(soft chiming music) - Hi friends. I hope you're having
a wonderful day today. My name is Bailey Sarian
and I'd like to welcome you to the library of "Dark History". This, if you don't know, is a safe space for all the curious cats out
there who are thinking, "Hey, is history really as boring
as it seemed in high school, or just school in general?" Oh, nay nay. This is where we can learn together about all the dark,
mysterious, dramatic stories, maybe we didn't learn about in school? Okay, so for today's episode, it got me thinking when we
did the lobotomy episode. Do you remember lobotomy? Shout out to lobotomy. Okay, so in that episode
of "Dark History", we mentioned that Rosemary
Kennedy was sent away, okay, 'cause she was unwell. And then when we did the
episode about birth control, do you remember birth control? And we were talking about eugenics and that this word kept coming up, like unfit, people were unfit, so then they would also be sent away. And always sent away,
but what did that mean? What was away? Where'd they go? Why? What was considered unwell, unfit? Well, let me tell you, that
opened a whole mysterious door. So that led me down a rabbit hole of the Americans with Disability Act and how this whole situation got started, and how far it's come, but not far enough, We still got work to do, bitch. So let's get into it. So let me, no way we're going
all the way back to 370 BC? Wow, this is some dark history. Let me open up my book to the year 370. I'm sure we can relate to that
out and use our imagination and envision what that looked like. So we're in the year
370, before Christ, BC. We're in Greece and
we're at the Parthenon. I don't know what that
is, but let me tell you, it's a dope-ass temple dedicated to a literal goddess named Athena. There are huge buildings with
marble columns all around, and in nine of these buildings
are permanent stone ramps. Now back then, Greece was known for accommodating people in wheelchairs, but over time, things changed. And even though wheelchairs
have been around for over 3000 years, accommodations for them
started to disappear. In medieval times, not the
restaurant with horses, the church started to say disabilities are punishment for sin. That's what they said. I'm not saying it, that's what they said. And this would become the foundation for how people all over the world, especially the United States, would think about disabilities
for hundreds of years. Now there's not much change in treatment of those with disabilities
until we get to the year 1800. Well, until we get into the 1800s. In the 1800s, the rise of
industrialization meant that everyone's worth was based on your monetary contributions to society. This shift in values paves the way for how the United States
treated people with disabilities, whether their disability
was physical or mental, it was considered a burden
and needed to be accommodated. Quote, unquote. Which sounds like a nice thing. I mean, until you see like
what they really meant when they say the word accommodated. People with disabilities
started being sent to something called an almshouse, which are, spoiler alert, not very great. Almshouses were church-run institutions that looked a lot like old
timey inns, you know, like cozy. There was usually a farm
behind the almshouse and anybody who got sent
there earned their place by working on the farm. Now in return, the almshouse provided them with food, clothing, housing, and any medical treatment they might need. Sounds cute, sounds cozy, sounds great. Right? No, this is "Dark History", hi. Well, you see the thing is almshouses were actually supposed to be for criminals after they got out of jail and like a form of rehabilitation. But in reality, most of the
people that were sent there were poor people who had
been arrested for begging, elderly people who couldn't
take care of themselves, and also people with disabilities. Almshouses turned into
these big facilities where people considered the
outcasts of society were sent and locked away, just out
of sight, and out of mind. As you might expect, since the institution was
intended for criminals, the conditions were not ideal. Okay? Even by the standards of the 1800s. I mean, almshouses were considered
unclean and overcrowded, plus the employees were known to neglect the people living there. There was usually just one doctor or nurse for every 100 patients. So nobody was receiving proper treatment, and yeah, I mean, that's
not gonna go well. (laughs) In a Boston almshouse, over
the course of 40 years, 25% of everybody who entered had died. And this was the norm in
almshouses across the country, which is weird, 'cause like
I had never heard of that. Had you heard of that? Almshouses? I'd never heard of that. Have you heard of that? Almshouses?
