The Caravan for Disability Freedom and Justice 2024

Memphis Tennessee

Wednesday, July 3, 2024 

I got a call about an hour before the Caravan was scheduled to arrive in Memphis. The Driver, CW, already had the schedule and just wanted to know if we had something before the Pizza lunch that was on his schedule. I said “no,” but I had packed the schedule with places to visit before the Caravan for Disability Freedom and Justice moved on. I wanted everyone to know that the Caravan had been here in Memphis.

Much of the reason for the Caravan is because of Memphis.

Less than two weeks before the Caravan arrived in Memphis, people with disabilities all over the country were celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the US Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision (June 22, 1999). Generally, the decision reinforced the Civil Rights protections of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act for people with disabilities. Olmstead held that segregation of persons with disabilities is discrimination.

Olmstead is also the story of two women that sued the state of Georgia because they wanted to live in their own home. They did not wish to receive services in an institution. The inconsistency is that home and community-based services are more desirable and cost-effective than institutional services, but many states only offered services that people with disabilities needed in expensive institutions. 

That was true for Tennessee. And when Latonya Reeves was young, she and her family were facing a life in an institution. In Tennessee, the only way for Latonya to get the services she needed was to, as a young woman, move into a nursing home. 

Latonya Reeves video: https://vimeo.com/751940724

Latonya can tell her story much better than I can. But I can tell you of a time when the Memphis Center for Independent Living, now Disability Connection Midsouth, helped people with disabilities get out of institutions. The Center here in Memphis helped people leave the state of Tennessee where they could not get services and move to Colorado, like Latonya Reeves did, to live in their own home and not an institution. 

The Center launched a decades long advocacy campaign to change things in Tennessee. But while we worked to change the institutional bias here in our state, we helped people escape institutions to live in their own homes. The parallel to the Underground Railroad was so clear to us, we called it the Underground Railroad. I am sure that other people did this, but no one talked about it much. I cannot imagine a nonprofit that is so passionate about their mission that they would move a person out-of-state, sometimes against a doctor’s orders (AMA), away from their family and into the care of people that they had only talked to over the phone. 

Deborah Cunningham was the director of MCIL who came up with the idea and developed it into a workable solution for at least a dozen Memphians. It was a different time, but as I think back on the Underground Railroad, I just cannot imagine how brave Deborah was to risk her job and the Center to see people live in their own home. And how brave the individuals were who left their home, their family and friends to have independence. 

All over the country I am sure that people with disabilities remember a much different time, now twenty-five years ago, when we did not have the same choices we have today. Please celebrate our Freedom and Justice and follow the Caravan in your area. 

CW and I got photos of the staff of Disability Connection Midsouth and the Arc. We stopped at Graceland, STAX, The Lorraine Hotel, The Pyramid (Bass Pro Shop), Beal Street and other landmarks around Memphis. Congressman Cohen met us at The Arcade, to get a photo with the Caravan in his Latonya Reeves shirt. 

I am really proud of this story in Memphis history. But I also know that for Latonya and all the people with disabilities who did escape on the Underground Railroad, there were many more who never knew what life was like outside of the institutions. I know we still have people, old and young, who will die in an institution.

Support the Latonya Reeves Freedom Act (H.R. 2708 and S. 1193), introduced by Rep. Steve Cohen from Memphis. The bill secures our right to live in the community and not, because of our disability, be forced into an expensive institution. 

Photo Album from Memphis: https://flic.kr/ps/CRKuE

This is a photo of the Caravan at the institution were Latonya Reeves was in Memphis. Now defunct, the property is still kept up, but it is empty at this time. A reminder of our segregated past. 

Underground Railroad 2001

EDITOR'S NOTE: Twenty-three years ago today Willie Robinson, a consumer of Disability Connection Midsouth, left a Tennessee nursing home for a home in the community in Colorado. Back then, Deborah Cunningham, the Executive Director of MCIL, called this our Underground Railroad. Please note the progress that this Center for Independent Living has made.

People with disabilities leave the state of Tennessee to avoid nursing home incarceration. 

Willie Robinson has lived in Tennessee all his life. Today he is leaving because the unfair Medicaid policy will only provide him with services in the least desirable and most expensive place – an institution. 

Willie Robinson is moving from a Tennessee nursing home to his own apartment in Denver Colorado. Mr. Robinson is not only capable of living independently; he will be starting over in Denver Colorado where he already has his own place with attendant services. Willie is optimistic about job opportunities in Denver that are non-existent for Tennessee nursing-home residents. 

