By Jay Balagna

(AXcess News) Washington - About 500 people marched through Washington to the West Lawn of the Capitol on Wednesday to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act and to push for greater enforcement of the law.

Upon arriving at the Capitol, the demonstrators were joined by eight members of Congress and an adviser from the White House for a rally that lasted a little less than two hours.

Many of the demonstrators, most of whom were members of the National Council on Independent Living, made the 12-block trip along Pennsylvania Avenue in wheelchairs, carrying signs and eliciting cheers from passing motorists. NCIL is an advocacy group that focuses on issues facing people with disabilities.

"We're here to say, as people with disabilities, we want full access and inclusion in the culture," Mary Margaret Moore, 56, a member from Salem, Mass., said.

Twenty years after the passage of the ADA, loopholes and a lack of enforcement leave a "maze" for disabled people to navigate for everything from finding an entrance to a building to finding access to health care and employment, Moore said.

The rally, an annual event held as part of NCIL's yearly national conference in Washington, still carries an impact after more than two decades, Kelly Buckland, 56, the council's director, said. Buckland has taken part in the march since 1989, the only year he and other demonstrators headed to the White House instead of the Capitol, to urge then-President George H.W. Bush to press Congress to pass the ADA, which it did a year later.

"Once people are done with the march and the rally, then they go up to the Hill and they talk to their congressional members," Buckland said. "That absolutely has an impact. Absolutely."

The march turned into a rally, including speeches from the lawmakers. By the end of the rally, many of the participants had left to meet with their members of Congress.

Though Moore and Buckland were both in wheelchairs, many of the rally's participants were not.

Jennifer Byerly, 42, from Eureka, Ind., was in a car accident in 2004 that left her with psychological damage. After being denied the opportunity to volunteer in a community effort to draft plans for aiding disabled people in a disaster, she said she was motivated to come to Washington for the march.

"This perception that, since I have a disability, I am a liability isn't fair," Byerly said. "There is still a lot of progress that needs to be made."

Source: Scripps Howard Foundation Wire