Think of the 1970s, what protests come to mind? Maybe Martin Luther King’s Civil Rights Movement, the Feminist Movement or the various anti-war protests relating to America’s actions abroad. Those are pretty popular and well-known choices. A criminally underrated series of protests, however, would be the 504 Movement.
The 504 Movement, just like the rest of its aforementioned, but more-affluent contemporaries, was a counterculture movement that began in the early to mid-1970s that strived for the societal advancement and inclusion of individuals with disabilities. Due in large part to both a lack of inclusion within the average social studies curriculum and its relative obscurity, many lack the knowledge that such an event even occurred, let alone know the measures that came from its successes or the pain points that arose from what it omitted.
It is imperative to understand that the 504 Movement was orchestrated by individuals with disabilities first and assisted by their caretakers and supporters of the protests second. A common misconception surrounding the movement is that the latter did much of the legwork while the former group served more as a figurehead. This is simply untrue and only serves to propagate the harmful stereotype that individuals with disabilities are unable to act on their own and must be societally relegated to the role of a dependent to those who care for them.
Part of the problem regarding these types of misconceptions is that these historical movements and ideas relating to people with disabilities are not taught in public schools. Only six states, California, Illinois, Kansas, New Jersey, Oregon and Nevada, currently include direct mandates for implementing disability-related social studies topics in their curriculum. While some states are making conscious efforts to include these topics more broadly, such as Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Iowa and Delaware, America is still a long way off from nationwide disability-related civil rights education. The 504 Movement is severely underrepresented in academic settings and it is extremely important that the students of the future, both able and disabled, learn about what the movement accomplished as well as what still needs to be accomplished.
Prior to the 1970s, individuals with disabilities were prone to rampant discrimination in America. On top of a general lack of accommodation when it came to the construction of buildings or the creation of recreational spaces, those with physical or mental health conditions were much more likely to be institutionalized in a third-party facility, many of which grew notorious for their appallingly poor conditions and practices. Even for those who were not in these facilities, individuals with disabilities were, and still are, often targeted as scapegoats within the legal system, such as with the infamous case of Joe Arridy.
Arridy was a man who had an intellectual disability that led a psychologist in 1923 to label him as an “imbecile.” At the time of his diagnosis, he was 22 years old. During testing, he was documented as having the inability to distinguish between colors or form coherent sentences. Years later, however, he was wrongfully put and eventually executed on Death Row because prosecutors falsely believed he had murdered a teenage girl with an axe after sexually assaulting her. Because of Arridy’s evident innocence, his case and its outcome still continue to be a point of discussion in regard to disability-related civil rights to this day.
In America, the first major bill concerning the inclusion of those with disabilities was the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. This act intended to provide fundamental discrimination protection for those with disabilities against their nondisabled peers, however, the bill was not signed into law.
Due to Section 504’s uncertain legal status, many individuals with disabilities, such as Judy Heumann and Edward V. Roberts, who later became leading figures in the movement, began organizing sit-ins. The first American disability rights group fully managed by people with disabilities, the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities, or ACCD, was founded in 1975 to help manage both these events and future pushes for disability-related legislation within Congress. Although it was difficult to attend the sit-ins, individuals with disabilities, many using wheelchairs or crutches, would eventually manage to find their way. Dozens, or sometimes even hundreds of people would show up, a few even for days at a time.
During these sit-ins, demonstrators argued that the lack of accommodated infrastructure present in the restaurants and facilities they sat in infringed on the Rehabilitation Act of 1973’s anti-discrimination clause, Section 504, which outlawed discrimination on the basis of disability. This idea would eventually grow to become a rallying cry for the protestors, becoming the phrase from which the overall movement’s name was derived.
During a State of the Union address given in 1977, President Jimmy Carter promised that the accessibility concerns of the 504 Movement would be definitely addressed, citing the creation of new models of city buses that contained accessibility features and aspirations to build ramps for sidewalks in urban areas. While the city buses were a good start, those participating in the now-growing 504 Movement felt it accomplished little for the four year wait between then and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Many still desired the signing of Section 504, an outcome they had been waiting for since 1973.
By April of 1977, there was no news of such an action, which upset the protesters and the ACCD greatly. To make matters worse, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Joseph Califano, who was in charge of reviewing the potential bill and signing it into law was found to have been actively working to lessen its impact and granted protections.
This finding spawned the idea within the ACCD to send Califano an ultimatum that he either sign the bill as it originally was by the eighth of April that year or step down from his government position. Despite Califano receiving the ultimatum, he heeded neither of these demands, prompting the ACCD to call for mass nationwide sit-ins at welfare buildings across the country on the date mentioned in the ultimatum. While many of these sit-ins lasted less than a day, they still showed that individuals with disabilities could have a voice in American politics.
One of the most influential protests of this nature was located in San Francisco at the 50 U.N Plaza. Kitty Cone, a woman with muscular dystrophy who advocated for the 504 Movement who lived in San Francisco, was a major player in organizing the event, with many other disability-rights figures in other cities across the country participating in similar protests. The protest at 50 UN Plaza lasted until legislators signed the bill into law 25 days later on May 1st. The sit-in still holds the record for the longest occupation of a government office by protestors in the United States.
Not all protests were met without pushback, however, a sister sit-in at the Health, Education, and Welfare Office in Washington D.C was ended after an order was passed in its 28th hour prohibiting assistance of any kind to the protestors.
The signing of Section 504 provided a glimmer of hope for disabled Americans throughout the latter half of the 1970s, thanks in large part to a series of subsequent educational reforms during the era. This hope quickly faded as discussion within Washington in regards to cutting government welfare programs and initiatives as the country transitioned to the fiscal policies of the newly-elected president, Ronald Regan. It was not until the 1990s that the next major milestone in disability-rights legislation, the passing and amendment of the Americans with Disabilities Act or ADA. The ADA mandated that buildings reach basic infrastructural guidelines to be considered accessible. Its building codes and stipulations continue to be modified in the modern day, the most recent of which being in 2009.
However, there still continues to be challenges surrounding disabled civil rights in the United States. To this day, the country still lacks a coherent body to report accessibility or civil rights issues relating to students with disabilities in schools. Additionally, the questionable state of the federal Department of Education under Trump’s second term could be detrimental towards people with disabilities, as the Department of Education also gives out substantial portions of funding for school districts’ special education initiatives.
