SEK ADAPT to Washington DC

April 26 -May 2, 2008

Grade-schooler gains life lessons in D.C. trip

Originally Printed in the Parsons Sun, By Colleen Surridge

Check back later for additional photos      While her classmates sat in their classroom in Parsons learning the three Rs, 9-year-old Allie Jones was in Washington, D.C., last week learning lessons in history, politics and life.

It is in Washington where Allie saw direct action in progress -- the same type of direct action that has led to change over the years from the civil rights movement.

Martin Luther King Jr. once wrote in a letter from Birmingham jail, "Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path? You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored."

Allie was in Washington for the 25th anniversary of ADAPT (American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today), a group that uses direct action to fight for legislation to promote services in communities instead of warehousing people with disabilities in institutions and nursing homes.

"It's about having access to everything, so they have their rights like everyone else does," Allie said.

She was among 500 ADAPT activists who closed off access to the Hubert H. Humphrey Building, headquarters for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and kept it closed until HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt agreed to meet with ADAPT on the multiple policies that force people into nursing homes and other institutions and prevent them from moving back to their homes and communities.

She was also among the 75 ADAPT members who entered the HHS building before security locked all the doors, and presented the ADAPT demands in the initial negotiations with HHS staff.

"That is the first time Allie's been in the mix," her father, Southeast Kansas Independent Living advocate Greg Jones said. "It happened so fast, we couldn't stop it. She was in my lap on my scooter and we got caught in the wave of people pushing inside the building. It wasn't planned. There was no way to go but forward."

Allie was 3 months old when she attended her first protest in St. Louis. She attended ADAPT protests twice a year, every year until she reached first grade. She has been to Washington seven times, but on all those occasions she watched the action from a distance -- until now.

Jones said he told security he would cooperate with any demands they insisted on to protect his daughter.

"It was kind of scary at first," Allie said of the police coming in and barricading doors with 50 pound bags of sand. "But it felt pretty good after that."

Jones said growing up in their world, Allie doesn't see disabilities and color, so she is not into the stereotypical and preconceived notions others have.

"She understands she is there to change other people's lives and not her own," Jones said.

"She is certainly old enough to grasp and understand. I knew there would be interaction with the legislature, but I had no idea she had absorbed as much as she did."

Although not in the midst of the protest, Allie was nearby as ADAPT took over the offices of Sen. John McCain and the Republican National Committee Tuesday, April 29, demanding support for the Community Choice Act (S799, HR1621) from the only presidential candidate who has thus far not signed on as a co-sponsor.

A release from ADAPT, states, "What they got for their efforts were arrests, excuses and statements about how the National Republican Committee doesn't have the power to call its own presidential candidate to ask for a meeting."

"I don't get it," Cassie James, an organizer with ADAPT of Pennsylvania, wrote in the release. "Sen. McCain's Web site says, 'There is no cause greater than protection of human dignity.'

"We were at his office asking him to partner with us to protect our human dignity by supporting legislation that allows all older and disabled Americans to live in their own homes instead of being forced into nursing homes where all dignity and personal privacy are lost.

"This is not rocket science; it's basic human and civil rights."

Allie found other legislators in Washington were more approachable, as she spent time with Congresswoman Nancy Boyda, a Kansas Democrat from the 2nd District, and received a note to her teacher from Sen. Pat Roberts.

"Now that it is over, it is also an experience that if she never does it again she will remember for the rest of her life," Jones said.

That statement drew a look from Allie, who said she has every intention of returning to Washington and continuing to advocate for the rights of others.

"It feels pretty good talking to the legislators," Allie said.