signing.
Michelle Bishop:
Before you do that, Jim, can I ask you a couple of questions? This is fascinating, like this just has my gears turning.
Well, first and foremost, the decision not to take on the churches. And now so many churches are polling places, and you and I spent our whole careers, Jim, being tortured by inaccessible polling places in churches.
But I was thinking about, it’s really fascinating to me that a lot of people with disabilities didn’t think of some of those things that had always been a pain in the butt as a violation of your civil rights, and how much that has changed since the ADA has become law. That really that framework for looking at the world is this isn’t just a pain in the butt thing that I have to deal with. This is a violation of my rights. We could’ve have built this differently from the start, and I think that that’s really interesting.
Jim Dickson:
Yeah, and it was really important. It was an emotion. And I want to emphasize that wasn’t just a change in the way of thinking. It was a change in the way we felt about ourselves. It was a very emotional and, therefore, difficult change. But once people felt “You’re screwing me, and it’s not right, and it’s a violation of my civil rights,” that psychic, emotional, almost spiritual change was really essential to the passage of the ADA.
There was lots of fancy lobbying footwork. It was people would list members of Congress, and it was okay because just about every member of Congress, somewhere in their life circle at home, had a relationship with somebody with a disability. And a lot of the lobbying was built around which member has a connection with which part of the disability community, and then getting the grassroots in that state or congressional district to be the ones who went in.
So a lot of the initial contacts at the grassroots level wasn’t a broad coalition, though that happened in some places. It was more somebody known to the member where there was a relationship and a conversation about barriers equal civil rights violations. And they were, in general, I sat in on a couple of those conversations and I heard members say, “You know, I never thought of it that way, but I can see that.”
Michelle Bishop:
I feel like some of that is still so true today. It’s people who have a personal connection to disability who get it.
Jim Dickson:
Yep.
Michelle Bishop:
I think that’s really still true of disability champions and the work that we’re doing.
But I wanted to ask you about one more thing. This is something I’ve always heard through legend about the fight for the ADA.
You talked early on about that kind of breaking down of the divisions and there being like a disability rights movement, a community that’s kind of cross-disability. And I had always heard that it took several years to get the ADA a passed, which is not uncommon, especially for a really big, really important bill. But that there were points in the negotiation process where if people with disabilities had agreed to exclude some of the more, at the time, controversial folks, like people in recovery from drug addiction and particularly in the late ’80s, people who are HIV positive, that there might have been quicker passage of the bill.
I’ve always been told, through legend, people with disabilities refuse to do that and said it has to be all of us, and the bill eventually passed with all of us. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Jim Dickson:
Yes. Addiction was not universally seen as a disability. We saw it that way, but not everybody in the community did. And there were lots of conversations about, “Well, somebody’s a drunk, do they need to be protected, too?”
There was also a lot of less frank conversation, but discomfort around should this apply to people with developmental disabilities? What about people with psychiatric problems? We can’t change society’s attitudes and fears about psychological disabilities, but they’ll use that to try to defeat us. And the conversations were they’re going to try to divide and conquer, and it’s got to be all of us or none of us.
And again, that process took a while to work through at the national level, but it also, simultaneous with the national conversations, was going on at city and state levels all across the country.
And I do think that one real benefit, well, one unforeseen positive consequence from the passage of the ADA is it did play an important role in shifting away from the superstition and bigotry aimed at people with psychiatric, developmental and substance-related disabilities. It wasn’t necessarily a major objective, but I think it played a major role in forcing a national conversation about each of those constituencies.
Michelle Bishop:
So what was it like to be at the signing of the ADA after, I think it was what, a seven, eight-year fight for this bill? And it’s such a landmark piece of civil rights legislation, so comprehensive. It just must have been a really powerful moment to be there with all of those leaders in the White House then.
Jim Dickson:
Well, and a couple of things, the leadership, Justin, Pat Wright, Curt, Evan basically said to, and it was Evan’s relationship and Janine, his partner’s relationship with the Bushes. And I said, “We don’t want a little signing in the Rose Garden. This is a major piece of civil rights legislation. It affects everything.” And people all around the country worked, wrote, did letters to the editors. So we got to invite and hold it out behind the White House where all of those, who worked to make it happen, could come and be part of the celebration.
And there was a long line to get in the White House, and Curt being Curt, he was chatting with everybody and moving up and down the line. And I was towards the end with Justin and Curt says to Justin, “I don’t have my wallet or ID. It’s in a different suit. I put this suit on this morning straight from the cleaners.”
Michelle Bishop:
Oh, no. And if people don’t know about Curt Decker’s suit collection, that’s a whole other thing. Oh, my gosh. Okay, what happened?
