A student using a wheelchair studies in class.
Credit: © ESB Professional/Shutterstock

July is National Disabilities Month. In July 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed. That was 33 years ago! The Americans with Disabilities Act, often called the ADA, is a United States law that forbids discrimination based on physical or mental disabilities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states 61 million American adults have a disability affecting their daily lives. That is 1 in 4 American adults, or 27 percent of the country!

The ADA seeks to protect individuals with disabilities that significantly limit one or more major life activities. Examples of such disabilities include blindness, deafness, deformity, muscular and nervous disorders, paralysis, and loss of limbs. The primary goal of the ADA is to ensure that people with disabilities are not denied basic rights and have an opportunity to lead happy, fulfilling lives.

The first right protected by the ADA is the freedom to seek employment. The law bans discrimination in hiring, promotion, and pay. It also requires that employers make efforts to accommodate the workplace needs and limitations of employees with disabilities.

A second section of the ADA states that people with disabilities must have equal opportunities to benefit from all government-run programs, services, and activities. This provision requires many public buildings to have wheelchair-accessible entrances and ramps. It also requires government organizations to make special efforts to communicate with people who have hearing, vision, or speech disabilities.

Other issues addressed by the ADA include the accessibility of buses, trains, hotels, movie theaters, restaurants, and stores. Many transit services and other establishments must provide ramps or lifts for people in wheelchairs, and signs in braille for customers who are blind. The act also requires telephone companies to provide telephone relay services for people with speech or hearing disabilities.

If there is an issue with ADA compliance, a victim of employer discrimination can file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which will take the case to court. The U.S. Department of Justice handles other complaints of discrimination under the ADA.

The National Council on Disability, an independent agency of the federal government, developed the ADA in the mid-1980′s, and Congress passed it in 1990. In 2008, Congress expanded the ADA’s protections to people who can compensate for their disabilities by the use of medication, medical devices, or prosthetics. Earlier decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States had limited the scope of the act’s protections. However, for 33 years, Americans with disabilities have been protected by the ADA.

American civil rights activist and writer Kiyoshi Kuromiya.
Credit: Estate of Kiyoshi Kuromiya

June is LGBTQ+ Pride Month. All month long, Behind the Headlines will feature lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning pioneers in a variety of areas.

Kiyoshi Kuromiya was an influential American civil rights activist and writer. He helped organize and took part in anti-war demonstrations and protests for civil rights and gay rights. Later, Kuromiya became an advocate for people with AIDS and worked to connect patients with the latest research.

Steven Kiyoshi Kuromiya was born May 9, 1943, at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center near Cody, Wyoming. He and his family were among the 110,000 Japanese Americans forcibly relocated by the United States government during World War II (1939-1945) as part of a policy called internment. One of his uncles, also a Heart Mountain resident, refused to participate in the draft and served three years in prison. After the war ended, Kuromiya’s family moved to Ohio and then to California. During this time, Kuromiya began to realize that he was gay. He used special library privileges his parents had gotten him to read about being gay at the county library. As a teen, he subscribed to the few gay news publications available at the time.

In 1961, Kuromiya moved to Philadelphia to attend the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied architecture. There, he became involved in the civil rights movement. He participated in diner sit-ins in Maryland and protests against nuclear testing. In 1963, he attended the March on Washington and afterward met the American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1965, he joined a group of protesters staging a sit-in at Independence Hall in Philadelphia and participated in the famous march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. During the march, he was knocked unconscious by the police and required stitches. He became close to the King family during these protests, and he helped to care for the King children in the immediate aftermath of their father’s assassination.

In 1968, Kuromiya organized a protest against the Vietnam War (1957-1975). To draw a crowd, he started a rumor that a dog was going to be set on fire. When a crowd of people arrived to try and stop it from happening, they instead found a flier from Kuromiya. It read, “Congratulations on your anti-napalm protest. You saved the life of a dog. Now, how about saving the lives of tens of thousands of people in Vietnam?” Kuromiya was also arrested that year for distributing a poster that encouraged people to burn their draft cards, a criminal act.

