The other committees also continued inside the building. The media committee met regularly to review the coverage and discuss how to make our purpose more clear, how to use the press to get particular issues across.
It directed reporters to appropriate spokespeople, called news conferences and so on. The committees had a great deal of work to do and kept many people involved.
This was good, because the conditions were physically grueling, sleeping sometimes three or four hours a night on the floor and everyone was under stress about their families, jobs, our health, the fact that we were all filthy and so on.
All the participants met daily to make tactical decisions. These were flowing, creative meetings but they often went on for hours, which meant very little sleep. But they were important in developing consensus and arriving at a course of action. We learned about sit ins from the civil rights movement, we sang freedom songs to keep up morale, and consciously show the connection between the two movements. We always drew the parallels.
A congressional hearing was held in the building that was extremely dramatic. Congressman Phil Burton leapt up and ran after him and kicked on the door insisting he come out. After about two weeks, a contingent was chosen to go to Washington to lend the moral authority and the leadership of the sit in to the efforts there to pressure the administration. We really wanted to break open the East Coast press and we wanted some more demonstrations that would mobilize people, and we were striving to get a meeting at the White House.
The machinists union, the IAM rented a large U-Haul truck with a lift on the back, and all the demonstrators who were wheelchair riders were transported in that vehicle.
They held a large reception for us at their international headquarters, and after we had eaten, we were asked to speak and I believe we all sang We Shall Overcome. An international vice president became very involved in assisting us in anything we needed. They allowed us to use their union headquarters to organize demonstrations, so we had access to telephone lines, copy machines and other things necessary for organizing.
One of the first things was hold meetings in the capital with senators Alan Cranston and Harrison Williams. Cranston was one of the original sponsors of the legislation. Up until we met with him, he had been supporting the administration position. Each objection was answered by a different member of our delegation, and answered very thoroughly.
We were all extremely tired and sleep deprived and yet everyone managed to marshal their wits to carry out this extremely important political discussion. An important tactic when we got to Washington was challenging Carter on having an open door administration. Each administration defines itself by a slogan such as The Great Society. The Carter administration presented itself as accessible to people and they called it the Open Door Administration , so we demonstrated wherever Carter and Califano went, forcing them to go out backdoors.
And that was important in getting us a meeting at the White House. The sit in and contingent it sent to Washington were pivotal in getting strong regulations signed that embodied concepts of equality and integration, and the affirmative steps that must be taken to achieve that for people with disabilities.
The Department of Transportation regulations which called for reasonable, phased in measures to make public transportation accessible turned into a bitter fight between the American Public Transit Association and the disability community and were overturned in federal court in The American Presidency Project.
Toggle navigation. Richard Nixon. September 26, Note: As enacted, the bill H. Filed Under. Written Statements. Signing Statements. Bill Signing. Simple Search of Our Archives. Report a Typo. The U. The Rehabilitation Act has a long history. It began with the Smith-Hughes Act enacted in , which created a Federal Board of Vocational Education with responsibility for addressing VR needs of veterans with disabilities.
Over the years, legislation expanded VR services to civilians with disabilities and broadened the type of assistance and services provided. The Rehabilitation Act of was the first law to provide equal access for people with disabilities by removing architectural, employment, and transportation barriers.
Section and of the law prohibits federal agencies from discriminating against individuals with disabilities. Section requires federal entities to make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities. Section includes public schools. Students who do not qualify for special education and related services may receive accommodations and modifications to remove barriers to learning in accordance with a plan.
Section requires federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology EIT accessible to people with disabilities. The legislation created the Client Assistance Demonstration Projects CAPS to provide assistance in informing and advising clients and applicants of all available benefits under the Rehabilitation Act. The law also requires the development of the Individual Written Rehabilitation Plan IWRP and prioritizes services for persons with the most severe disabilities in vocational programs.
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