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Disabled People's Direct Action Network

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British disability rights activist organisation

The Disabled People's Direct Action Network (DAN) is a disability rights activist organisation in England and Wales that campaigned for civil rights with high-profile street demonstrations involving civil disobedience, rallies and protests.

Prior campaigns

In 1989 the Derbyshire Direct Action Now Network (DDANN) was formed by local disabled people to protest against the pedestrianisation of Chesterfield. These protests resulted in police arrests and court hearings, where disabled people refused to plead guilty, all reading out the same defence to the court. One of the DDANN protesters was Alan Holdsworth, employed by the Derbyshire Coalition of Disabled People (DCDP) as a community link worker, along with many DCDP members including Ken Davis.

Between 1990 and 1993 the London-based Campaign for Accessible Transport (CAT) held street demonstrations including Oxford Street. Its organisers included Ruth Bashall, Kate Brown, Tracey Proudlock, Sue Elsegood, Victoria Waddington and Allan Sutherland as the press officer.

On 8 September 1991 in south Manchester there was a weekend workshop to learn from similar street protests in the USA. The workshop was led by visiting activists Mike Auberger and Babs Johnson from ADAPT, and it finished with the practical learning of going out and blocking three buses on the main road nearby. This was during the 10th annual general meeting of BCODP, held at Owens Park, on Wilmslow Road in Manchester. A photograph of this protest was used on the front cover of a book on images of disabled people.

This colour photograph shows a road with three double decker buses stopped, each surrounded by protesting disabled people, some in wheelchairs. The buses are painted bright orange.
Disabled people campaigning against inaccessible buses, Manchester, 1991.

On 22 November 1991 in Leeds a protest by 150 disabled people and allies outside the BBC studios picketed the Children in Need live broadcasting under the banner of Rights Not Charity Group. Eight people were arrested, four were disabled people.

On 18 July 1992 in London, over a thousand disabled people held a protest outside the ITV studios (London Weekend TV) picketing the Telethon live broadcasting under the banner of Block Telethon. ITV later abandoned the Telethon approach. The main organisers were Barbara Lisicki and Alan Holdsworth, who had organised a smaller, similar protest against the Telethon broadcast in 1990 and had done further development work preparing for the 1992 protest.

Structure and Methods

DAN was a network of individual disabled people and allies. The network maintained coverage across the UK through a team of regional organisers.

A national committee of disabled people existed for most of DAN's active years, including many of the regional organisers. A newsletter was produced, especially in the build-up and winding-down from a major action.

Early years

In early 1993, Barbara Lisicki, Alan Holdsworth, and Sue Elsegood became founders of the Disabled People's Direct Action Network (DAN).

The idea was to build on and sustain the campaigning energy from the Block Telethon protest organised by the Campaign to Stop Patronage, and in spring 1993 a weekend residential conference was held by about 16 interested disabled people using the guest rooms in the grounds of the Disabled Drivers Association at Ashwellthorpe Hall near Norwich. The debate was essentially between creating a general civil rights campaign or creating a campaign based on specific target issues, starting with inaccessible public transport. The eventual vote was in favour of specific targets, the argument being that it would visibly engage more disabled people. At this weekend DAN was formally created.

The first public action by DAN was in July 1993 in Christchurch after a Parliamentary by-election was called, and the Conservative candidate, tipped to win, had previously in the House of Commons prevented new disability rights legislation from becoming law. DAN organised protests during his campaign, and he lost the election. The Campaign for Accessible Transport – led by disability rights groups – was set up to protest and lobby for increased access to public transport.

Between 1993 and 1998, DAN held more than 100 actions, and held 16 national actions between its founding and 2002. Typically a local action took place on a single day, whereas national actions developed into three-day long events, usually from Friday to Sunday.

DAN protesters blocked buses on Oxford Street, Trafalgar Square and other locations across London by handcuffing or chaining themselves to buses, as well as placing themselves in the path of buses and refusing to move. On several occasions in 1994 and 1995, during the consideration of the Disability Discrimination Act, protesters handcuffed themselves to a Routemaster bus by Palace of Westminster. Other protest locations included the Nottinghamshire constituency office of Chancellor Kenneth Clarke, Harrods, and the Tate Gallery.

Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and Rights Now!

After many attempts in Parliament to pass a civil rights law for disabled people (also called, anti-discrimination legislation) a law was finally passed in 1995 - the Disability Discrimination Act, or DDA. The official position of DAN was that the DDA had too many loopholes - it was too weak. For example, despite the DDA being strengthened in 2003 to include public transport for the first time, Andy Gill was quoted in a BBC website news article saying, "We did not support the Disability Discrimination Act from the word go because it is not addressing the real concerns of what disabled people need. We need legislation to ensure that all disabled people have the right to live as full participants in society."

