Thanks to 41

After President George Herbert Walker Bush died Friday, the news has been full of stories about his service during World War II, his responsibilities for the Persian Gulf War, his inabilities to rally the economy during his four years in office, and his 1992 loss to Bill Clinton. One big story missing in all that? George Herbert Walker Bush was the president who signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) into law.

Since the late 1960s, Republicans have not been known for supporting major civil rights legislation like the Americans with Disabilities Act, and although I didn’t see eye to eye, ahem, with our 41st president on other issues, I have always been grateful for his support of the ADA. And for the ability to achieve its passage in a bipartisan way.

The ADA requires “reasonable accommodation” for individuals with disabilities in employment and at places of public accommodation such as retail stores, office buildings, sidewalks and movie theaters. I started losing my eyesight in 1984, six years before the Americans with Disabilities Act became law. At first I didn’t use a white cane or a guide dog. I quit driving or riding my bike, but I could still see well enough to walk to work. Most of my day was spent counseling college students on study abroad options; I could have done that with my eyes closed.

As my eyesight got worse, though, I started making mistakes in the office. One morning I spilled grounds all over the office floor on my way to make coffee. I ran into tabletops. I had to sit close to the office computer screen to see the words. At one point my boss took me aside and told me I wouldn’t be going to the annual convention with my colleagues. “You’ll embarrass the office,” she said.

Months later, she terminated my contract.

I am totally blind now, and I use speech software to write for publications and moderate our blog. I’ve had three books published, and my Seeing Eye dog leads me to buses and cabs to get all around Chicago to teach five different weekly memoir-writing classes for people 55 and better.

We still have a long, long way to go before hiring practices are totally fair to those of us with disabilities. But since the passage of the ADA, things are moving in the right direction. Thanks to the wisdom and determination of all the many, many people who banded together to get the ADA passed 28 years ago, we have the law on our side.

Mike and I are heading out with friends tonight, and we’ll raise a glass to the hard work so many disability advocates put into getting this bill passed, and to the late President George H.W. Bush for signing it into law in 1990. The Americans with Disabilities Act has changed a lot of lives — for the better.