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[Pages S5702-S5703]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS
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REMEMBERING MARCA BRISTO
Ms. DUCKWORTH. Mr. President, I come before the Senate today
to honor the life of Marca Bristo: a trailblazer, an activist, a mother
and--to me and so many others--a hero. She passed away this month at
the age of 66, after spending the last four decades on the frontlines
of the disability rights movement.
With every day that passed and every fight she took on, Marca
redefined the word resilience. It was thanks in large part to her
decision to get out of her wheelchair and crawl up the steps of the
Capitol Building to help pass the Americans with Disabilities Act that
I can roll through its corridors to cast my vote in its Chamber three
decades later.
She climbed up those steps to tear down the barriers that had been
holding us back. She got onto her hands and knees so the rest of us
could rise, working tirelessly to turn the ADA from a dream to a law
that enshrines the basic civil rights that those of us with
disabilities rely on to live our daily lives.
I and countless others am devastated that we lost her so soon, but I
am also deeply grateful to have known her, deeply thankful that, in one
of the toughest times of my life, when I was still adjusting to life in
a wheelchair after being wounded in Iraq, she decided to reach out.
Through her kindness and her wisdom, her strength and her grit, she
quickly went from stranger to mentor to dear friend.
Marca was raised on a farm in upstate New York before moving to
Chicago and earning her nursing degree at Rush University, but less
than a year after becoming a nurse, a diving accident left her
paralyzed from the chest down.
She lost her home because she could no longer access it. She lost her
job because there were no labor protections for those with
disabilities. She lost her health insurance because her injuries and
care were too expensive. But she didn't lose her resolve, and our
country is far, far better because of that and because she believed
that, even if you get knocked down, it doesn't mean you are knocked
out.
Marca's entire life changed the day of her accident. Suddenly, she
looked around and saw a world hostile to her, hostile to all who
couldn't walk or see, couldn't speak or hear.
So she set about changing the world. She saw a country that pushed
people with disabilities into the margins, a nation that treated them
as less than,
[[Page S5703]]
one that overlooked or ignored their needs, making it impossible for
many to work or even to get to work, impossible to go to school or to
lead the normal lives they deserved.
She saw discrimination, and she refused to call it anything else,
refusing to stop fighting until disability issues weren't just
relegated to the doctor's office, weren't just treated as medical
matters, but were recognized as civil rights.
So she spoke out. She chained herself to public buses to demand
wheelchair lifts. She fought for fair housing and founded Access
Living, which she built into one of the leading disability rights
groups in the country. She wheeled herself to the front of the Capitol
Building, got down out of her chair and, one stair at a time, crawled
up its 83 steps, demanding that Congress give Americans with
disabilities the basic rights the Constitution promised. She set up
camp outside GOP offices to tight against cuts to Medicaid, letting
herself get arrested because that is what it took.
In the process, she reframed how this country thought about our
rights. As she famously said, ``My wheelchair wasn't too wide for the
doors. The doors were too narrow for my wheelchair.'' Through all her
work over all these decades, she didn't just widen the doors. She
opened ones that had previously been closed to all of us who happen to
be in a chair.
No one used to think about how we couldn't get from sidewalk to
street when there wasn't a curb cut. No one used to question the fact
that we couldn't climb onto the bus or get down to the subway.
Marca changed all that. She refused to accept a status quo that
didn't accept all of us. She saw us, she fought for us, and she made
our voices heard.
Her work, her friendship, her activism meant so much to me. It is the
reason I am here in the Senate today, and it is the reason I will keep
fighting tomorrow.
My thoughts are with all of Marca's loved ones. Thank you for sharing
your mother, your wife, your sister with the rest of us. We will
continue her legacy. We will keep widening those doors, unlocking them,
crashing through them if need be, just as Marca would have wanted.
Doing everything we can to bring about that more fair, more just, more
accessible world that she worked so hard for, for so long.
Thank you.
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