(crow cawing) I know, me too. I can't tell you what Joan
said, it was a little fucked up. Eventually, sanitariums and
hospitals replaced almshouses. Now these new facilities were meant to give better protections
to people with disabilities, so they weren't just randomly lumped in with criminals anymore. And this seemed like a
pretty good idea at the time. It always seems like a good
idea at the time, right? But most of these facilities were focused on controlling the patients
and not treating them. At the St. Louis City Sanitarium, reports of overdosing patients
with sedatives went public, being called cruel and inhumane. This was just one of many sanitariums where people with
disabilities were mistreated and locked away, often
for their entire lives. So around the same time, in 1867, these things called,
this is what's called, quote "Ugly Laws", started
popping up in the United States. Ugly Laws. Oh God. The idea behind these laws
was that cities wanting to stop poor people from begging in public because they thought it looked bad. Mm. The truth is these laws actually
criminalized disability, using language specifically
targeting people. The law said, and I quote, "Diseased, maimed, mutilated,
or in any way deformed, so as to be an unsightly
or disgusting object." So, where did people in
violation of these Ugly Laws go? Well, you may have guessed it. Sanitariums. These laws played into a popular line of thinking at the time. Remember eugenics? Remember we talked about eugenics? Still, it's not a plant. Thought it was a plant, it's not. Long story short, has
nothing to do with plants. Eugenics is not great. We learned that here, didn't we? Great. I've talked about eugenics before, in the birth control episode. And as a reminder, if you don't know, eugenics is the theory that
you can improve the human race by basically breeding out
diseases, disabilities, or other less desirable traits. Basically, if the quote/unquote
unfit members of society were prevented from giving birth, then society would be a better place. Now eugenics was one of
the most popular beliefs in the 1800s, and it turns
out it's really rooted in stereotypes about
people with disabilities. One way eugenicists
would weed out the unfit was by forced sterilization. So, forced sterilization
laws started popping up all over the country. In 1907, an Indiana law was passed calling for people with disabilities
to be sterilized. Now this law had so much support that similar laws were
passed using language specifically calling for sterilization of the quote "feeble-minded". Now, it's important to remember that not only is this
term super offensive, but it was designed to
be incredibly broad. In the early 1900s,
feeble-minded meant everything from being unable to
appreciate moral ideals, to not being able to read, walk, or write. What the heck is
appreciating moral ideals? Joan? Nothing, she got nothing. Most of the people who were
sterilized under these laws weren't even told that they were being, what was being done to them,
and they were led to believe that they were getting
surgery on their appendix. Remember we did discuss this
in the Puerto Rican story? It's super disturbing. California was probably
the worst offender. Oh yes, you are, California. They sterilized over 20,000 people before sterilization was outlawed in 1979. Side note, many historians
think that Adolf Hitler got the idea for forced
sterilization directly from how much America was
into this shit at the time. He once said that there was one place that had really nailed the idea of this whole eugenics thing, quote, "Of course, it is not our
model German Republic, but the United States." So as you can see, there's a long history of the United States not being very kind to its citizens with disabilities. I wanted to get all that
out there to set the stage for what we would
consider the modern fight for disability rights
in the United States, because God forbid anybody
asks for basic civil rights. And now, is when the fight gets real ugly. But first we have to
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exclusive web address, ZipRecruiter.com/DarkHistory. That's ZipRecruiter.com/DarkHistory. D-A-R-K-H-I-S-T-O-R-Y. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. Hi and we're back. Let me introduce you to a man
named Albert Sidney Priddy. Oh my god, Priddy. That's so cute. He would start the Ugly Laws. Does he have to do with the Ugly Laws? Priddy. Anyways, Albert was born in
1865 and he loved the idea of sterilizing people with disabilities. He became the head
doctor of an institution called the Virginia State Colony for the Epileptics and Feeble-Minded. I guess it was better than an
almshouse, but not by much. Think of this as if like a
prison and a hospital had a baby, that was the institution
Dr. Albert worked at. Now, Dr. Albert believed it
was his duty, (chuckles) duty, to take care of the social problems that people with disabilities
were quote "causing". His solution was to
completely remove these people from society. Then, once they were removed, he could perform surgical sterilization so they couldn't reproduce. So sterilization had been around for quite a while at this point, but it wasn't actually illegal
in Virginia at the time. That didn't stop Albert from performing a few sterilizations
