Monday, January 9, 2017

Big Developments in the New Year


Before the holidays I wrote about two particular upcoming events, one national and one local.  The national one, of course, is the inauguration of President Trump on January 20.  In my latest blog post I encouraged those who are eager to communicate a message of inclusion to the incoming president to turn out on January 21 for the Women’s March on Washington - https://www.womensmarch.com.   However, in the meantime, D.C.’s self-advocates’ organization, Project Action!, has made the decision to participate  as a group in the We Shall Not Be Moved rally - http://nationalactionnetwork.net – on January 14.  So - take your pick or do both!  If you’re interested in joining on January 14, Phyllis Holton at Quality Trust - pholton@dcqualitytrust.org – can put you in touch with the Project Action! group.

An event with more local potential is the formal closeout of the 40-year-old Evans class action lawsuit tomorrow, January 10, at the U.S. district court at 333 Constitution Avenue, NW (courtroom 23A).  DDS will host a celebration later in the day, 5:00 to 7:00, at their offices at 250 E Street SW.  It’s hard to overstate the significance of this moment – what it means about the immense progress made by advocates and by DDS itself, especially over the past decade, and also the opportunity it offers us now to look ahead and focus on today’s new challenges.  I understand that Martin Austermuhle of WAMU-FM may do a follow-on to his well-received series broadcast back in the spring (see my post, “So Much Accomplished, So Much More to Do,” March 21, 2016) to mark this event, and I’ll let you know when I hear more about the timing.

I’d also like to take the opportunity to note that a number of existing members of the Developmental Disabilities Council (http://ddc.dc.gov/), as well as a few new ones including myself, were sworn in by the mayor on December 15.  The DDC will be implementing its new five-year plan and helping confront new challenges facing our city’s developmentally disabled citizens.  I look forward to joining others in these tasks, but the views I express in these pages will continue to be entirely my own.

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