The Atlantis Community was started in Denver, Colorado, in 1975, when Reverend Wade Blank, a non-disabled former nursing home recreational director, assisted several severely disabled nursing home residents to move out and start their own community. In 1978 protests were held in Denver by members of the Atlantis Community, and Blank, against the wheelchair inaccessibility of public buses in that city. These protests included the nation’s first demonstration for wheelchair-accessible public buses, which was on July 5 and 6. At that protest nineteen members of the Atlantis Community (called the Gang of Nineteen) chanted "We will ride" and blocked buses with their wheelchairs, staying in the streets throughout the night. In 1983, the Gang of Nineteen started ADAPT after several years of similar local bus protests. Originally, ADAPT's name was an acronym that stood for Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, since the group's initial issue was to get wheelchair-accessible lifts on buses.