Jim Dickson:
Well, he didn’t have any ID, and so the guards knew Justin and Justin said, “This man is important. He needs to be here. It’s a simple human error. I’ll vouch for him. Let him in.” And so Curt got in, but there was a minute or two there where it looked like he was going to be tearing through the fence in his new suit.
Michelle Bishop:
Oh, that’s terrible. I know he fought hard for the ADA. And his heart must’ve been in his throat.
Jim Dickson:
Yep. So I sat with Bob Cooper and other folks from Rhode Island, and Evan was on the stage.
Janine Bertram, Evan’s partner, had a colorful past and actually had a conviction around, I don’t remember specifically what it was, but trying to stop the Vietnam War. She broke through something, or pour blood on the records, or I don’t remember what it was. But in a big group like this, even though she had been playing bridge with George and Barbara Bush about once a month, there was real nervousness on the part of the security people about having her in the audience.
And Cooper and I were assigned to sort of run interference for her. And a very genteel Texas lady aristocrat was assigned to sit between Janine and the aisle to make sure she didn’t leave the aisle. And I played my blind card with my dog, and I got myself in the aisle.
And it was a riot because this woman was very nervous, and she had on a lot of jewelry, and whenever she jumped up, you could hear a jingle. And as people walked in and saw Janine, they’d all yell, “Hey, Janine,” and Janine would stand up, and people would hug, and I’d move out of the way so they’d hug. And this poor woman had mild heart attacks every time Janine stepped out into the aisle, but Janine knew she had to stay where we were.
But it was a, I don’t know what you would call it, it was an ironic, funny kind of capstone story. I used a white cane in those days, and I had a little, bunch of us had American flags handheld, and I taped my flag to my cane. And whenever we’d cheered and waved, I would stick my cane up in the air and wave it with the flag on it.
And at the very end of one of the network coverage, because this had never happened, there was well over a thousand people. And one of the networks picked up on that and showed the flag waving on a white cane a couple of times during this story.
And after the signing, we all went back out onto the Mall and had refreshments. And Justin and Evan and Pat worked the crowd saying, “Passing this law is going to be much easier than enforcing it, and we’re going to need organized fights to force enforcement.” And some of that’ll be legal, but a lot of that has to be political public education.
We were asked, people were asked to go back and meet with the editorial boards at their newspapers or TV. A lot of people had set up interviews with the local TV stations, either as they left or came back. And it was really important strategically and that the message for those who of us who were interviewed when we got home, “Oh, it was great, but it’s easier to pass the law than enforce it, and we’re going to have to work hard to get this enforced.”
And that message was delivered hundreds of times to local media by the folks who had come to Washington. It was very important.
Michelle Bishop:
And ain’t that the truth?
Jim Dickson:
Yes, yes.
Michelle Bishop:
That predicted the next 30 years of the disability rights movement. Yeah. Wow.
Jim Dickson:
Yeah. We still have a long way to go. I mean, the unemployment rate is still double for the able-bodied. We still have lots of people, because disability can pop up in a family for the first time, we still have lots of people being hidden, sheltered, not integrated by their families. And unlike other civil rights movements, we have not moved yet to where people with disabilities will run for office with the disability story being central to their political message.
After the passage of the Civil Rights Act, African Americans ran, arguing, debating, telling their story of discrimination. The women’s movement came along, women moved and ran on their stories. The gay rights successes came. But where were the people with disability running for office with their disability being an upfront in Central Park why they should be elected?
Michelle Bishop:
And yet you’ve never run yourself, Jim. Wait, maybe it’s time.
Jim Dickson:
I’m too old. I’m 78. If I were younger, I would’ve.
Michelle Bishop:
Also wait, I have one more question about the day the ADA was signed. You all after the signing was over, went around town talking about how we’re going to have to fight to enforce this bill. Nobody said, “For today, let’s stop and have a beer?”
Jim Dickson:
No, we did. People did do some of that, but we had… It was hot, and so we had ice cream and cold drinks set up on the Mall for people, and clusters of people had their beers and that kind of stuff.
Michelle Bishop:
That’s a good point. It was July. I think the other lesson learned for future disability rights leaders is do not have your major bill signed in the middle of the summer.
Jim Dickson:
Right.
Michelle Bishop:
You will have to go to anniversaries on the lawn every year in the heat.
Jim Dickson:
Yep.
Michelle Bishop:
This was fascinating to me that… I’m sorry, I’m also monopolizing. Did anybody else have questions or thoughts?
Jim Dickson:
You know, it is amazing when I was thinking about this. It’s been years since I got in an elevator that didn’t have a braille button. It’s been years since I had a cab driver or a restaurant saying, “You can’t come in here with that dog.”
So there has been real progress, but I’m not sure that it’s really spread thoroughly amongst the rank and file.
Michelle Bishop:
I was thinking that, too. Early on, you were talking about the braille buttons on the elevator. And when you were kind of bringing it all back around and talking about how we’ve come forward, but we still have a long way to go, in the back of my mind I was thinking, but I do always see braille on the elevator buttons.
