Danny

47 Danny

This photo was made in 2018 but because of the woman wearing a facemask, it looks like it comes from the pandemic times of 2020 and beyond. The facemask is simply for warmth and not to fight the virus.

It is the look on Danny's face that I like about the photo. ADAPT commonly marches single-file in the street. This ADAPT action in Denver was obviously a cold one, but it also was my last and very passionate for many people. 

Danny is one of those passionate activists.

Interview with Danny Saenz: https://library.uta.edu/txdisabilityhistory/audio/20085453

Danny has been part of the movement much longer than I have. Danny and other ADAPT activists with disabilities had traveled to Orlando, Florida, for the annual convention of the American Health Care Association, the most powerful nursing home lobbying group in the country.

"A good 75 percent of us were arrested on the first day," said disability rights activist Danny Saenz. "We went to their hotel and we took it over, and the whole bunch of us were rounded up and we spent three days in jail," he told Truthout.

That day in Florida was just one of many times he's been arrested while protesting for civil rights, often after having chained his wheelchair to other activists. I have been arrested a few times with Danny, but nothing as intense as the Orlando ADAPT action. Deborah Cunningham, my mentor here in Memphis, was busted on that action and also spent many days in jail. 

Danny and I were also on the ADAPT Free Our People March, fourteen days, 144 miles from Philadelphia to Washington DC. That was a great experience for me, and it has always bonded me to fellow activists in ADAPT. It is strange how demonstrations, arrests, spending time in jail all work to build bonds of friendship. I don't see Danny very much since Denver, but I miss him and others in ADAPT. 

One of my first ADAPT action reports featured this quote from Danny:

"It is becoming easy," Danny said in June of 2000 at the ADAPT action in Washington DC. "Which shows the power we have. People know us and know that we won't back down."

Well it does not seem to have gotten too easy. Now more than twenty years later and Danny is still working for disability rights. 

"Even though I get discouraged from time to time with how much we have to struggle and fight and protest and get arrested, we've still come a long way," he said recently. "We've got to remember that."

The ADAPT Free Our People March: http://www.knowonk.com/freeourpeople/ 

2018 ADAPT in Denver: https://www.flickr.com/gp/timmwheat/vF3B9X 

ADAPT Collection: https://www.flickr.com/photos/timmwheat/collections/72157673747843191/ 

Danny Saenz marches with ADAPT in Washington DC