"Because Tennessee has no attendant services, I have lost my job, my home, and my car," said Willie Robinson to Tennessee Senator Bill Frist at the Memphis Center for Independent Living. "I live in a nursing home now and I have no choice about what time I get up in the morning, what I have for meals and what time I go to bed at night." 

The small programs that Tennessee has adopted to expand home and community-based services in our state may be effective in preventing or delaying some individual’s entry into a nursing home, however; Tennessee remains 50th in the nation at providing options to institutions. Every other U.S. state offers more cost-saving home and community-based services to provide citizens choices other than an institution. 

Missouri, for example, with a larger total population than Tennessee, spends nearly $100 million less of state money on nursing facilities and over $200 million less in federal funds [Medicaid Financial Management Report FY 2000]. Tennessee is the most chronic example of the need for national Medicaid reform. Ninety five percent of the public funding for long-term care is funneled into the nursing home industry. 

The for-profit nursing home industry gets more than half of its revenues from Medicaid, yet they are the fourth-largest lobby generously giving money to state lawmakers [Tennessee Registry of Election Finance]. The nursing home lobby has been involved in the guidance of the new programs for home and community based living and made sure that they did not cut into the nursing home industry's profits. 

Willie has been working to change the system in Tennessee that concentrates almost all the Medicaid long-term care funding to the nursing home industry. Senators Harkin (D-Iowa) and Specter (R- Pennsylvania) will introduce bipartisan legislation this session to reform Medicaid and give people with disabilities choices in long-term care. Willie will see the MEDICAID COMMUNITY ATTENDANT SERVICES and SUPPORTS ACT (MiCASSA) become law from his own home - his new home in Colorado.

Looking Back 20 Years: Tennessee v. Lane

The State of Tennessee’s Appeal of the Lane Decision Should Be Withdrawn. 

 "... it is clear that states are not actually seeking greater sovereignty, they want more money. "

By: Deborah Cunningham 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Looking back twenty years ago today, the long-time director of the Memphis Center for Independent Living put her two cents into the Lane case. Back in 2003, the Civil Rights of the ADA were in danger. Deborah gives a great rebuttal here, and concludes very personally. It is clear the issues twenty years ago still reverberate in our state.

7/12/2003 

Legal pundits call it “sovereign immunity,” but basically it is the principle that rulers are exempt. The un-elected Attorney General of Tennessee is appealing his assertion that our state is exempt from protecting the Civil Liberties of Tennesseans with disabilities to the US Supreme Court. Tennessee v. Lane (No. 02-1667) will be heard in the upcoming session by the Supreme Court if Summers does not withdraw our state’s appeal. 

Although citizens of Tennessee may feel most passionate about their Constitutional Rights, the state of Tennessee has opted to challenge those rights of Americans with Disabilities and assert the authority of a single state over the most important civil rights of individuals. Title II of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act requires that state and local government make programs and services “readily accessible and usable by individuals with disabilities.” Those governmental institutions may be the polling place, the courtroom, city hall and the state capitol building. And the Constitutional Rights that states are obligated to protect may be as essential as: voting, due process and equal protections. 

1. Paul Summers continues the reputation for southern bigotry through the appeal of Lane.

The Attorney General of Tennessee asserts that Congress did not have the authority to require states to act to ensure these basic civil liberties. A similar challenge was made to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, claiming in Katzenbach v. McClung (Ollies BBQ) that a local BBQ shop was not covered by the “Interstate Commerce Clause” and thus exempt from Congressional authority to integrate. 

Now as Americans look back, Congressional authority was necessary to achieve racial integration in the light of states resistance to altering the privileged system. The same is true for the civil rights of persons with disabilities. States are historically the most abusive of institutions; many states had sterilization programs directed at people with disabilities. The United States eugenics movement justified the sterilization, institutionalization, prohibition of marriage and preclusion of immigration of people with disabilities. The later passage of the discriminatory “Jim Crow” and immigration laws were based on eugenicists distorted viewpoint. In 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized forced sterilization of people with disabilities in Buck vs. Bell. 

The Constitutional Rights of people with disabilities are endangered by state actions. Without Congresses authority to make and enforce laws essential to the inclusion and integration of people with disabilities our nation will take a leap backward to a time when disability was hidden, isolated and locked away. The step backward is easy to see, because this nation is nearing the fiftieth anniversary of the Brown v. Board decision. Although equality was clearly an individual’s Constitutional Right, US states could redefine separate as equal. Long before the Supreme Court reversed the ugly discrimination validated by Plessey v. Ferguson, it was clear that states did not protect equality, even separate equality and Paul Summers continues this legacy with his endangerment of the rights of Americans with disabilities. 