Many of the street protests in 1994 and 1995 leading up to the new law being passed were organised by the disability campaign, Rights Now!, although many DAN members also took part in these protests as well as DAN protests.

The Christchurch protest was the first national action, followed by Trafalgar Square, Westminster Central Hall, Leeds (all 1994), Cardiff, Birmingham (1995), Nottingham, Derby (1996), London, Bristol (1997), London, Newcastle, Hull (1998), Bournemouth, London (1999, 2001 and 2002).

Post 1995 actions and legacy

In the UK in May 1997 there was a change of government with the Labour party winning and with Tony Blair MP as the new Prime Minister. However, many disabled people had misgivings about the unclear proposals coming from the New Labour government ministers on what was called by some, welfare reform, and called cuts by others. On 22 December 1997 DAN and other organisations had organised a one-day protest against these forthcoming cuts, held in Trafalgar Square. A group of "Danners" broke away from this rally and headed down Whitehall towards the gates of Downing Street. They had red paint hidden inside paper coffee cups, and throwing the paint on themselves they protested on the floor in front of the gates for the TV news crews that were stationed there for any sudden political news reasons. The protest was named after one of the banners, "Blair's Blood". As well as being shown on UK national news, the protest details and images went around the world, including the front page of the New York Times. Although there were cuts in welfare benefits for disabled people, and especially after 2010 and the austerity programme started by the Coalition government, it can be argued that the 1997 protest at least paused these cuts for some years.

On 20 November 2001, supported by DAN in the UK and disabled people's campaigns across all the European Union countries, and coordinated by the European Disability Forum and the Buses for All campaign, all new buses to be used anywhere in the EU had to be fully accessible by EU law, with a timetable to phase out the old, inaccessible buses. Double deckers were the last bus type to become fully accessible. This was done using the EU's single market powers.

The number of DAN actions recorded following 2002 significantly decreases, though there are recorded actions up until 2022.

Disabled People Against Cuts, DPAC was founded in 2010, using similar tactics and campaigning on similar issues.

Television

In 1995 the TV documentary Desperate DAN , produced by Rave Productions Ltd, was broadcast as part of the Over the Edge series of BBC disability programming. It focused on national actions by DAN members in London, (targeting Westminster Bridge and Parliament) and Cardiff (targeting the main bus and train termini). The BBC2 programme was also broadcast in Europe and worldwide on the British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS).

On 19 May 2020 the BBC announced it had commissioned Dragonfly Film and TV Productions and One Shoe Productions to make a dramatised account of aspects of DAN for future broadcasting on BBC2 TV channel in the UK. The basis of the programme centres on two DAN members and on the political debates within the disabled people's movement leading up to the passing of the Disability Discrimination Act in 1995, regarded by many disabled people as a compromised and inadequate law for their civil rights. The programme marks the 25th anniversary of the creation of that law (which was later absorbed into the Equality Act 2010). The film was made as Then Barbara Met Alan and was broadcast on 21 March 2022.

