By Annette Bay Pimentel
Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins has been a disability advocate almost her entire life. At age 6, she had already been excluded from her neighborhood elementary school in Phoenix because of her wheelchair. Her family was unsure how to fight the exclusion.
That changed when her relative, photographer Tom Olin, visited. He described his experience taking pictures at a disability rights demonstration and urged the Keelans to get involved.
Attending her first ADAPT planning meeting was electrifying for Jennifer. “It was the first time I ever saw people in wheelchairs fighting for their rights and empowering themselves. That made a humongous impression.” Jennifer was a natural. By the end of her first protest, she was leading the march.
Jennifer and her mother, Cynthia, became deeply enmeshed in the disability rights community. They joined ADAPT’s national fight for bus lifts and traveled as far as San Francisco and Montreal to march. In 1990, they relocated to Colorado to work with Wade Blank and Atlantis Community, Inc.
At marches, Jennifer especially loved leading the chant, “The people united will never be defeated.”
“That was so powerful,” she remembers. “Even as a young child. I knew what that meant.”
Often Jennifer and her younger sister were the only children at protests, but that didn’t leave her feeling isolated. “I often felt like this was something bigger than myself, that I had a responsibility, not only for myself, but also for other children with disabilities.”
In 1990, when Jennifer was 8 years old, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was introduced in Congress. The disability rights community was, at first, thrilled at the prospect of sweeping legislation to protect disability rights. But excitement changed to concern as Congress dragged its feet at voting on the bill. To pressure Congress, a wide range of disability rights groups planned a joint march on Washington.
The Keelans joined in, marching down Pennsylvania Avenue, holding posters and shouting. The march ended with a rally at the bottom of the steps of the Capitol. At a prearranged signal, people abandoned their wheelchairs and started climbing the steps in a graphic, camera-ready demonstration of the kinds of barriers people with disabilities face.
Jennifer had been in meetings where the Capitol Crawl was planned, but organizers had told her she shouldn’t join in. She was, after all, only 8 years old. But as Jennifer watched her friends and fellow activists start to climb, she started to cry.
“I was heartbroken,” she remembers. Rev. Wade Blank approached her and asked, “Why are you crying?” Jennifer remembers telling him, “Because I want to participate and the others are telling me No.” And that’s when he said, “Do what’s in your heart.”
So Jennifer climbed out of her wheelchair and joined the Capitol Crawl. Soon, it seemed every camera was riveted on her, capturing her steely determination as she made her slow way up the steps. Microphones captured her shouted vow, “I’ll take all night if I have to!”
Images of Jennifer flashed around the world and helped galvanize support for passage of the ADA. Later that summer, it was signed into law.
I write books for kids about important moments in American history. In 2017, I was trying to write about the ADA and the sweeping changes it has brought to American society. Jennifer’s close-up, kids’-eye view of the ADA seemed like the perfect way to invite other kids into the story. I reached out to see if she’d like to work with me on the book and Jennifer agreed, despite being in her busy final semester of college.
I interviewed Jennifer by telephone, and she also patiently answered questions by email. Cynthia helped establish timelines and corroborate details.
Sourcebooks Publishers eagerly signed on to publish this important story for kids, and they invited Jennifer to write the foreword to the book. As is usual, the book’s editor found an illustrator, and Jennifer again slipped into the advisor-in-chief role, as the illustrator came back to her with still more questions.
All the Way to the Top: How One Girl’s Fight for Americans with Disabilities Changed Everything will come out on March 10, 2020. Jennifer and I are doing a book tour in Denver, Phoenix and Atlanta. We’ll be sharing the book in bookstores, elementary schools, and on college campuses. Her Capitol Crawl activism is also being commemorated in a sculpture by Gina Klawitter.
The Capitol Crawl is the most famous and widely-known of Jennifer’s protests, but it was far from the last. Today, Jennifer has a college degree in family and human development with a minor in political science. That professional expertise informs her continued activism and advocacy. She is working toward setting up a foundation that will help families access transportation, assistive technology in classrooms, and healthcare. In addition, she works as a Vantage Mobility International Brand Ambassador with Mobility of Denver to spread the word about their new Apex wheelchair accessible conversion van.
Both Jennifer and I hope that as children learn about the fight for the ADA they will appreciate how the ADA has improved all of our lives. We also hope that our story will remind kids that you don’t have to be a grown-up to make a difference.
Even an 8 year old can nudge the world in new directions.