2. Tennessee’s Appeal to the Supreme Court endangers valid civil rights of people with disabilities.

Americans support the ADA. Nearly nine out of ten (87%), of those who are aware of the ADA, support and approve of the Americans with Disabilities Act. [A Louis Harris and Associates survey 1999]. When President George H.W. Bush signed the 1990 Americans with Disability Act he stated: 

And now I sign legislation, which takes a sledgehammer to another wall, one which has for too many generations separated Americans with disabilities from the freedom they could glimpse, but not grasp. Once again, we rejoice as this barrier falls for claiming together we will not accept, we will not excuse, we will not tolerate discrimination in America. 

Although most Americans support the landmark civil rights legislation, the ADA did not start out with reasonable enforcement on a federal level. Mouth magazine reported to its readers on the results of a five-month investigation into the U.S. Department of Justice and its enforcement of disability rights law. The report showed that in six years of enforcement, the Disability Rights Section of the DOJ had brought only one ADA case to trial and judgment, and between January 1, 1994, and December 31, 1997, the DOJ opened 6,339 ADA cases, filing suit in four. 5,525 cases were still open, unresolved, on January 1, 1998. 

Even with a weak record of enforcement following the ADA, the situation of Americans with disabilities has significantly improved as reported by Dr. I. King Jordan, the first deaf president of Gallaudet University: 

Certainly, life before the ADA was rampant with physical and social barriers that prevented disabled people from making even rudimentary decisions. Many were trained in sheltered workshops, or warehoused by families and educational systems embarrassed by their very existence, and convinced they had little potential for success. [Dr. I. King Jordan, “Colleges Can Do Even More for People With Disabilities,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, Section 2 (June 15, 2001).

The Congress’ express purpose was equal access to government by all citizens. The priorities established by Title II make access to government the top priority of state and local entities. Additionally, since the ADA was signed, there are some critical facts that could be added to the record of discrimination by state governments. 

Voting: In 1998 approximately 20,000 polling places were not accessible. 

Integration: States have ignored the US Supreme Court’s 1999 Olmstead decision. More than two-thirds of the states have not even developed a plan for implementation of Olmstead. 

Due Process: The evidence Congress had when it passed the ADA showed that 76% of state-owned buildings did not offer accessible programs and services. George Lane in 1996 could not access a courtroom in Tennessee because he uses a wheelchair and sued the state for denying him due process. Attorney General Paul Summers used this incident to allege that Tennessee does not need to protect some citizen’s Constitutional Rights. 

Transportation: In 1989, one-third (36%) of the national bus fleet was accessible. ... projections indicate that by 2002, the national bus fleet will be 100 percent lift/ramp-equipped. [Rosalyn M. Simon, “Status of Transportation Accessibility in the United States: Impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act,” in Proceedings of Seminar L Held at the Planning and Transportation Research and Computation European Transport Forum, Brunel University, England § 3.1 (Sept. 2-6, 1996)]. 

3. Tennessee does not advance “states rights” with the Lane Appeal

The concept of sovereign immunity should not be resolved at the expense of citizens’ valid civil liberties. The legal issues may ignore that real people are involved and the real issues are ultimately not simply legal, but moral. The concept of sovereign immunity is even further removed from the lives of Americans today because individual US states do not exercise dominion over the lives of citizens. Federal Highway funds normally dictate a state’s transportation plans, Medicare significantly impacts states health-care procedures, Medicaid funds determine long-term care policy and National Education policy directs US states schooling. 

The fact is that states work to get federal funding with one hand and push federal control away with the other. States could easily claim greater sovereignty by turning down federal funds and making their own rules or even canceling programs altogether; however, it is clear that states are not actually seeking greater sovereignty, they want more money. 

Tennessee rather than working to become more “sovereign” is becoming more and more dependent on federal money coming into the state. I am familiar with this states failed long-term care policy because I have worked to help citizens live independently for the past 20 years. Our state almost exclusively funnels long-term care funding to nursing homes and other institutions, the most expensive and least desirable form of long-term care. 

