♫ calm music ♫
Scott: We need to help liberate folks with disabilities
to help them live as independent as they can be,
and we can't do that without
accessible public rights of way.
We just can't.
No curb ramps at all.
My name is Dr. Scott M. Crawford,
I live here in Jackson, Mississippi.
I have a progressive form of multiple sclerosis,
and believe it or not I'm yelling right now.
This is a yell.
The few sidewalks we do have here in Jackson
are inaccessible.
No curb ramps at all.
Unusable.
I'm talking about dilapidated sidewalks
that haven't been touched in 40 years.
We have probably hundreds of utility poles
that are blocking the width of the sidewalk,
so you can't get by.
This is typical, typical.
Grasses and bushes
get in the way of the sidewalk.
Then we have sidewalks to no where,
you know, they just abruptly end.
It's 2016,
and we still have people riding their wheelchairs
in the street.
♫ county blues music ♫
Scott: To my knowledge, we've lost four people
since 2009
who have been hit and killed,
just here in Jackson in their wheelchairs.
♫ dramatic music ♫
News anchor 1: Police are investigating a
deadly accident involving two pedestrians.
One of them was in a wheelchair.
News anchor 2: The hit and run that killed 49-year-old
Timothy Ward of Jackson.
Ward was in a wheelchair when the crash happened.
Scott: It's tragic.
It's unacceptable,
and I for one won't tolerate it.
Now, I started taking videos
of locations where I have to
ride in the street, just so I can show the impact
of what this does to people.
It's very stressful to ride in traffic with
in a wheelchair.
I can't get my groceries without riding in the street.
That is a pretty significant deterrent
to living on your own, to getting a job.
I've been filing reports and complaints
and guidance to the city since 2008.
Went out and surveyed all the bus routes,
looking for sidewalks and bus stops
that would be higher priority to bring into compliance
and to make the whole system accessible,
and unfortunately the city acted
on very few of those.
They say we don't have the money,
and I respond to them, do we have the money
to pay someone to do all the things that I could do
for myself?
Do we have the money to institutionalize people
because there's no infrastructure for them to live
in the communities of their choice?
Really?
That's 70k a year to put me in a nursing home.
I'm trying to live as long as I can
with my disease as independently as I can.
Having a disability
and being constantly obstructed
by the disability and by the lack
of ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliance
is very frustrating and
you need to have a way to think about something else,
and the way I do that is with the LEGOs.
So, it started as a Christmas display around my tree,
and then my friends started to see it.
They said, "Oh you gotta display this!"
So, then I got the idea, well let's make it meaningful.
Let's create the Jackson we all want to see and have,
an accessible Jackson where everybody knows
their neighbors, where everybody picks up trash.
It's clean, it's accessible,
it's the idealic capital city
that's called "Keep Building Jackson,"
it is a huge LEGO display depicting Jackson
done all in LEGO bricks.
I built all of it.
It's taken me six years.
So, once we get it set up, it's a free display
for everyone to see and enjoy,
and it's meant to inspire civil pride,
ownership in the city, and ADA compliance.
We need to build infrastructure that
welcomes everyone.
Sidewalks, complete streets,
and the upside is that it doesn't just help
people with disabilities,
it helps everybody else too.
♫ uplifting music ♫
Scott: Make our communities accessible for everyone.
Get started at rootedinrights.org/curbs