[MUSIC PLAYING] JUDY HEUMANN: Growing up, we would talk about the American dream and work hard, study hard, and you can move forward. But if you had a disability, working hard and studying hard didn't really mean you'd get anything. TIA NELIS: I went and applied for a day care job to be a teacher's assistant.
The teachers liked me, and then they found out that I had been in Special Ed, and all of a sudden, the job was no longer available. TOM HARKIN: My older brother became deaf at a young age. I think he was maybe six years old.
His life was circumscribed by people saying, well, you're deaf. So you can't do this, you can't do that. They told him he could be one of three things.
He could be a baker, a shoe cobbler, or a printer's assistant. He said, I don't want to be that. They said, OK, then, you're a baker.
ZONA ROBERTS: Ed just had a way of inspiring people to be what they needed to be. But he was a scared kid going off to college. It was just this terrifying idea, they're all going to look at me.
And then he realized they could look at him, and he could be a star. Of course, it opened the doors to people who had kids with disabilities. JUDY HEUMANN: I wanted to be a teacher.
My written oral and medical exam all were given in inaccessible buildings. And my friends carried me up and down the steps. And then I was failed on my medical exam because I couldn't walk.
And I really couldn't let it drop. Friends of mine and I decided that what we would do is we would set up this group. KATHY MARTINEZ: I got a flyer in Braille, which I'd never received before.
It said something like, fight for your civil rights. JUDY HEUMANN: That was really the beginning of advocacy. KATHY MARTINEZ: I never knew that there was such thing as being proud of being a disabled person.
JUDY HEUMANN: It was everybody really beginning to demand respect and the right to be able to do with their life what other people do, and don't have to think about. TOM HARKIN: This one person said to me one day, we got left out. I said, left out of what?
He said, the Civil Rights Act. You can't discriminate against people of color, or women, or sex, or national origin, but disability, perfectly legal. I became aware then, of a movement to have a broad Civil Rights Bill to cover all people with disabilities.
We had this wonderful point in time when we had the President of United States strongly in back of it. PRESIDENT GEORGE H. W.
BUSH: We will not tolerate discrimination in America. I now lift my pen to sign this Americans with Disability Act, and say let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down. TOM HARKIN: The biggest impact of ADA has been the change in the physical environment.
Everything from curb cuts to widened doors to seating in theaters. JUDY HEUMANN: Buses are accessible. It means that people can actually get to their job.
There's consciousness around accessible restrooms and hotel room doors. TOM HARKIN: It has spawned a whole bunch of new technology. ZONA ROBERTS: Portable respirators came out.
Motorized wheelchairs came out. CLAUDIA GORDON THROUGH INTERPRETER: Technology has transformed the lives of deaf individuals like myself. PATRICK KENNEDY: For those with intellectual developmental disabilities, technology is what allows them to participate.
TIA NELIS: People with disabilities can work and can be a part of their community. TATYANA MCFADDEN: You're seeing people with physical disabilities actually coming out to play high school sports. CLAUDIA GORDON THROUGH INTERPRETER: I gained a real understanding of the ADA and what it symbolized.
TATYANA MCFADDEN: We have the right to do everything and anything that we want. And it's because of the ADA. TOM HARKIN: If my brother were alive, I think now he would think that more people like him have a better shake, a more fair shake.
Happy 25th years of ADA.