Jim Dickson:
Yep, yep.
Michelle Bishop:
So we’ve solved a few problems.
Jim Dickson:
And now we even have elevators that announce, in addition to the braille.
Michelle Bishop:
So looking forward, I mean, this was really fantastic. We were all really interested in hearing about what it took to get the ADA passed, and also just that moment when you see your work come into fruition.
But looking forward, what do you think is the next big task, goal, I don’t… for the disability rights movement? Where do we go from here?
Jim Dickson:
I do think we have to start getting leaders to run for office at the local] and national level. As much progress as we have may about the public attitude towards disability, what just happened to Joe Biden says there is still prejudice and fear that bodily dysfunction and psychiatric dysfunction can generate in the general public.
And I think people running for school boards saying, “My experience being blind or deaf or using a wheelchair or whatever is important, and I can bring value to how the school system is run or the state legislature,” we need to force the dialogue.
It’s great that we’re seen as having civil rights, but we need to be seen as leaders outside of the disability silos. We need to be seen as people whose life experience will make us strong leaders who make the country, the state, the city a better place to live.
Michelle Bishop:
Jim, thank you. This was amazing. This was fascinating. I know I’m looking at my co-hosts, and they’re all getting really excited and really worked up. Stephanie said, #CriptheCongress-
Jim Dickson:
Right.
Michelle Bishop:
… which I love.
Thank you for hopping on with us and just sharing your story. I think it’s really important that we capture all of that.
Jim Dickson:
Right. I should mention Jonathan Young wrote a very good short book on the story of the passage of the ADA and for the life of me, I can’t remember the title.
Michelle Bishop:
Oh, we could probably find it and put it in the show notes if folks want to check it out.
Jim Dickson:
Yeah, should definitely be there because it tells a lot of good stories and points that I touched on for two minutes, get elaborated for 15 pages on the book. And it’s very readable. It’s not a tome.
Michelle Bishop:
Okay. Oh, thank you. We’ll look out for that. That’s amazing. Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate it.
I don’t know if folks know, Jim and I go way back, well, maybe not like signing of the ADA far back, but pretty far back.
Jim Dickson:
Yep.
Michelle Bishop:
We’ve done a lot of work together over the years on access to the vote for people with disabilities. So feel like looking towards the future in saying we need to be seen as leaders and we should not only be voting, but be elected to office. I feel like that’s where we leave it, right? That’s the message.
Jim Dickson:
Yep. Thanks a lot, everybody.
Jack Rosen:
Wow, that was so great of Jim to come on and share his stories with us and talk about what it was like to fight for the passage of the ADA.
Michelle Bishop:
My favorite thing about this interview is that our last ADA episode had Curt Decker, and this episode featured Jim calling out Curt Decker for wearing the wrong suit to the White House that didn’t have his ID in it, and almost not getting into the signing of the ADA. I will pretty much never forget that story.
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
That’s too funny.
Michelle Bishop:
Thanks, Jim. We appreciate it.
These days both Curt and Jim are, I’m going to say, mostly retired. Because they claim to be retired, but we still see them everywhere advocating for everything. So I hope Curt is off somewhere on a cruise and Jim is off somewhere sailing.
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
Wow.
Michelle Bishop:
Stephanie, do you have a joke for us?
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
I do, indeed. Are y’all ready for the… I feel like this one’s too easy, but oh, well.
Michelle Bishop:
I feel like we’re probably not ready.
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
No, it’s fine. So what do y’all call baked spaghetti? I feel like Michelle’s going to know this.
Jack Rosen:
Wait, I got it.
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
Oh, do you?
Michelle Bishop:
What is it? What is it?
Jack Rosen:
An impasta?
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
Yep. Go, Jack. Yay.
Michelle Bishop:
Jack, it’s finally your time. You got the joke.
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
I knew it was too easy.
Jack Rosen:
Finally. We need it. These used to be easier.
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
Sorry.
Jack Rosen:
No, it feels good. It’s a nice win.
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
<< I’m not sorry >>
Michelle Bishop:
You really stepped up your… You can’t sing Demi Lovato. We’re going to get sued.
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
Yep, exactly. That’s the whole point.
Michelle Bishop:
Okay, okay. That’s fair.
Well, before Demi Lovato comes for us and ends our podcast, Jack, can you tell the people where to find us on social media?
Jack Rosen:
If Demi Lovato’s attorneys would like to reach us to let us know they’re suing us, they can reach us at [email protected].
They could also let us know via the comments on our social media pages, which includes Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Threads and Blue Sky. So if you represent Demi Lovato, please reach out to us at any of those options.
Until next time, folks…
Stephanie Flynt McEben:
Bye.