here and there though. Eventually, Albert gets busted while performing one of these procedures. But instead of being
like, oh my god, you know, this isn't such a good idea, he decides, "I'm not the problem,
the law is the problem." So he has a new goal. So he decides he needs to change it and starts pushing for legislation to legalize sterilization in Virginia. Albert pitches it as a way
to save tax payers money. Less disabilities equals
less cost to the state, and people loved what Albert was pitching. So in 1924, sterilization
becomes fully legal in the state of Virginia, but that's not enough for
Dr. Albert, of course not. He decides to find a case
he can take all the way to the Supreme Court. He thinks that if he can
get a Supreme Court decision in favor of sterilization, then he can keep sterilizing
his patients forever, and ever, and ever, and ever. And that's when Dr. Albert
remembers a patient of his, named Carrie Buck. Now Carrie had become
pregnant back in 1923, after she was raped. She met Dr. Al when she
went to him for an abortion and she was turned down because Dr. Albert and the hospital claimed that
she couldn't have been raped. They said that she was promiscuous and too feeble-minded
to know the difference. Because of the way the
sterilization laws worked at the time, Carrie was committed
to Dr. Albert's hospital and put on a list of
women to be sterilized after she gave birth. Fuckin' sick. Dr. Albert realized this could be the case to really make forced
sterilization the law of the land because Carrie's mother had
also given birth out of wedlock and was also considered
to be mentally unfit. And it was assumed by
everyone at the hospital that Carrie's baby would be, too. This case had all the ingredients
to be a real slam dunk for Dr. Albert. So he temporarily canceled all of the hospitals other sterilizations to now make this his top priority. He requested a hearing
with the local courts on whether sterilization
was constitutional or not, and whether Carrie Buck was a quote, "Genetic threat to society." Oh god, they are so dramatic. On November 18, 1924,
the hearing would begin with witness testimony on
the character of Carrie Buck. But here's the thing, only two
of the witnesses at the trial had actually met Carrie before. And, of those two, only
one of them had actually like recently seen her. There were doctors, social
workers, and eugenicists who had spoke to Carrie
from what they had and read, but like they had not seen
or directly observed her is what I'm getting at. Almost everybody who spoke about Carrie said that she was obviously feeble-minded. One researcher who had spent just one day watching Carrie and her
child went on record saying that her entire family was
part of a defective strain. It probably also didn't
help that Carrie's lawyer was a known eugenicist and
a friend of Dr. Albert's. Geez Louise. And then, Dr. Albert testified. He went on record saying that Carrie's entire
family was feeble-minded and that without surgery,
everybody born in her bloodline would become a quote,
"Middle grade moron." I just don't know (laughs) what to say. This guy's a fuckin' psychopath. I think if dev, this is
Satan, this is Satan. I see it. This is the actual language
from a court transcript. This was, this was okay. Yeah. Dr. Albert said if Carrie
were to be sterilized, she could be released
back into the society to get a job and even get married, all without society worrying about whether or not she
would have another baby. After a lot of back and forth, the case made it all the
way to the Supreme Court, just like Dr. Albert wanted. They ruled eight to one
against Carrie Buck. Justice Oliver Holmes
wrote the majority opinion for the court that it would
be better for the world if society prevented the unfit
from continuing to breed. He ended by saying quote, "Three generations of
imbeciles are enough." Just burn it all down. Just fucking burn everything down. We could start over. It's fine. That statement went on to become a slogan for the entire eugenics
movement in America. This case has become known
as "Buck versus Bell", and it officially set the
standard in the United States for sterilizing people considered unfit. "Buck versus Bell" was weaponized to sterilized people with
disabilities for decades. And, it is actually still
the law of the land today. Eugenics stopped being a
socially accepted way of thinking after World War II. And when soldiers returned
from the war with disabilities, the national conversation
about disabilities really started to change for the better. This was the first time that many Americans dealt
with this concern directly, and it seemed to be making people reevaluate Albert
Priddy's line of thinking. But I mean, you know,
this is "Dark History", and as we've seen many times before, nothing, nothing seems
to change all that much. It's always a lot of talk
and not a lot of action. Now, if we're gonna talk about inaction, we need to talk about a place called Willowbrook State
School in Staten Island. We know by this point to not
let the word school fool us, because this school was anything but that. This institution opened in 1947. And at its peak, it had 6,200 people with developmental disabilities that were being housed there. But the building was designed to hold only about half of that. Robert F. Kennedy, even once said that this place was a snake pit. And given what his family
