[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 13980-13981]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT

  (Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania asked and was given permission to 
address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, this week 20 years ago, 
the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law by President 
George H.W. Bush on July 26, 1990. To many of us, the ADA involved 
simple, tangible things like curb cuts, automatic doors, Braille signs, 
and those unimaginable buses that kneel to the ground.
  To the millions of Americans with disabilities, the law marked a new 
sense of freedom, freedom to move about, to work, to contribute, to 
live one's life.
  President Bush said it best as he signed this landmark law: ``Today, 
America welcomes into the mainstream of life all of our fellow citizens 
with disabilities. We embrace you for your abilities and for your 
disabilities, for our similarities and indeed for our differences, for 
your past courage and your future dreams. Last year, we celebrated a 
victory of international freedom. Even the strongest person couldn't 
scale the Berlin Wall to gain the elusive promise of independence that 
lay just beyond. And so, together, we rejoiced when that barrier fell.
  ``And now, I sign legislation which takes a sledgehammer to another 
wall, one which has for too many generations separated Americans with 
disabilities from the freedom they could glimpse, but not grasp.''

[[Page 13981]]

  Congratulations on the 20th anniversary of the Americans with 
Disabilities Act.

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