How an 8-year-old girl changed history and how her protest changed how Americans live
Here’s how one young girl changed the course of history.
In March 1990, amid a growing national campaign for disability rights, an 8-year-old girl made history — not with a speech or a petition, but with a climb.
As dozens of activists with disabilities gathered outside the U.S. Capitol, young Jennifer Keelan, diagnosed with cerebral palsy, left her wheelchair and began climbing the 78 steps leading to the building’s entrance—on her hands and knees.
Her determined crawl became the defining image of the “Capitol Crawl,” a direct action protest designed to show the everyday inaccessibility disabled Americans faced and the urgent need for legal protections.
The demonstration, organised by disability rights activists including ADAPT and the National Council on Independent Living, aimed to pressure Congress into passing the long-stalled Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
The protest was a bold escalation in a years-long battle for civil rights. Over 60 activists left their wheelchairs and mobility devices at the base of the Capitol and struggled up the steps, while others staged a sit-in inside the Rotunda. Their chants of “What do we want? ADA! When do we want it? Now!” echoed through the halls of power.
But it was Keelan’s climb that captured the national imagination.
The ADA, first introduced in 1988, had encountered opposition and delay, particularly around its potential costs for businesses and local governments. But the Capitol Crawl provided a human face to the cost of inaction.
Four months later, on July 26, 1990, President George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act into law. The sweeping legislation prohibited discrimination based on disability in employment, public accommodations, transportation, and government services.
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It marked one of the most significant pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history.
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