did to his sister, Rosemary, this place must have been bad. Residents were literally
experimented on here. A doctor named Saul
Krugman used his patients for human experiments in 1955 to figure out a more effective
way to treat hepatitis, often without their sent. And if you remember our episode
on the Tuskegee experiments, at this time, doing anything to a patient without their consent was illegal, not to mention it's just up fucked up. And these experiments would
continue for over 20 years. And during that time, Saul's patients were basically locked
away and left to die. And because we can't have nice things, instead of being punished
for these atrocities, Saul is remembered as one of the most successful
scientists in his field. Oy vey. So even though it was common
knowledge on Staten island for decades that the at
Willowbrook totally sucked ass, it would take 17 years after
the experiments first started for a couple of whistleblowers
to expose these atrocities. Anyways, we have to pause for an ad break. It's the new year, which means we've all got
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to Calm's entire library. That's Calm.com/DarkHistory. It's 1972, and enter
to the scene two young, ambitious journalists named
Jane Curtain and Geraldo Rivera. The pair were tipped
off by an angry employee who told them that Willowbrook
was a complete cesspool and needed to be investigated. It needed to be exposed. So, he gave them a key to the building and they snuck into the compound. And what they saw, they later
said chilled them to the bone. The first thing Geraldo and
Jane noticed was the smell. They said that the entire
facility smelled of death. There were no beds, and hundreds of patients huddled together in the cold winter
months to keep them warm. Some of the children
didn't even have clothes. Yes, there were children there as well. And even though everybody
staying at Willowbrook had been diagnosed with
something different, they were given the exact same treatment, if they were given any treatment at all. Geraldo and Jane interviewed a
21-year old man named Bernard who had cerebral palsy, and
he had been at Willowbrook almost his entire life. Despite any difficulty he had speaking, he described the
environment as a disgrace, saying he had been beaten by the guards and witnessed countless incidents of assaults against the other patients. After their investigation,
Geraldo called it, "A badly run kennel for humans," and said it shook him to his core. When their story aired
on national television, it signaled to the nation that
something needed to change for people with disabilities. And honestly, fast. Willowbrook wasn't an isolated example, and there were dozens of these schools all over the United
States, but it turns out that the meaningful change
was right around the corner, and it began with something
that looked a lot like a sit-in. So when I say sit-in, what
do you typically think of? 'Cause I think of the
Civil Rights Movement. Now we all know there's
a lot that happened during the Civil Rights
Movement of the 1960s, but for today's story,
the main thing to focus on is that people took to the streets and demanded equal rights and protections. This led to the passage
of the Civil Rights Act, which outlawed
discrimination based on sex, religion, race, color,
or where you were born. But, what this act didn't
provide was any protections from discrimination for
people with disabilities. So people spoke up and in 1973, Congress passed the Rehabilitation Act, modeled after the Civil Rights Act. It specifically addressed
people with disabilities. Section 504 of the act even stated that any government
funded building or program had to be accessible to everyone. This is great, right? Except four years went by and the law still didn't go into effect. Why? Because the Department of
Health, Education, and Welfare, or HEW for short, delayed it. At this point, disability
activists were sick of waiting for the government, so they started writing
thousands of letters to Congress. One disability rights group, called the American Coalition
of Citizens with Disabilities, or ACCD for short,
straight up told the HEW in January of 1977, that if
nothing happened by April 4th, there would be a national
protest, a full on uprising. Obviously, the HEW didn't
feel very threatened by this and the ACCD never heard any response. So April 4th came and went quietly. Then, on the morning of April 5th, activists showed up to the HEW
offices all over the country to hold mass sit-ins. Now these protestors would stay
in the buildings for hours, and in some cases, days. When they confronted the
regional HEW directors, they expected a fight. But the directors didn't even know the law hadn't been implemented. This is when disability
rights activists decide to take their protests to the next level. It was no longer going to be
just a simple two day protest. Oh, hell no. So over 100 San Francisco protestors, interpreters, and personal aids decide to occupy the HEW offices until
something actually changed. They were assisted by
local Black Panther groups along the way, who brought
