{"id":324168,"date":"2025-11-30T01:53:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T01:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/activist\/not-dead-yet-attends-bazelons-2025-annual-awards-reception\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T01:53:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T01:53:00","slug":"not-dead-yet-attends-bazelons-2025-annual-awards-reception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=324168","title":{"rendered":"Not Dead Yet Attends Bazelon\u2019s 2025 Annual Awards Reception"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

Not Dead Yet Attends Bazelon\u2019s 2025 Annual Awards Reception <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

On September 17, 2025, I was pleased to attend on behalf of Not Dad Yet the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law\u2019s 2025 Annual Awards Reception at the National Press Club. The event was larger than normal. I was surrounded by countless people,\u00a0 disability rights movement members both well-known and obscure. We had come to celebrate our past and usher in the next chapter of our history.<\/p>\n

A recording of the awards ceremony is available at the following link: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=pV9yDclCuK0<\/a><\/p>\n

The event honored first Congressman Steny Hoyer, one of the pioneers who worked to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act \u2013 our very own bill of rights in the United States. Hoyer spoke on the circumstances of the ADA\u2019s passage and his debt of gratitude to his mentor. He also spoke of his gratitude towards the thousands of disabled Americans who advocated tirelessly for the bill in the late 1980s and early 90s.<\/p>\n

As we watched a video before Congressman Hoyer took the stage, I marveled at the perseverance these early advocates must have had. They were willing to put their lives and dignity on the line to obtain their future. As Interim Deputy Director and an autistic woman who has never consciously known a world before the ADA, I am only too aware of the debt that I owe them. To honor their legacy, we must fully fund the long term services and supports that keep people with disabilities alive and strenuously fight (as they did) the forces that would treat our lives as worthless.<\/p>\n

The event\u2019s other awardees were strong as well. Senator Blunt Rochester spoke of the urgent need to come together. Keris J\u00e4n Myrick, a skilled mental health advocate and professional known for her person-centered and transformative work, spoke passionately about the divide between policy, rhetoric, and lived experience \u2013 and the need to connect them. Steve Rosenbaum, receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award, spoke in depth about the long history of the DOJ as a positive force for social change and its recent downsizing. He urged civil rights attorneys to continue the DOJ\u2019s past work.<\/p>\n

Although the event was hosted by Bazelon, which focuses on mental health, the awardees\u2019 bold statements could apply to my own cause as well. The people who came before us (the late Diane Coleman included) established a strong, principled, disability rights-specific position on assisted suicide and euthanasia laws. She fought successfully to prevent the passage of a legally absurd, oversight-obliterating, dehumanizing regime in almost every state. Even when setbacks arise, the work of the people who come after founders and trailblazers is to carry the torch that they lit forward, and allow it to bring more of the world into the light.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kelly Israel<\/p>\n

Interim Deputy Director, Not Dead Yet<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not Dead Yet Attends Bazelon\u2019s 2025 Annual Awards Reception \u00a0 On September 17, 2025, I was pleased to attend on behalf of Not Dad Yet the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law\u2019s 2025 Annual Awards Reception at the National Press Club. The event was larger than normal. 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