Kuromiya joined one of the first protests for gay rights in 1965, despite not being fully out at the time. The Annual Reminder picket lines at Independence Hall were organized by the East Coast Homophile Organizations (ECHO), a collaboration between several early gay rights groups, and held on July 4 every year. Kuromiya later became one of the founders of the Philadelphia branch of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), a more radical group fighting for gay rights. The loosely structured group lasted only about a year. Kuromiya continued to host a Gay Coffee Hour on the University of Pennsylvania campus, which became the first gay organization to receive funds from the university.

During the 1970’s and 1980’s, Kuromiya worked closely with the American engineer and inventor Buckminster Fuller. They co-authored Critical Path, published in 1981. The book explored how architecture, design, and technology can be used to solve world problems.

Kuromiya was diagnosed with AIDS in the late 1980’s. Afterward, he became heavily involved in advocacy organizations such as AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP) and People With AIDS (PWA). He founded the Critical Path Project, a group that published newsletters with information on AIDS research. Additionally, he established a hotline for people with AIDS to get more information about treatments. He set up a computer lab in his home to enable people with AIDS to connect via the internet, which was a relatively new technology at the time.

In 1996, Kuromiya was one of the plaintiffs in a successful case to get the Communications Decency Act thrown out. This law had placed restrictions on what information could be shared publicly, prohibiting “patently offensive” materials. The law had threatened efforts by the Critical Path Project to get AIDS-related information to people who needed it. Kuromiya lost a 1999 class-action suit that sought to overturn bans on the use of marijuana for medicinal and therapeutic purposes in the United States.

Kuromiya died on May 10, 2000. He has been honored with a spot on the San Francisco Rainbow Walk and a placard on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor at the Stonewall Inn, now a national monument.

American LGBTQ rights activist Sylvia Rivera
Credit: © Justin Sutcliffe, AP Photo

Today, March 31, 2023, is International Transgender Day of Visibility. On this day, people around the world celebrate transgender voices. Transgender is a term for individuals whose identity or self-expression does not match their assigned gender. At a time when transgender rights are in the news and on the dockets throughout the United States, it is important to look at activists who have fought to protect the rights of transgender individuals, such as Sylvia Rivera.

Sylvia Rivera was an American activist for LGBTQ rights. LGBTQ is an abbreviation for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning. Rivera is remembered for being a leader during the Stonewall uprising, a series of demonstrations for gay rights that took place in New York City in late June and early July 1969. Rivera was a drag queen (cross-dressing performer) and a transgender woman.

Rivera advocated on behalf of drag queens, homeless queer youth, and imprisoned gay people, groups sometimes overlooked by mainstream LGBTQ advocates. Rivera focused on the intersectional aspects of poverty, race, gender identity, and sexual orientation. Intersectionality refers to the ways in which different kinds of discrimination can interact and affect one another.

Rivera participated in a riot at the Stonewall Inn in June 1969, after police officers attempted to close the bar, which served primarily gay and transgender customers. In 1970, Rivera joined with the American transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson to found the Street Transvestite (later changed to Transgender) Action Revolutionaries (STAR). STAR had a variety of missions, including helping homeless transgender youth, advocating for sexual freedom, and allying the gay rights movement with other civil rights movements. Rivera also worked to help pass New York’s Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (SONDA). The law, which went into effect in 2003, prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation in housing, employment, education, and a variety of other areas.

Ray Rivera Mendoza was born on July 2, 1951, in New York City and assigned the male gender. Rivera grew up in the care of a grandmother who disapproved of Rivera’s often gender-defiant behavior, such as wearing makeup. Because of her continued expression and exploration of feminine qualities, Rivera became homeless by age 11. To survive, Rivera worked as a prostitute. She found a community among New York City’s drag queens and adopted the name Sylvia. Rivera died on Feb. 19, 2002.