Seven years ago the Comptroller of the Treasury warned us that Tennessee faced a crisis in long-term care funding and as more Tennesseans are forced into institutions for long-term care, the Federal Medicaid funds that now are huge, will continue to grow. The 1997 Tennessee comptroller's report mentioned the success of Wisconsin, Oregon and Washington. Between 1979 and 1995, Oregon cut long-term care costs by $400 million. Between 1982 and 1992, the report declared, the total number of nursing home beds in those three states dwindled and home and community services increased. [W. R. Snodgrass, Comptroller of the Treasury; Long-Term Care of Tennessee's Elderly, Oct. 1997] 

For many years I have assisted with the help of Memphis ADAPT and the Memphis Center For Independent Living more than a dozen people with disabilities to leave the state of Tennessee in order to receive minimal assistance (bathing, dressing, wheelchair transfers) they need to live in other U.S. states that offer home and community services as an alternative to nursing homes.

Without exception the Tennesseans with disabilities wanted to live and work in their own communities, they still do. I would like to remind Mr. Summers that forcing us to seek asylum outside of our own state in order to receive basic assistance is not only cruel and inhumane but also morally unconscionable. Unfortunately, Mr. Summers’ conscience appears to be unaware and undisturbed by citizens with disabilities in Tennessee who seek civil rights protection from discrimination. 

Underground Railroad 2001

People with disabilities leave the state of Tennessee to avoid nursing home incarceration.

EDITORS NOTE: This article was written 20 years ago this month. It was a very different world for people with disabilities in Tennessee. MCIL has been a significant force in making these changes. 

By Tim Wheat of MCIL
Willie Robinson has lived in Tennessee all his life. Today he is leaving because the unfair Medicaid policy will only provide him with services in the least desirable and most expensive place – an institution. Willie Robinson is moving from a Tennessee nursing home to his own apartment in Denver Colorado. Mr. Robinson is not only capable of living independently; he will be starting over in Denver Colorado where he already has his own place with attendant services. Willie is optimistic about job opportunities in Denver that are non-existent for Tennessee nursing-home residents.

"Because Tennessee has no attendant services, I have lost my job, my home, and my car," said Willie Robinson to Tennessee Senator Bill Frist at the Memphis Center for Independent Living. "I live in a nursing home now and I have no choice about what time I get up in the morning, what I have for meals and what time I go to bed at night."

The small programs that Tennessee has adopted to expand home and community-based services in our state may be effective in preventing or delaying some individual’s entry into a nursing home, however; Tennessee remains 50th in the nation at providing options to institutions. Every other U.S. state offers more cost-saving home and community-based services to provide citizens choices other than an institution.

Missouri, for example, with a larger total population than Tennessee, spends nearly $100 million less of state money on nursing facilities and over $200 million less in federal funds [Medicaid Financial Management Report FY 2000]. Tennessee is the most chronic example of the need for national Medicaid reform. Ninety five percent of the public funding for long-term care is funneled into the nursing home industry.

The for-profit nursing home industry gets more than half of its revenues from Medicaid, yet they are the fourth-largest lobby generously giving money to state lawmakers [Tennessee Registry of Election Finance]. The nursing home lobby has been involved in the guidance of the new programs for home and community based living and made sure that they did not cut into the nursing home industry's profits.

Willie has been working to change the system in Tennessee that concentrates almost all the Medicaid long-term care funding to the nursing home industry. Senators Harkin (D-Iowa) and Specter (R- Pennsylvania) will introduce bipartisan legislation this session to reform Medicaid and give people with disabilities choices in long-term care. Willie will see the MEDICAID COMMUNITY ATTENDANT SERVICES and SUPPORTS ACT (MiCASSA) become law from his own home - his new home in Colorado.

I met Deborah . . .

In response to your request for stories about Deborah  

By Leslie A. Robinson, Ph.D.
I met Deborah when I was a clinical psychology doctoral student receiving training at the Baptist Rehab facility. It was about 1988, and Deborah occasionally came to our team meetings. I could sense that many of the staff were somewhat afraid of her, but it was obvious to me that she was fighting on the side of good, with a wicked sense of humor in the process! So I made a point to get to know her and to learn all I could from her. 

I later worked for Baptist as a young psychologist, and she was my compatriot there. I knew I could trust Deborah to tell me not only where the law stood, but also how to get creative in making sure patients' needs were met. 

She was kind enough to tell me how she lived with her illness, and in the process I began to really understand that it is possible to live a life beyond disability. That, essentially, is what Deborah did. 

These lessons came home in 1999, when I was diagnosed with cancer and underwent an amputation. I knew it was possible to deal with this, because I knew Deborah dealt with more. Further, she offered real empathy to me, even though my amputation was small in comparison to her challenges. 

I will always be grateful for her support during that time. 

