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12th Annual Disability Pride Parade Held Downtown

(CBS) -- A parade in downtown Chicago Saturday kicked off a week of events to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Parade watchers lined up along Dearborn Street for the 12th Annual Disability Pride Parade. Also this week: a big beach party at Osterman Beach, a rolling museum and a day of sports in the Field Museum parking lot.

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Larry Labiak with the Chicago Park District hopes that everyone comes--disability or not because he's hoping people will see that those who are disabled are the same as everyone else. He says we've come a long way in the last quarter century to make those with disabilities feel equal, but more work needs to be done.

"Attitude…seeing a person and not a disability," he said. "I think we as people. As Americans have an inherent bias that if you are less like me, then I can find fault."

Labiak is in a wheelchair himself, falling victim to polio when he was a child. He says he doesn't let it stop him.

He likens the bias against disabilities to race or gender discrimination. Does he think it will end someday?

"I don't know about your lifetime or my lifetime but we're going to have to die trying," Labiak said.

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