A woman carries the Pan-African flag, a symbol of Black unity, at a Juneteenth parade in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Juneteenth celebrations commemorate the freeing of slaves in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865.
Credit: © Tippman98x/Shutterstock

June 19 is Juneteenth, a festival held in many Black and other communities to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States. The name of the festival refers to the date, June 19—the day the last slaves were freed in the southern state of Texas in 1865. Juneteenth festivities often include plays and storytelling, parades, prayer services, and family reunions. Some communities hold longer Juneteenth festivals spanning several days as a celebration of civil rights and freedom.

People wait for floats to pass by during a parade celebrating Juneteenth in the historically Black town of Bastrop, near Austin, Texas USA. Credit: © Bob Daemmrich, Alamy Images

Last year’s Juneteenth looked different than celebrations past, because of the ongoing pandemic (global outbreak) of the coronavirus disease COVID-19. This year, festive Juneteenth celebrations have resumed in many places. Parades and festivals throughout the country will commemorate and celebrate Black life in America. If attending crowded events does not yet feel safe to you, you can celebrate Juneteenth by supporting Black-owned businesses, including stores and restaurants.

One way the national government is celebrating Juneteenth this year and for years to come is by making it a federal holiday. This week, Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed into law a bill to officially recognize Juneteenth each year.

Juneteenth originated in Texas at the end of the American Civil War (1861-1865). In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared freedom for the slaves in Confederate states in rebellion against the Union. However, many slave owners in Texas suppressed information about the emancipation even after the war ended in April 1865. On June 19, Gordon Granger, a Union general, entered Galveston, Texas, and ordered all slaves in the state to be freed. About 250,000 people, among the last slaves remaining in the United States, were freed.

Juneteenth celebrations were held only in Texas and a few communities in other southern states in the years following the Civil War. Black people carried the celebration with them, however, as they migrated to other regions of the country. The push to make Juneteenth a federal holiday gained momentum in 2020, during the widespread Black Lives Matter protests that followed the police killing of George Floyd.

U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe
© Romain Biard, Shutterstock

June is LGBTQ+ Pride Month. All month long, Behind the Headlines will feature lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning pioneers in a variety of areas.

The professional soccer player Megan Rapinoe is a champion both on and off the field. As a midfielder for the U.S. Women’s National Team, Rapinoe is known for her dynamic skills as a scorer and playmaker. In soccer, a playmaker controls a team’s offense, often coordinating scoring chances through precise passing. Off the field, Rapinoe—along with her soccer-playing twin sister, Rachael—runs soccer training clinics. She has also worked with a number of human rights organizations, including groups devoted to LGBTQ+ rights.

Rapinoe helped the U.S. Women’s National Team to win a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. In 2015 and again in 2019, she helped lead the United States to FIFA Women’s World Cup tournament championships. FIFA stands for Fédération Internationale de Football Association (International Federation of Association Football). FIFA is the governing body for soccer, which is called football in many parts of the world. In 2019, Rapinoe was awarded the Golden Ball as the World Cup tournament’s best player. Rapinoe also played on the U.S. World Cup team in 2011 and the U.S. Olympic team in 2016. In 2019, Rapinoe earned the Best FIFA Women’s Player award as soccer’s best female player. The award replaced the Ballon d’Or in 2016.

Megan Anna Rapinoe was born on July 5, 1985, in Redding, California. She began playing soccer when she was young. In high school, Rapinoe played for Elk Grove Pride United, a team for players under age 19, and the Elk Grove Pride of the Women’s Premier Soccer League, a semiprofessional league in the second tier of women’s soccer in the United States. Rapinoe then played soccer at the University of Portland in Oregon, where she helped the team win a college national championship in 2005. She also played on U.S. national youth teams before debuting for the U.S. Women’s National Team in 2006. Injuries caused her to miss international tournaments in 2007 and 2008.

From 2009 through 2012, Rapinoe played in the Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) league and the United Soccer League’s W-League. Rapinoe also played for Olympique Lyonnais in France’s top women’s league. Since 2013, Rapinoe has played for the Seattle Reign FC (now OL Reign) of the National Women’s Soccer League, the top tier of women’s soccer in the United States.