Yearlong, 50-State Disability Rights Bus Tour and Traveling Exhibit Returns to Washington, DC
(Washington, DC) Senator Tom Harkin and other members of Congress will join Yoshiko Dart and disability rights leaders to welcome back The Road To Freedom: Keeping the Promise of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a yearlong, cross-country bus tour and traveling exhibit promoting the civil rights of people with disabilities and advocating for passage of the ADA Restoration Act of 2007. This legislation will restore the vital civil rights protections under the ADA that have been weakened in the courts in recent years. A U.S. Senate hearing on the ADA Restoration Act of 2007 has been scheduled to coincide with the return of the Road To Freedom bus to Washington, DC on November 15, 2007.
With Yoshiko Dart, widow of the late disability rights leader Justin Dart onboard for the first leg of the journey, the Road To Freedom bus tour launched from Washington on November 15th of 2006 and has traveled to all 50 states, driving more than 25,000 miles to more than 100 bus stop events. Road To Freedom events have included disability leaders and U.S. Senators, Members of Congress, Governors and other policymakers at sites such as the National Civil Rights Museum, Brown v. Board of Education Historic Site, Clinton Presidential Library, Mount Rushmore, as well as statehouses, city halls, museums, churches, colleges, and schools throughout the country.
The Road To Freedom is a project of ADA Watch and the National Coalition for Disability Rights (NCDR), an alliance of hundreds of national, state and local disability, civil rights, and social justice organizations united to defend and promote the civil rights of children and adults with physical, mental, cognitive, sensory and developmental disabilities.
For more information go to: www.roadtofreedom.org and for tour photos, go to: adawatch.smugmug.com
Major sponsors of Road To Freedom educational activities include Open Society Institute, IndependenceFirst, AARP, AOL, Bruce Hornsby, Ted Leonsis Foundation, Dircks & Associates, Browser Media, Arizona Bridge to Independent Living, Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource Center, Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation, Embassy of Austria, Embassy of Croatia, Democracy In Action, National Disability Rights Network, Sweet Honey In the Rock and more.
Special thanks to DC organizers Bobby Coward and Direct Action, DC Center for Independent Living, ENDependence Center of Northern Virginia, Freedom Center, Capitol Area ADAPT and more. Thanks also to ADAPT, National Council on Independent Living, Consortium of Citizens with Disabilities, American Association of People with Disabilities, National Association of Rights Protection and Advocacy, Mind Freedom International and our state and local organizers throughout the USA.