For the past 15 years I've been an Associate Professor at the U of M. As head of our track in health psychology, I have offered a range of graduate classes designed to help doctoral students learn how to treat individuals with disabilities. Toward this end, Deborah would often lecture at my request. 

The students, needless to say, found her to be incredible. Deborah was particularly effective because she didn't mind talking about her own challenges, as well as educating students about the rights of people with disabilities. 

Her stories were always entertaining, and I felt very fortunate to have her in our classroom! In short, Deborah has played an integral role in my career development by giving me both personal support and insight into the strength of people with disabilities. 

I will miss her deeply.

Sixteen years ago today

Tennessee v. Lane
The State of Tennessee’s Appeal of the Lane Decision Should Be Withdrawn.

Sixteen years ago today, July 12, 2003, the former director of MCIL wrote this appeal to Memphis about the Supreme Court case Tennessee v. Lane. The entire nation misses the leadership of Deborah Cunningham and we remember the contribution that she made to our lives, community and country.

By Deborah Cunningham
Legal pundits call it “sovereign immunity,” but basically it is the principle that rulers are exempt. The unelected Attorney General of Tennessee is appealing his assertion that our state is exempt from protecting the Civil Liberties of Tennesseans with disabilities to the US Supreme Court. Tennessee v. Lane (No. 02-1667) will be heard in the upcoming session by the Supreme Court if Summers does not withdraw our state’s appeal.

Although citizens of Tennessee may feel most passionate about their Constitutional Rights, the state of Tennessee has opted to challenge those rights of Americans with Disabilities and assert the authority of a single state over the most important civil rights of individuals. Title II of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act requires that state and local government make programs and services “readily accessible and usable by individuals with disabilities.” Those governmental institutions may be the polling place, the courtroom, city hall and the state capitol building. And the Constitutional Rights that states are obligated to protect may be as essential as: voting, due process and equal protections.

1. Paul Summers continues the reputation for southern bigotry through the appeal of Lane.

The Attorney General of Tennessee asserts that Congress did not have the authority to require states to act to ensure these basic civil liberties. A similar challenge was made to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, claiming in Katzenbach v. McClung (Ollies BBQ) that a local BBQ shop was not covered by the “Interstate Commerce Clause” and thus exempt from Congressional authority to integrate.

Now as Americans look back, Congressional authority was necessary to achieve racial integration in the light of states resistance to altering the privileged system. The same is true for the civil rights of persons with disabilities. States are historically the most abusive of institutions; many states had sterilization programs directed at people with disabilities. The United States eugenics movement justified the sterilization, institutionalization, prohibition of marriage and preclusion of immigration of people with disabilities. The later passage of the discriminatory “Jim Crow” and immigration laws were based on eugenicists distorted viewpoint. In 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized forced sterilization of people with disabilities in Buck vs. Bell.

The Constitutional Rights of people with disabilities are endangered by state actions. Without Congresses authority to make and enforce laws essential to the inclusion and integration of people with disabilities our nation will take a leap backward to a time when disability was hidden, isolated and locked away. The step backward is easy to see, because this nation is nearing the fiftieth anniversary of the Brown v. Board decision.
Although equality was clearly an individual’s Constitutional Right, US states could redefine separate as equal. Long before the Supreme Court reversed the ugly discrimination validated by Plessey v. Ferguson, it was clear that states did not protect equality, even separate equality and Paul Summers continues this legacy with his endangerment of the rights of Americans with disabilities. 

2. Tennessee’s Appeal to the Supreme Court endangers valid civil rights of people with disabilities.

Americans support the ADA. Nearly nine out of ten (87%), of those who are aware of the ADA, support and approve of the Americans with Disabilities Act. [A Louis Harris and Associates survey 1999].

When President George H.W. Bush signed the 1990 Americans with Disability Act he stated:

And now I sign legislation, which takes a sledgehammer to another wall, one which has for too many generations separated Americans with disabilities from the freedom they could glimpse, but not grasp. Once again, we rejoice as this barrier falls for claiming together we will not accept, we will not excuse, we will not tolerate discrimination in America.

Although most Americans support the landmark civil rights legislation, the ADA did not start out with reasonable enforcement on a federal level. Mouth magazine reported to its readers on the results of a five-month investigation into the U.S. Department of Justice and its enforcement of disability rights law. The report showed that in six years of enforcement, the Disability Rights Section of the DOJ had brought only one ADA case to trial and judgment, and between January 1, 1994, and December 31, 1997, the DOJ opened 6,339 ADA cases, filing suit in four. 5,525 cases were still open, unresolved, on January 1, 1998.

