Passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act
Disability rights campaigners pushed access to work, transport and public places onto the national agenda. In 1990, a major federal law turned those demands into civil rights protections.
On July 26, 1990, President George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act. Behind the White House ceremony stood years of organizing by people who encountered exclusion in ordinary activities: getting a job, boarding a bus or entering a public building.
The National Council on the Handicapped, now the National Council on Disability, had recommended a comprehensive law in its 1986 report Toward Independence. Existing protections did not reach every area of daily life. Advocates wanted a broader approach that treated participation as a right rather than a matter of charity or individual assistance.
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Sources
- Americans with Disabilities Act anniversary (U.S. National Archives)
- Introduction to the Americans with Disabilities Act (U.S. Department of Justice, ADA.gov)
- NCD Commemorates 35th Anniversary of Toward Independence Report (National Council on Disability)
- ADA Timeline (ADA National Network)
- How Disability Rights Activists Crawled Up the Capitol Steps (HISTORY)
- Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
- 1990
- 1990 in music
Image: Series: George H. W. Bush Presidential Photographs, 1/20/1989 - 1/20/1993 Collection: Records of the White House Photograph Office, 1/20/1989 - 1/20/1993