supplies like blankets, pillows, and meals for all the protestors. And even the San Francisco
mayor was on their side and donated mattresses for the protestors to sleep more comfortably. The federal government did
everything in its power to get the protestors out. They cut the power, they cut
the water to the building, and they even sent police in to try to convince them to leave, but the protestors weren't
willing to negotiate. I mean, these were long overdue demands that needed to be met. Eventually a few of the
protestors leaders managed to get HEW's regional manager
to contact his buddies in the federal government
and set up a meeting with leaders of Congress. Believe it or not, the
protest leaders arrived in DC on April 28th and convinced Congress to immediately implement
the Rehabilitation Act, which was guaranteeing protections for people with disabilities. But also, just in case
you needed more reason to root for the protesters, they actually ate at the HEW building for two days longer than they need it to. Why? Because they wanted make sure to clean up after their own messes. That's so nice. And now, let's pause for an ad break. Winter can really take
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people with disabilities. It's important to point out
that the act only applied to the federal government
and programs benefiting from the federal government. I am getting super tongue tied today. So government buildings
had to be accessible and government jobs couldn't discriminate. The private businesses, individuals, and local and state governments could do whatever the fuck they wanted to. Plus, it's rumored that the section in the Rehabilitation Act
that was about discrimination against people with disabilities was snuck in there by some
congressional staffers. So most politicians didn't even realize they were signing the
Civil Rights Bill into law. And because of this, that
section was very limited and hard to enforce. So stupid. They make up so many excuses. So even though they had
the Rehabilitation Act, activists knew the fight for
equal rights was far from over. I mean, what about restaurants,
apartment buildings, medical facilities, public transportation? I mean, the list goes on. The point is access to
everyday necessities is fundamentally important
to living, and by the 1980s, this fight still wasn't getting any easier because of presidential
candidate Ronald Reagan. One of his campaign
promises was to cut funding to all federal welfare programs, and this included the recently
passed Rehabilitation Act. So to Reagan, all this
spending was an obstacle to the American Dream. So, Ronnie gets elected, and in 1981, he signs a bill that
slashes federal funding for the very programs outlined
in the Rehabilitation Act. Now, it's up to individual
states to find funding. And how are they gonna do that then? The National Council on
Disability is an advisory agency that advocates for
people with disabilities. Well, President Reagan not
only cut their funding, but he fired all the members, replacing them with his own appointees. But Ronald Reagan doesn't exactly get what he wants out of this because he knew NCD quickly
gets to work on a report about how the government should enforce disability compliance. This was a nice turn of events, I guess. The report was actually framed as a plea for basic civil rights for
Americans with disabilities and called for sweeping changes to the way the government
enforced the laws. But after president Reagan saw the report, the head of the NCD was quietly fired. Okay, so not the best turn of events. But it was too late for
Ron to stop any change from happening because this
report ended up finding its way to Congress, which finally
started a conversation about how all Americans with disabilities should be protected. So in 1988, 24 years after the
Civil Rights Act was passed, the push officially began
for what we now know as the Americans with
Disabilities Act, or the ADA, which leads us to the United States under President George H. W. Bush. Now President Bush, I'm sick of these goddam
presidents, they all suck. Now, President Bush was
vocally supportive of the ADA. My comment wasn't towards this, but I mean, you know, they
all like fucking suck. Great, but there's like a catch, okay? A political, a political catch. Rumor has it that one of the main reasons why Bush supported the ADA
was to distance himself from Ronald Reagan who once
made a derogatory comment about a presidential
candidate with a disability. So he's trying to play the good guy. Reagan called that person
an quote "invalid", on live television, which created a massive
controversy in the press. And Bush, who had been Ronnie
Reagan's VP for eight years, wanted to emerge from the
shadows of his former boss. Whatever the motivation Bush
publicly supported the shit out of the ADA, so this was huge. Was it? I don't even fucking know. 'Cause it is, but it's not,
but it is, but it's not, but it is, but it's not. (groans and sighs) You would think that the
support of the current president would be enough to pass the ADA, but it got held up by debates in Congress for a few months over whether the cost of helping Americans with
disabilities was even worth it. Some politicians argued