See also

References

  1. ^ Rose, Damon (7 November 2015). "When disabled people took to the streets to change the law". BBC News. Retrieved 30 January 2022.
  2. Davis K. and Mullender (1993). Ten Turbulent Years. DCDP.
  3. "Alan Holdsworth". National Disability Arts Collection & Archive. 22 May 2020. Archived from the original on 13 July 2020.
  4. Davis K and Davis M (2019). To and From Grove Road. TBR Imprint. pp. 26–27. ISBN 9781913148089.
  5. John Pring (7 December 2023). "Ruth Bashall: Tributes and affection for 'mighty' and 'formidable' activist". disabilitynewsservice.com. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
  6. Hevey, David (1992). The Creatures Time Forgot: Photography and Disability Imagery. Routledge. ISBN 9780415070195.
  7. ^ Rose, Damon. "The wheelchair warriors". BBC News. Retrieved 30 January 2022.
  8. Welsh, Sarah (29 June 2018). "Piss on pity: How a new archive captures the radical spirit of the Disability Arts Movement". The Independent. Retrieved 30 January 2022.
  9. Lisicki, Barbara (2018). "Block Telethon 1992 - the day we pissed on pity". NDACA. Archived from the original on 13 November 2020.
  10. The Ouch Team (6 November 2015). "Choices and rights: The story of the Disability Discrimination Act". BBC News. Retrieved 30 January 2022.
  11. ^ Hunt, Judy (2019). No limits : the disabled people's movement : a radical history. Manchester. ISBN 978-1-913148-02-7. OCLC 1108503896.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  13. Velho, Raquel (2017). "Fixing the Gap: an investigation into wheelchair users' shaping of London public transport" (PDF). University College London. Retrieved 27 August 2021.
  14. "Disabled People's Movement – History Timeline – Disability Equality North West". 6 March 2021. Archived from the original on 6 March 2021. Retrieved 20 June 2023.
  15. ^ Baldwinson, Tony. "DAN Timeline" (PDF).
  16. Beatty, Helen (15 August 1996). "It's a hold-up - Town twice bought to standstill". The Mercury. Events began when .. disabled protestors from direct action group DAN targeted Eltham to highlight national disability issues. Up to 50 members and supporters assembled in the high street at around 1pm to start chaining themselves to buses
  17. Baldwinson, Tony (2012). "A case study of a Campaign for access by law to buses by Disabled People in the European Union, 1995 – 2001" (PDF). TBR Consulting. Access to buses (and trains) was a key campaigning objective of DAN through the 1980s and 1990s, and it was quite commonplace for roads in UK cities to be gridlocked by immobilised buses due to disabled people handcuffing themselves to the outer rails or even underneath these inaccessible buses.
  18. Rose, Damon. "The wheelchair warriors Their rebellious protests to change the law". BBC News. Retrieved 27 August 2021.
  19. Transport for the Disabled (Television production). Thames News. 10 September 1991. Retrieved 25 April 2024. Traffic from one end of Oxford Street to the other was brought to a complete standstill for half an hour. Disabled people in wheelchairs sat in front of double decker buses to make ensure they didn't go anywhere ... they are calling for all public transport to be accessible to the disabled
  20. "When disabled people took to the streets to change the law". BBC News. 7 November 2015. Retrieved 27 August 2021.
  21. Limited, Alamy (1995). "Stock Photo - Wheelchair users from DAN (Disabled Action Network) handcuff themselves to a London bus on Westminster Bridge, London in February 1995". Alamy. Retrieved 27 August 2021. Wheelchair users from DAN (Disabled Action Network) handcuff themselves to a London bus on Westminster Bridge, London in February 1995 as part of a series of protests about lack of disabled persons access to public transport, in the lead up to the Disability Discrimination Act being debated in Parliament. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  22. "Disabled protesters block Whitehall". The Times. 19 May 1994.
  23. "Let's storm Parliament! The punks who risked their lives to fix ableist Britain". the Guardian. 11 March 2022. Retrieved 16 June 2022.
  24. Milne, Kirsty (10 February 1995). "Able to protest". New Statesman & Society. 8 (339): 25 – via EBSCOhost. Last month, a group of disability rights activists picketed the Nottinghamshire constituency office of the Chancellor, Kenneth Clarke.
    They made the BBC news. According to Barbara Lisicki, a national organiser of the Direct Action Network, it was a two-birds-with-one-stone protest. "First, it's his government that is denying disabled people a comprehensive Civil Rights Bill. Second, his surgery is inaccessible to wheelchair users. Disabled people are constantly being told to lobby their MPs. Yet when they try, they can't get in."
  25. BBC (3 December 2003). "Mixed reception for disability Bill". Retrieved 11 March 2022.
  26. "When Disabled People took to the streets". BBC. 7 November 2015. Archived from the original on 7 November 2015.
  27. "Blair's Blood and DAN". Tony Baldwinson. 22 May 2020. Archived from the original on 13 June 2020.
  28. ""Old school" Danners on action with DPAC". Disabled People Against Cuts. 20 June 2012. Archived from the original on 28 March 2014.
  29. "European Disability Forum". 22 May 2020. Archived from the original on 19 June 2000.
  30. ^ Baldwinson, Tony (2012). Buses for All (Europe) - a case study. TBR Imprint. ISBN 9780957260603.
  31. EU Buses and Coaches Directive (2001/85/EC). European Union. 2001.
  32. "Queen's speech: Activists' message to Patel over new protest bill: 'We fight on'". Disability News Service. 12 May 2022. Retrieved 20 June 2023.
  33. "Independence Day (working title)". BBC. 19 May 2020. Archived from the original on 8 September 2020.
  34. Pearson C. and Watson N. (January 2007). "Tackling Disability Discrimination in the United Kingdom: The British Disability Discrimination Act". Journal of Law & Policy. Archived from the original on 22 February 2015.
  35. Bennett, Harry (1 July 2021). "Ruth Madeley to star in new drama on the disabled civil rights movement". Royal Television Society. Retrieved 30 January 2022.
  36. Richardson, Hollie; Harrison, Phil; Duggins, Alexi (29 December 2021). "The 25 must-see TV shows of 2022". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 January 2022.
  37. Webster, Lucy (11 March 2022). "Let's storm Parliament! The punks who risked their lives to fix ableist Britain". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 July 2022.
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