ADA Remarks

President Obama spoke about the 20th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act on the south lawn of the White House yesterday. Here are some exerpts from his speech:

Today, as we commemorate what the ADA accomplished, we celebrate who the ADA was all about. (A movement) began when Americans no longer saw their own disabilities as a barrier to their success, and set out to tear down the physical and social barriers that were. It grew when you realized you weren’t alone. It became a massive wave of bottom-up change that swept across the country as you refused to accept the world as it was. Sit-ins in San Francisco. Demonstrations in Denver. Protests in Washington, D.C., at Gallaudet, and before Congress. People marched, and organized, and testified. And laws changed, and minds changed, and progress was won. Equal access -- to the classroom, the workplace, and the transportation required to get there. Equal opportunity -- to live full and independent lives the way we choose. Not dependence -- but independence. That’s what the ADA was all about. (Applause.)

But while it was a historic milestone in the journey to equality, it wasn’t the end. here was, and is, more to do. We’re expanding broadband Internet access to Americans who are deaf and hard of hearing. And to promote equal rights across the globe, the United States of America joined 140 other nations in signing the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities -- the first new human rights convention of the 21st century.

Read more here.