protecting the rights of people with disabilities was too
much of a financial burden on small businesses. Oh my fucking, eye fucking roll. Get the fuck over it. Why don't you leave then? Why don't you go to a different country if you can't like service
everybody who lives here? Get the fuck out. Thank you, goodbye. "The New York Times"
ran an editorial in 1989 called "Blank Check for the Disabled." And the title kind of speaks for itself. Tired of the mistreatment and
tired of waiting for the ADA, a number of disability
activists staged a protest in Washington, DC on March 12, 1990. It was a pretty warm day in DC. A bright sunny sky and
thousands of activists were marching through the streets, and their destination, you ask? It was the US Capitol Building. Now this was going to be one of the biggest disability rights rallies in the entire world. Various activists set up and gave speeches in front of the Capitol steps, calling for the passing of the ADA. Now crowds were forming and people were cheering on the protestors as they passionately called for the Congress to pass the bill. And something even more amazing happened. 60 protestors jumped out
of their wheelchairs, or threw aside their crutches, and began making their
are way up the stairs to the Capitol building,
one step at a time. For the record, the Capitol staircase is 78 long marble steps. So I mean, this was
pretty freakin' badass. Okay? One of the demonstrators said
that the protest was meant to be a symbolic depiction
of what the struggle of living with a disability and fighting for your own
civil rights was like. As the protestors ascended
the steps, the crowd cheered, holding signs of encouragement
for the climbers. And they started their own chants. "What do we want? ADA. When do we want it? Now!" One of the protestors
climbing up the steps was a woman named Paulette. Now she was interviewed by
the press as she climbed, and when she was asked like,
"Why are you doing this?" She said, quote, "I wanna be
treated like a human being." Isn't that so sad? Another one of the protestors
was an eight year old girl named Jennifer Keelan who
was born with cerebral palsy and had to use a
wheelchair her entire life. Now when she was just six
years old, she and her mother saw their very first disability
rights protest in Arizona and Jennifer said that
completely changed her life. When the press asked her why
she was climbing the steps, she told a story about her friend Kenny, who probably wouldn't have died
if he had better healthcare. She said quote, "I'll take
all night if I have to. I'm doing it for Kenny." End quote. Now this event became
known as the Capitol Crawl. The press published story after story, photo after photo of all the
disability rights protestors climbing the steps of the
Capitol building and suddenly, the fight for the ADA caught the attention of the entire nation. People started calling their
representatives in Congress, demanding the ADA be passed. Now, the pressure was on. So just a few months
later, on July 26, 1990, the ADA was finally passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush. And now let's pause for an ad break. Sometimes it can be hard
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for partnering with me on today's episode. Now, let's get back to the story. So the ADA is now the law of the land. It's definitely a start,
but it's, it's quite flawed. Okay? When the law first passed,
many businesses decide to just ignore it and wait to get sued. They simply just didn't wanna pay the cost to update their buildings. We'll see this come up a little later. Another issue is that
a main goal of the ADA is to get more Americans
with disabilities employed, but their employment rates
are still incredibly low. There's also that problem
that disability itself isn't clearly defined. This is on purpose, so it can cover as many
people as possible. But in being broad, it's also super vague. And this gives room for
attorneys to question if people really are, you know, quote/unquote, "disabled" under the ADA. Like in 2002, there was a
woman named Ella Williams. She worked at a Toyota car
assembly factory in Kentucky. The repetitive nature
of her job caused her to develop carpal tunnel syndrome. Ella told Toyota about the issues. Instead of helping her, they required her to be
more physically active, which she couldn't do. So, she was fired and
then she sued Toyota, citing a violation of
civil rights under the ADA. Now, unfortunately the court
ruled that Ellis carpel tunnel did not qualify as a disability because her major life activities weren't affected by her condition. Now this created a bit of a loophole in how courts approach the ADA, saying now that a
disability has to limit task in someone's daily life, as
opposed to just their work life. So they're just making like, they're making up rules as they go. Because of Ella's experience
and similar cases, there have been some
amendments to the ADA, which better define disability and protect the people it was
actually intended to protect. This is great. But the work still isn't done, because there is no
federal government agency policing businesses to make sure they are truly complying with the ADA, which now leads me to another
man named Albert Dytch. Albert is a disability activist who has made it his entire life's work to ensure businesses
