MLK, Road To Freedom and the ADA Restoration Act
A Tribute from ADA Watch and the National Coalition for Disability Rights
To view the Road to Freedom photo gallery, go to: http://adawatch.smugmug.com/gallery/4207259
In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King III, a photo gallery features Road To Freedom bus stop events highlighting our partnership with civil rights leaders and organizations. Building coalition and promoting passage of the ADA Restoration Act, the Road To Freedom is a cross-country bus tour and traveling exhibit that is still on the road after being launched from Washington, DC on November 15, 2006.
To date, Road To Freedom bus stops have included the King Center in Atlanta, Georgia; National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee where Dr. King was assassinated; Civil Rights Memorial at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama; Brown vs. Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka, Kansas; and the Clinton Presidential Library and School of Public Service in Little Rock, Arkansas.
The Road To Freedom bus was named after the classic book by Harriet Tubman, who fought slavery as a great “conductor” on the Underground Railroad. During a ten-year span she made 19 trips into the South and escorted more than 300 slaves to freedom. Tubman herself was a person with a disability, acuiring epilepsy as a result of a severe head injury inflicted by an irate slave overseer.
The spirit of diversity and civil rights is ever-present on the Road To Freedom with participants including African American disability rights advocates from Mississippi who, as children, marched with Dr. King; Native Americans who blessed the Road To Freedom bus and crew in a ceremony outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico; Latinos who welcomed the bus at the opening of an accessible playground in Inner-City Los Angeles; Feminist leaders who marched with the bus in the Disability Pride Parade in Chicago; and Older Americans representing AARP, one of the major sponsors of the tour.
We are grateful for the many organizers who put together these incredible stops and welcomed the Freedom bus!