Even with a weak record of enforcement following the ADA, the situation of Americans with disabilities has significantly improved as reported by Dr. I. King Jordan, the first deaf president of Gallaudet University:
Certainly, life before the ADA was rampant with physical and social barriers that prevented disabled people from making even rudimentary decisions. Many were trained in sheltered workshops, or warehoused by families and educational systems embarrassed by their very existence, and convinced they had little potential for success. [Dr. I. King Jordan, “Colleges Can Do Even More for People With Disabilities,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, Section 2 (June 15, 2001), at http://president.gallaudet.edu/chron.html].

The Congress’ express purpose was equal access to government by all citizens. The priorities established by Title II make access to government the top priority of state and local entities. Additionally, since the ADA was signed, there are some critical facts that could be added to the record of discrimination by state governments.
Voting: In 1998 approximately 20,000 polling places were not accessible.

Integration: States have ignored the US Supreme Court’s 1999 Olmstead decision. More than two-thirds of the states have not even developed a plan for implementation of Olmstead.

Due Process: The evidence Congress had when it passed the ADA showed that 76% of state-owned buildings did not offer accessible programs and services. George Lane in 1996 could not access a courtroom in Tennessee because he uses a wheelchair and sued the state for denying him due process. Attorney General Paul Summers used this incident to allege that Tennessee does not need to protect some citizen’s Constitutional Rights.

Transportation: In 1989, one-third (36%) of the national bus fleet was accessible. … projections indicate that by 2002, the national bus fleet will be 100 percent lift/ramp-equipped. [Rosalyn M. Simon, “Status of Transportation Accessibility in the United States: Impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act,” in Proceedings of Seminar L Held at the Planning and Transportation Research and Computation European Transport Forum, Brunel University, England § 3.1 (Sept. 2-6, 1996)].

3. Tennessee does not advance “states rights” with the Lane Appeal The concept of sovereign immunity should not be resolved at the expense of citizens’ valid civil liberties. The legal issues may ignore that real people are involved and the real issues are ultimately not simply legal, but moral. The concept of sovereign immunity is even further removed from the lives of Americans today because individual US states do not exercise dominion over the lives of citizens. Federal Highway funds normally dictate a state’s transportation plans, Medicare significantly impacts states health-care procedures, Medicaid funds determine long-term care policy and National Education policy directs US states schooling.

The fact is that states work to get federal funding with one hand and push federal control away with the other. States could easily claim greater sovereignty by turning down federal funds and making their own rules or even canceling programs altogether; however, it is clear that states are not actually seeking greater sovereignty, they want more money.

Tennessee rather than working to become more “sovereign” is becoming more and more dependent on federal money coming into the state. I am familiar with this states failed long-term care policy because I have worked to help citizens live independently for the past 20 years. Our state almost exclusively funnels long-term care funding to nursing homes and other institutions, the most expensive and least desirable form of long-term care.

Seven years ago the Comptroller of the Treasury warned us that Tennessee faced a crisis in long-term care funding and as more Tennesseans are forced into institutions for long-term care, the Federal Medicaid funds that now are huge, will continue to grow. The 1997 Tennessee comptroller's report mentioned the success of Wisconsin, Oregon and Washington. Between 1979 and 1995, Oregon cut long-term care costs by $400 million. Between 1982 and 1992, the report declared, the total number of nursing home beds in those three states dwindled and home and community services increased. [W. R. Snodgrass, Comptroller of the Treasury; Long-Term Care of Tennessee's Elderly, Oct. 1997]

For many years I have assisted with the help of Memphis ADAPT and the Memphis Center For Independent Living more than a dozen people with disabilities to leave the state of Tennessee in order to receive minimal assistance (bathing, dressing, wheelchair transfers) they need to live in other U.S. states that offer home and community services as an alternative to nursing homes. Without exception the Tennesseans with disabilities wanted to live and work in their own communities, they still do. I would like to remind Mr. Summers that forcing us to seek asylum outside of our own state in order to receive basic assistance is not only cruel and inhumane but also morally unconscionable. Unfortunately, Mr. Summers’ conscience appears to be unaware and undisturbed by citizens with disabilities in Tennessee who seek civil rights protection from discrimination.

Accessing the Future

Mayor Strickland speaks at the MCIL Awards Lunch

(MEMPHIS, Oct. 31, 2016) The Memphis Center for Independent Living honored the former MCIL Executive Director today at the annual Deborah Cunningham Access Awards Lunch. Mayor of the City of Memphis, Jim Strickland spoke at the event and highlighted the need for accessible neighborhoods.


