[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 155 (Wednesday, September 25, 2019)]
[Senate]
[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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