The Americans with Disabilities Act, passed in 1990, was the culmination of decades of activism to make American society more accessible to people with disabilities. The disability rights movement emerged in the wake of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Rejecting paternalistic treatment toward people with disabilities, the movement achieved numerous legislative victories in the years leading up to the ADA.
Beginning in 1968 with the Architectural Barriers Act, Congress passed a series of laws to provide access to some public facilities, public transportation, and public educational institutions. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibited job discrimination by the government and by recipients of federal assistance.
In 1986 the National Council on Disability, an independent federal agency, declared the piecemeal efforts of Congress inadequate and raised the call for comprehensive civil rights legislation for the disabled. First introduced in 1989 in the House of Representatives by Anthony Coelho (D-Calif.), and in the Senate by Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the ADA mandates workplace accommodation and access to public transportation and public accommodations such as restaurants and retail stores. In addition, telephone companies are mandated to provide relay services to individuals using telecommunication devices for the deaf. Finally, the act prohibits coercion, threats, or retaliation against the disabled or those aiding the disabled in asserting their rights.
Angelou, Maya 25
Disabled demonstrators rally in Los Angeles, California, to protest the State of California's challenge to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 in the Supreme Court.
(McNew/Newsmakers)
The House passed the final version in July 1990 by a 377-28 margin and the Senate passed the bill by a 916 margin. The Americans with Disabilities Act, public law 101-336, was signed by President George H. W. Bush on July 26, 1990, and went into effect in 1992.
Further reading: Peter David Blanck, ed., Employment, Disability, and the Americans with Disabilities Act: Issues in Law, Public Policy, and Research (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2000).
—John Korasick
Anderson, John B. (1922- ) candidate for president John Bayard Anderson gained national attention when he challenged Ronald w. reagan for the Republic Party nomination in 1980. When he lost the nomination to Reagan, Anderson launched an independent campaign for the presidency under the auspices of the National Unity Party. Prior to his presidential bid, Anderson had served in the U. S. House of Representatives from the state of Illinois. He was born February 15, 1922, in Rockford, Illinois, to E. Albin and Mabel Edna (Ring) Anderson. He attended Rockford public schools, and the University of Illinois at Urbana, graduating in 1946. He later earned a law degree from Harvard University Law School, in 1949. During World War II Anderson enlisted in the United States Army and served from 1943-45 in the Field Artillery where he received four battle stars. He served as adviser on the staff of the U. S. High Commissioner for Germany from 1952-55. Anderson married Keke Machakos on January 4, 1953; they had five children. In 1960 he was elected as a Republican to the 87th Congress and to the nine succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1961-January 3, 1981).
Anderson broke with the Republicans in 1980 after his unsuccessful bid for the party’s nomination and ran as the National Unity Party candidate for the presidency against incumbent Democrat James Earl Carter, Jr., and Republican nominee Ronald W. Reagan. In the threeway race, Anderson received about 7 percent of the total popular votes. In 1984 Anderson attempted a second run for the presidency, but quickly withdrew to make a bid for a congressional seat under the banner of the National Unity Party of Kentucky, which proved unsuccessful.
Following the 1980 campaign, Anderson accepted a series of visiting professorships at Stanford University (1981), University of Illinois College of Law (1981), Brandeis University (1985), Bryn Mawr College (1985), Oregon State University (1986), University of Massachusetts (1986), and Nova University (1987). His writings include We Propose: A Modern Congress and Republican Papers (contributor, 1968); Between Two Worlds: A Congressman’s Choice (1970); Congress and Conscience (ed., 1970); Vision and Betrayal in America (1975); The American Economy We Need (1984).
See also ELECTIONS; political parties.
—Michele Rutledge
Angelou, Maya (1928- ) poet, autobiographer Born April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, Maya Angelou is best known for her autobiographical novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Her parents divorced when she was three, and she was sent to Arkansas to live with her grandmother. Her childhood was traumatic.
Graduating from Lafayette County technical school, she was sent to San Francisco to live once again with her mother. In high school, she earned a two-year scholarship to study dance and drama at the California Labor School but did not attend because she became pregnant and gave birth to a son, her only child. She supported herself through a variety of jobs, including cook, waitress, and streetcar conductor. In the early 1950s she married Tosh Angelos, a sailor she met in San Francisco, and began working as a dancer and singer. She found success performing in cabarets in San Francisco and toured 22 European countries as Ruby in a production of Porgy and Bess. After divorcing her husband, Angelou moved to New York City, where she appeared onstage as The White Queen in The Blacks, a satirical play by Jean Genet. She also became politically active at this time, organizing a fund-raiser for Martin Luther King, Jr., and becoming Northern Coordinator of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference from 1959 to 1960.
In 1961 she moved to Cairo and worked as associate editor of The Arab Observer and as assistant administrator of the School of Music and Drama at the University of Ghana. In 1970, the first of her autobiographical novels, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, covering her childhood in Arkansas and years in San Francisco until the birth of her son, was published. The novel exemplified Angelou’s strength as an inspirational writer. Harold Bloom has written how her sincerity and goodwill, combined with the self-help features of her writing, make it difficult to criticize her works. In 1971 she published a book of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ’Fore I Die, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. In 1972 she wrote the screenplay for the film Georgia, Georgia, becoming the first African-American woman to have a screenplay produced. She followed that success in 1974 with a second screenplay, All Day Long. Her second novel, Gather Together in My Name, depicting her life as a single mother, also appeared in 1974. In 1975 President Ford appointed her to the American Revolution Council. Singin’ and Swingin’ and Getting’ Merry Like Christmas, chronicling her show business period, came out in 1976. And Still I Rise, her second book of poems, appeared in 1978. The Heart of a Woman, on her civil rights years, appeared in 1981. Her final autobiographical novel, All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes, published in 1986, detailed her time in Africa. Her third collection of poems, I Shall Not Be Moved, was published in 1990. Some critics found her poetry did not demand much intellectual effort from the reader. One of her major defenders, scholar-critic Robert Stepto, praised her use of folk idioms and forms while noting her weaknesses. In 1993 she read “On the Pulse of Morning” at the Clinton inauguration, the second poet (after Robert Frost) to participate at a presidential inauguration. She currently resides in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, as Reynolds Professor and Chair of American Studies at Wake Forest University.
See also LITERATURE.
Further reading: Harold Bloom, Maya Angelou (New York: Chelsea House Publications, 1998); Mary Jane Lip-ton, Maya Angelou: A Critical Companion, 3d ed. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998).
—Stephen E. Randoll
World History
