Memphis Center for Independent Living comments on Mayor Herenton’s Liberty Bowl Stadium plan.

As the battle heats up over whether to renovate an old stadium or too build a new one, Mayor Herenton continues to discriminate against people with disabilities. Since Herenton was elected in 1991, the city has not changed its discriminatory and segregationist policies and practices towards people with disabilities. The Liberty Bowl Stadium is just another example.

Since 1990, the year the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, the civil rights bill for people with disabilities, the city of Memphis has continued to segregate people with disabilities at its facilities like the Liberty Bowl, Mid-South Coliseum, and the FedEx Forum just to name three. People with disabilities have had to face years of segregation, 16 of those years under Mayor Herenton’s leadership. Now Mayor Herenton is exploiting people with disabilities as he attempts to use the ADA and our civil rights as a whipping post in order for him to build Memphis a new stadium.

"I have dealt with access issues in other cities," said Randy Alexander, Community Organizer for the Memphis Center for Independent Living, MCIL. "I really question the $30 million price tag and the fact that 8,000 to 10,000 seats would be eliminated in order to provide equal access for people disabilities at the Liberty Bowl."

Since the passage of the ADA cities were to complete a full evaluation and a written plan by 1992. This plan would have been a roadmap on how the city would provide equal access to all of their facilities and services. The city of Memphis chose not to do a full evaluation and wrote no plan until people with disabilities sued them. Since then the city has continued to violate the civil rights of people with disabilities by not complying with the ADA. The cities leadership including Mayor Herenton made a clear decision to not comply with the ADA. If they would have embraced the civil rights of people with disabilities earlier in the 1990s the city of Memphis could have saved millions and ended its segregationist and discriminatory practices and policies. Plus, by adhering to the ADA and by having a plan the cost of making facilities accessible could have been spread out over many years.

The Memphis Center for Independent Living calls for Mayor Herenton and leadership of the city of Memphis to end its discrimination and segregationist policies and practices towards people with disabilities by convening a meeting and creating a Mayor's Council on disability. 

"Mayor Herenton and the city Council must take immediate steps to write these wrongs and the first step is to meet with the very people your discriminating against," commented Deborah Cunningham, Executive Director for MCIL. "More importantly I hope they're finally ready to listen."