Director of Fire Services, Gina Sweat also made and informational appeal to the crowd and detailed services to protect residents with disabilities. Andy Wise of WMC-TV 5 was the Master of Ceremonies for the lunch and quipped that Director Sweat should have thought twice about discussing budget problems in front of her boss, the Mayor.


“Firefighters are brave,” responded Director Sweat.


Lunch was served at Central Station to about seventy people starting at 11:00 am before the program. This years lunch was the second annual event and coincided with the thirty-first anniversary of the founding of MCIL. Following the Mayor’s address, Andy Wise presented the MCIL 2016 Achievement in Access to James Boehm for his work for access in rideshare transportation.

James Boehm (a native Memphian) has taken a stand in August and September, on behalf of guide dog users, specifically, to spread awareness and educate communities regarding the need for Uber and other rideshare drivers to follow the law, as it pertains to service dogs. James has gone above and beyond to spend time with local law-enforcement and DA staff, in order to help them understand the impact to persons with service dogs when a Uber or rideshare driver does not allow them a ride.


James Boehm spoke briefly and was flattered by the award. He did not know Ms. Cunningham but was impressed by her bio and he mentioned Deborah and the Underground Railroad used by people with disabilities to get services in other states because Tennessee did not offer services to allow people with disabilities to move out of expensive institutions.


Mr. Wise also recognized the MCIL 2016 Essay Contest Winner: Savannah Morris who received $100 for her winning essay on the “Accessible Memphis I Want in My Future.”


“Let’s make this a better Memphis by working together with one another,” read Mr. Wise from Savannah Morris’ Essay. “Everyone has a dream, let’s make the dream come true for people with disabilities.”


Andy Wise also filled in when the Mayor forgot to present a Proclamation to MCIL recognizing October as National Disability Employment Awareness Month, Andy Wise read the proclamation and presented it to Sandi Klink the Executive Director of MCIL.


Finally, Ms. Klink surprised the board and staff of MCIL by asking them to come to the front of William Hudson Hall and gave them all gifts and bragged about them and the Center to the crowd. 

View More photos from the MCIL event.

Sandi Klink becomes the new Executive Director of the Memphis Center for Independent Living.

Executive Director Sandi Klink

Deborah Cunningham’s death this past May has left a large hole in Memphis. This week The Memphis Center for Independent Living took action to keep the Center a vibrant representative of the disability community and a focus for disability rights. Sandi Klink, the Interim Director has been named the MCIL Executive Director, Tim Wheat has been hired as the new Program Director and Anthony Sledge is stepping into a new role as Outreach Director.

Sandi Klink had the unique opportunity to work side-by-side with Deborah Cunningham for the past fifteen years as her deputy. She first became involved with MCIL in the late 1980’s where Ms. Cunningham was a strong influence in Sandi’s work as a facilitator and mentor. Ms. Klink is a graduate of Partners in Policy making and recently rotated off the Tennessee Council for Developmental Disabilities. In 2000 Sandi helped coordinate the Torch Relay for the tenth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Vice President Al Gore invited her to dinner in celebration of the ADA.

“MCIL is an organization that works with people with disabilities of all types. We are accepting, we are open and you can feel at home here, “said Sandi Klink. “I’d say MCIL is known for causing trouble and we are very proud of it.”

Ms. Klink is passionate about the power of language and respect for people with disabilities. She is a singer and soloist. Sandi says she is a proud grandmother and her favorite label is “Grandi.”

Tim Wheat has been tapped to run the Independent Living Program. From 2002 to 2014,Tim Wheat worked as the Advocacy Services Manager and Community Organizer for the Center for People with Disabilities in Boulder Colorado. Most recently he was a Disability Rights Advocate at Disability Rights Tennessee. He began his work with the disability community however at the Memphis Center for Independent Living. In 1999 Tim documented more than 1,700 violations of the Fair Housing Act and was part of one of the largest Fair Housing Complaints concerning accessibility. Tim Wheat has been an ADAPT activist for over nineteen years. He created the ADAPT Action Report, was a director of the ADAPT 25th Anniversary Celebration and coordinated the web media for the historic Free Our People March in 2003. In 2002 Tim rode his bicycle around the United States to document Independent Living creating a web journal called Independence Across America. Tim worked as a volunteer with the Student Conservation Association in Alaska following the Valdez spill and is a graduate of the University of Alabama.