are abiding by the ADA. In 2008, he went to the movies and tried using an accessible restroom. But as soon as he entered
the stall in his wheelchair, he became trapped. Now in response, he wrote
a letter to the theater, asking them to fix it. They responded with a
letter from their lawyer saying everything was ADA compliant and they didn't have
to change a damn thing. Now Albert knew for a
fact this wasn't true because he had been unable to use it. So he took them all the way to court. And when an expert investigated
the theater restroom, he only validated Albert's claim, but also found several
other ADA violations throughout the theater. If Albert hadn't sued, there
would have been no one there to make sure the theater
complied with the ADA. So Albert kind of realized
if he actually wanted things to get done, this might
be the way to do it. Over the years, Albert has
sued over 180 businesses for ADA violations. This is because the very people hurt by these civil rights
violations are required to report them to the
Department of Justice. And Albert is on record
saying that he is not after, he's not after anyone's goddam money. Most of the time the
settlement is like under $7,000 to cover his legal fees,
and like, that's it. The real reason Albert is
doing this is to shed light on, on a problem, or on problems
and just get them fixed. Not everyone has a time or ability to do the work that Albert is doing. So imagine how many
violations there are out there that aren't being addressed. You might be thinking, well, we need more Alberts in the world. But what we really need, (laughs) hi, is a government agency
actively spot checking for ADA violations, so it doesn't fall on us or Albert to do it. Albert is a goddam hero, but he shouldn't have
to be doing this alone. The fight to improve and protect the ADA still lives on today. I mean, as recently as 2017, Congress attempted to overturn
the Affordable Care Act, which would've undercut the services that help people with disabilities
guaranteed under the ADA. One of the Congress
people leading the charge to overturn the Affordable Care Act was Senate Majority
Leader, Mitch McConnell, that fucking turtle. He looks like a goddam turtle. He is a devil turtle. So a group of protestors
showed up to his office and did their own mini
version of the Capitol Crawl, chanting and demanding
Mitch drop his attempt to overturn the Affordable Care Act. The Capitol police were summoned and images of the
protestors with disabilities being arrested and
dragged away in handcuffs quickly went viral, which
obviously caused a lot of people to be pissed the fuck off at Mitch. Fuckin' asshole. In conclusion, there
really is no conclusion 'cause this is an ongoing conversation. The Association of
People with Disabilities, AAPD, is one of the
largest advocacy groups for people with disabilities. They argue that the ADA is an excellent piece of legislation, but there's still a lot of
work that needs to be done and it needs to be improved. There's just so much
that needs to be done. Healthcare, transportation, housing, all businesses need to be following, allowing everybody to
come into their shops, their stores, whatever. And someone needs to be held accountable and checking these people. Again, just fucking burn it. What do we do? What do we do? There are a lot of people
who cry welfare state and complain that costs
associated with taking care of our vulnerable citizens are too high, but the cost of not taking
care of them is much higher, and not like the costs should even matter. They shouldn't even be a question. We're all human beings, are we not? And it should be enough to wanna
care for our fellow humans, our fellow citizens. So how can we help? Well, for one, don't be an asshole and care about other people. And two, even today, there's
still no agency tasked with making sure companies
abide by the ADA. The responsibility to
report violations of the ADA lie squarely on the public. And only once it's reported,
can it get investigated. So if you see something that
doesn't feel ADA compliant, report it, and make sure
you're out to your lawmakers to keep the pressure on to
continue making legislation to help people with disabilities. Anyways, thank you guys so much
for learning with me today. Remember, don't be
afraid to ask questions. Okay? And get the whole story, because we deserve that
as people, do we not? I'd love to hear your guys' reaction to the story on social media, so use the hashtag #darkhistory
so I can follow along. Also, join me over on my YouTube, where you can watch these
episodes on Thursday after the podcast airs, and also catch "Murder,
Mystery, and Makeup", which drops on Mondays
over on my YouTube as well. I hope you have a great rest of your day. You make good choices, and
I'll be seeing you later. Bye. "Dark History" is an Audioboom original. This podcast is executive
produced by Bailey Sarian, Kim Jacobs, Dunia McNeily from 3 Arts, Justin Comins, and Claire
Turner from Wheelhouse DNA. Produced by Lexxi Kiven. Research provided by Thomas Messersmith. Writers, Jed Bookout, Michael Oberst, Joey Scavuzzo, and Kim Yaged. And a big thank you to the ADA
consultant, Marcela Rhoads. And I'm your host, Bailey Sarian.
