Twas a bright, sunny, warm day on the hill. Folks from all over slowly drifted in. People such as Marca, Mike, Diane and Kyle. Hey, there's Karen and Kevin from Chicago ADAPT. And other Chicago ADAPTers Tom, Louise and Tim.

As I walked through the crowd, I spotted organizations such as We Care, and students from Gallaudet University, who were all too eager to get their faces in the picture. There were people from CIL's and ADAPT chapters from all over the country including Illinois, California, Florida and many other states. People settled in the grass, under trees, and where-ever they could find a spot. There's the National ADAPT crew selling tee-shirts, buttons and other ADAPT stuff.

I usually don't get too sappy with my pics but I couldn't resist this father and son pic.

The rally finally started with music from a CD of Teddy Pendergrass, a wonderful R&B singer originally with Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes back in the 70's. He became a quad over a decade ago and is sill singing today.

As the MC started to introduce the first speaker of the day, I started to realize that this wasn't a typical ADAPT rally. Since the theme of the day was about defending the ADA and our civil rights as human beings, none other than Jesse Jackson stepped up and led the crowd in several short chants and then a profound talk on people with disabilities' civil rights.

As always, and with pleasure each time, Justin Dart spoke and motivated the crowd to it's feet with applause and chants. He's truely an advocacy icon of the disability community.

Remember the music I said was being played early on? Well, better than that, Teddy Pendergrass actually showed up and spoke to us about his experiences with his disability, rights, and equality.

The show had just begun because next was Ted Kennedy Jr. and then Martin Luther King III, both from two of the nations most well known families speaking of human rights and equality for all.

Several other people spoke, and soon the crowd was getting ready to march over to the US Supreme Court Building.

On the way there, I was able to snap one more pic of the people. That was of ADAPTers, Mary of Chicago ADAPT and Kyle Glozier, another speaker of the rally.

We finally reached the Supreme Court Building and chanted our vocal chords out. The guards on the stairway wanted to (but didn't) arrest the interpreters that were standing on the steps for the deaf participants. I don't think that arrest would have looked very good for Washington, DC.

Immediately after the Supreme Court Building rally, another demonstration was held at the Republican National Headquarters where ADAPTers in wheelchairs from all over blocked exit ways of the building for about 4 hours. We'll keep you posted about the outcome of that and the rest of our stay in Washington.