“I love what I see at MCIL,” said Tim Wheat. “I see the best of Independent Living, community involvement, participation and a passion for disability rights.”

 Anthony Sledge has been named the new Outreach Director  this is his new title along with being the ADA Housing Coordinator and Home Modifications specialist.  Anthony has been with MCIL  since March of 2007 .  He has successfully obtained funding for the Home Mod program for the past seven years.  He is the former Vice-Chair of the Statewide Independent Living Council and currently holds the designation of certified ADA Coordinator from the University of Missouri’s School of Disability and Health Professionals.  Anthony has had several years of experience by working not only in Home Modifications but in nursing home transitions and performing Independent living duties as needed.  He has extensive ties to the community as a Pastor and as an advocate for the downtrodden.

Outreach Director Anthony Sledge

Anthony has established several ties in the community by going in various neighborhoods and completing home modification projects.  He serves on several boards and committees including the Memphis Advisory Council for Citizens with Disabilities.  Anthony has modified over 250 homes since 2007.  He is a graduate of Union University with a Master’s in Religious Studies and currently working on a Master’s of Divinity Degree with a concentration in leadership.

“Awareness opens our eyes but Ambition gets us the prize,” said Anthony Sledge, “I am confident that the new leadership will bring out the best, brightest and effective efforts to take us to the next level.”

Deborah Cunningham 1945 - 2015

Dear Friends in Disability Advocacy,

Deborah Cunningham, ADAPT activist and Executive Director of the Memphis Center for Independent Living, died yesterday 5/7/15 with her family and friends by her side. 

Deborah served as activist, mentor, friend, sister and boss to many in Memphis and across the country. She worked with and for the Memphis Center for Independent Living since its inception in 1982 working for Easter Seals and then in 1985 when it was chartered as an independent non-profit she continued to serve as an independent living specialist and mentor to individuals with disabilities like herself. Deborah stepped up to become Executive Director in 1989 and was known nationwide as an exceptional example of advocate and leader. I count myself lucky to have known and worked with this awesome woman for almost 30 years in one capacity or another. She was my IL specialist in 1985, my mentor always and my boss and friend for the last 15 years.

Tim Wheat wrote; “Before there was any home and community options in Tennessee, Deborah was the “conductor” of the Disability Underground Railroad that moved people with disabilities from institutionalization into their own homes in Colorado where there are community living options. Deborah was proud to direct a progressive Center for Independent Living that focused on integration, equality and activism. She was the mentor for many individuals in the Disability Rights Movement and a skilled director, speaker and teacher.” 

Deborah’s legacy of activism, independence and leadership will continue through her MCIL team that she loved and taught well. We mourn, but we will fight on to Free our People!

For information on services, contact MCIL: 901-726-6404.

Sandi Klink

No final arrangements have been completed, we will post when they are.

From Louis Patrick:

There's not one person in the whole of Tennessee who has been freed from a nursing home or saved from entering one who does not owe their freedom--in no small part--to Deborah Cunningham.

There's not an accessible movie theatre space in Memphis and its environs that Deborah, an avid movie fan, did not lobby hard for. Ditto the spaces, concessions and restrooms at the Liberty Bowl are substantially  the result of Deborah's efforts (though not, thank you, a football fan). There's not an accessible restaurant that Deborah, who loved to eat out, didn't have a hand in knocking down barriers at the entrances.

There is not one of the growing number of curb ramps in the city and its suburbs that doesn't have a piece of Deborah's heart and soul. (And better sidewalks are coming).

All of MATA's buses are now accessible to wheelchair and scooter users, and MATA typically documents a thousand and more rides every month by such riders. But it took this soft-spoken lady and her equally soft-spoken ally stopping a bus that passed them by to get MATA to stop for the rest of us.

Deborah's tireless advocacy for individuals looking for accessible, affordable housing has secured shelter for, probably, hundreds of people.

There's no one who saw Deborah "walking" down the street, no one especially who talked to her, who didn't come away forever changed in his or her opinion of the strength and ability of individuals with disabilities. And there's no simple telling of the impact she's had on her friends, loved ones and those who worked for and with her.

The best laws are passed only because the best people work like the devil to get them passed. Even the best laws, however, are not just magically complied with. They have to be enforced by a tough beat cop. Deborah was that cop for us.

Deborah did not, of course, achieve so much on her own. She had the help, love and support of the many people who have worked under her tutelage at MCIL. But MCIL only survived because Deborah refused to let it die and refused to let it become anything other than a powerful champion of people with disabilities. You have a tremendous inheritance to carry forward.