Freedom in a Wheelchair

The brooding figure of the Great Emancipator in Washington's Lincoln Memorial has become a symbol for a new kind of freedom for those who are confined to wheelchairs. After a long, hard-fought campaign by a number of groups dedicated to easing the lot of the handicapped, ramps have been built that allow the wheelchair-bound to roll themselves into the base of the memorial, where they can enter the wide doorway of a newly installed elevator, ride up to the rotunda and get a closeup view of Lincoln's statue. That enables the handicapped to surmount what had been for them a barrier to the rotunda, the great apron of stairs that lead to the memorial.

For the million Americans in wheelchairs, the gleaming white marble monument has finally become, as they call it, accessible. The symbol* designating that accessibility, a white stick figure on a blue background representing a man in a wheelchair, is posted on the memorial and has been appearing on a growing number of buildings around the U.S. Wherever it appears, the symbol means that the structure has been built or remodeled so that ramps (with a maximum grade of 8.3%) are in place at stairs or curbs, doors are wide enough (at least 32 in.), knobs, buttons or drinking fountains are within reach of the wheelchairbound, and toilets and urinals are at convenient heights.

Elsewhere in the capital, similar ramps and facilities are being opened at the Jefferson Memorial and curbs are being cut and ramped along the mall, site of many of next month's Bicentennial festivities. A 131-page booklet called "Access Washington" is available to all paraplegic visitors; it lists all of the hotels, Government buildings, stores and other institutions that have facilities for the handicapped. In San Francisco, the Bay Area's new rapid transit system, BART, has equipped all stations with elevators to carry wheelchair users to both the ticket-buying and train levels; train doors are wide enough for two wheelchairs to enter abreast. Washington's new subway system has followed suit. In Atlanta, Milwaukee and Sacramento, public buses are being fitted out with special lifts to hoist wheelchairs up from the sidewalk. (Champaign, Ill., buses have been so equipped for two decades.) In Sacramento and Palo Alto, ramps have been built into curbs at virtually all commercial intersections. Hilton and Sheraton hotel chains are setting aside special rooms in their new buildings for the disabled; Holiday Inns has been doing so since 1969, allotting one room in every 100 to wheelchair users. These rooms have wide doors, bathrooms with railings, trapeze arrangements to help paraplegics get in and out of bed and, at bedside, light, TV and door-opening controls.

All-Night Vigil. Paraplegics have mostly themselves to thank for these improvements. As a result of their agitation, including such demonstrations as an all-night vigil at the Lincoln Memorial in 1973, Congress has enacted legislation to eliminate barriers that impede the mobility, employment, education and recreation of the handicapped. On the basis of these laws and the 14th Amendment (equal protection), dozens of suits have been filed in state and federal courts seeking access for the handicapped to buildings, trains, buses and airplanes. In Los Angeles, for example, a paraplegic woman, Jacqueline Selph, sued the city council because she was unable to enter a polling place without assistance and was offered only an absentee ballot as an alternative. A veteran is suing a Los Angeles, movie theater that would not allow him to enter in his wheelchair. In New York an attorney brought legal action because he could not get his wheelchair into the municipal court so that he could protest a parking ticket.

The pressure has been paying off in new freedom and opportunity for those in wheelchairs. Says Jack Smith, 36, a polio victim who is director of the White House Conference on Handicapped Individuals: "You can't believe how meaningful it is to go and participate and enjoy the same things as everyone else."

* Adopted in 1969 as the International Symbol of Access by the Eleventh World Congress on the Rehabilitation of the Disabled.

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