Disability Groups Celebrate Inclusion At First Disability Power And Pride Inaugural Ball

Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
January 20, 2009

WASHINGTON, DC--Two nights before Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, several hundred disability advocates celebrated at the first ever Disability Power and Pride Inaugural Ball, held at the National Press Club.

The master of ceremonies for Sunday's event was former U.S. Congressman Tony Coelho of California, who is credited with writing the landmark 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act.

Coelho said last week that disability groups came together to organize the event because they didn't want people from other inaugural bashes to "be patronizing and say, 'Let’s include some people with disabilities at our party.'"

Instead, he said, "we want to have our own party and reach out to everybody else."

Coelho introduced U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland, who told the crowd of this "inaugural, Inaugural Ball . . . what we celebrate tonight is the recognition of abilities, not just disabilities."

Congressman Hoyer said that on Inauguration Day, "we will celebrate our country's promise of inclusion, that all men and women are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights."

"America offers a promise of using those abilities to seize opportunities to make a difference for individuals, for their families, for their communities, and, yes, for their country."

Honored guests at the ball included combat veterans from Walter Reed Medical Center that had been injured in battle.