Attendees were joined by city staff, activists for the rights of disabled people and Mayor Miro Weinberger, who walked around the pavilion shaking hands and greeting friends and colleagues while celebrants enjoyed conversation and picnic food under the shade of the pavilion.
Weinberger addressed the crowd with a modified quote from George H.W Bush, who was president at the time of the ADA’s signing.
“Let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down,” Weinberger said. “Our problems are large, but our unified heart is larger. Our challenges are great, but our will is greater. And in America, the most generous, optimistic nation on the face of the Earth, we must not and will not rest until every man and woman with a dream has the means to achieve it. Once again, we rejoice as this barrier falls for claiming together we will not accept, we will not excuse, we will not tolerate discrimination in America.”
Weinberger and others highlighted steps that Burlington has taken to make the city more accessible to disabled people, including modifications to city buildings and infrastructure to allow those with physical handicaps easier access and providing interpretive services to allow deaf residents to participate more fully in city events.
Cleary Buckley, a Burlington architect and member of the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on Accessibility, spoke from personal experience about the “profound impact” that the ADA had on him and the country.
Disabled at age 24, Buckley described wrestling with stigma and his own sense of identity, as well as the lifestyle changes that his disability necessitated. Frustratingly, issues that disabled people encounter daily were not yet part of the national conversation.
“It was the ADA that made this an open, discussable topic in this country,” he said. “It makes me very proud of where I live, and where I come from.”
For many residents, the ADA “allows access to this beach, recreation, transportation, housing and more,” said Sarah Wendell Launderville, executive director of the Vermont Center for Independent Living.
Before the signing of the ADA, Launderville said, she had been kicked out of college, fired from a job and locked away as a result of a psychiatric disability.
“But today,” she said, “I’m proud to be a part of the independent living movement, which accepts me and others for who we are, and we embrace our differences.”
Despite the effectiveness of the ADA, Launderville said that there was still a tremendous amount of work to be done to combat a continuing bias against disabled people.
“When we are fired from employment or not given employment opportunities, because employers do not understand, or want to understand how to accommodate or provide equal access, that’s a bias. When we still need to seek financial support in a systematic way that makes us feel worthless or powerless, that’s a bias. When a person is sexually assaulted and is not believed, or the examination room is not accessible, that’s a bias. When we go to give birth at our local hospital, and a sign language interpreter isn’t called, and I can’t speak to my doctor, that’s a bias,” she said as members of the crowd nodded and murmured in agreement.
“Our biases are deep and they’re real, they’re hurtful and oppressive,” she continued, “but they’re also part of that bond in our shared history, right? Today, 25 years after the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, they’re only one part of our story.”