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Reporter's Notebook: The disability rights protest that changed every bus ride

A 1978 protest by wheelchair users won a right many now take for granted: boarding a city bus. NPR's Joe Shapiro and Colorado Public Radio's Stephanie Wolf explain.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Joseph Shapiro
Joseph Shapiro is a NPR News Investigations correspondent.
Don Gonyea
You're most likely to find NPR's Don Gonyea on the road, in some battleground state looking for voters to sit with him at the local lunch spot, the VFW or union hall, at a campaign rally, or at their kitchen tables to tell him what's on their minds. Through countless such conversations over the course of the year, he gets a ground-level view of American elections. Gonyea is NPR's National Political Correspondent, a position he has held since 2010. His reports can be heard on all NPR News programs and at NPR.org. To hear his sound-rich stories is akin to riding in the passenger seat of his rental car, traveling through Iowa or South Carolina or Michigan or wherever, right along with him.
Adam Raney
Linah Mohammad
Prior to joining NPR in 2022, Mohammad was a producer on The Washington Post's daily flagship podcast Post Reports, where her work was recognized by multiple awards. She was honored with a Peabody award for her work on an episode on the life of George Floyd.