On June 22 of last year, Georgia advocates celebrated the sixth anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision Olmstead v. LC & EW, in which all people with disabilities won the right to lives integrated in the community, with long-term care services delivered at home instead of in an institutional setting. Cheers echoed across the nation when the Court sided with disability advocates, saying that to force persons with disabilities into nursing homes -- or any institution -- without creating alternatives, "constitutes a form of discrimination based on disability prohibited by Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act."
 
President Bill Clinton ordered all state Medicaid programs to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling but, in 2004, Georgia ranked 45th out of the 50 states in providing community-based services to its long-term care recipients.

Each year, Georgia ADAPT honors this landmark decision by organizing and marching for the annual Long Road Home campaign, which assesses the “integration mandate” in Georgia and renews our demand for state compliance with the Olmstead decision. Last year we ended our campaign with a press conference in downtown Atlanta. However, none of the mainstream news channels or media sources showed up to report on our celebration and relay the importance of our story.  In frustration, Valerie Suber, the media director for the Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities asked loudly, “Where is the media and why do they continuously ignore our issues?”  

In that moment I conceived a thought: As advocates, we spend a great deal of effort attempting to convince the mainstream media that our issues are relevant to everybody, yet they rarely respond. Even when our stories do appear in mainstream media, it is usually done in a way that slants public opinion against us. Why continuously struggle to get coverage from the mainstream corporate news outlets? Would it not be easier to create an independent media site for people with disabilities, with stories specifically targeted for our community?

As a community of people living on the fringes of society, in the shadows of mainstream culture, people with disabilities are largely ignored. We are often told that our lives are not worthy of equality, that there is no quality of life with a disability, that we would be better off dead. But we know they are dead wrong. We have important things to say. So I wrote a grant to the Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities to start an independent media organization for people with disabilities run by people with disabilities to be called EndeavorFreedom.tv.

The grant was approved, and we are now creating something that can really benefit people with disabilities as a whole community. The site will give us a mode of expression that is not controlled by minds that do not even understand our lives.  
 
People with disabilities make up approximately 20% of the population, and yet it seems the representation of people with disabilities in the media much smaller.  If you happen to be a minority person with a disability, or if you are poor, then truly nothing in mainstream culture reflects your everyday experience of life. EndeavorFreedom.tv wants to change all that.  We want to capture the everyday stories of everyday struggle by everyday people with disabilities just trying to manage the American dream.  

In order to make this project a success, we are seeking the active participation of the entire disability community. We want you to be the hero, and we want to hear the stories that you consider news. Tell us about issues that are important to you. Show us how disability affects you or someone you know.  Like Current.tv or YouTube.com, we are empowering all people with disabilities to be the producer, editor, film director. Capture the story that is important to you, then share it with us and we’ll share it with the world.

EndeavorFreedom.tv also represents an opportunity for people with disabilities to become involved in media vocations, which we as a community have been largely locked out of up until this point. We have paid staff positions available to website developers (particularly those with experience creating fully accessible websites), radio hosts, film editors, journalists, and camera personnel. We are especially seeking bilingual personnel, so that we can extend our reach to all communities of minorities with disabilities, and creators of disability-unique content.

We envision EndeavorFreedom.tv growing to become the central hub for the disability community. To get things started, we will employ both paid and volunteer staff.  As the site grows, we hope to solicit paid advertisers and to increase paid staff positions.  Please consider joining us in this endeavor, we need your participation to make this a success.

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