504 Sit-in

By April 1977 disability activists had grown tired of waiting. Having tried multiple options, including letter-writing, lobbying, and personal pleas, they decided to call for a national protest if Califano did not sign the regulations by April 4, 1977. After Frank Bowe, head of the ACCD, failed to convince the new administration, approximately 300 protesters in Washington, DC marched outside Califano’s house and then into his office demanding that he sign the regulations.[8][9]

Across the country, other people with disabilities joined in the 504 Sit-in, either picketing or occupying HEW regional offices. In addition to Washington D.C., protests took place in Boston, Seattle, New York, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago, Dallas, and Denver. All dissipated out after officials made them disperse or waited them out. In Washington DC, protesters held out for 26 hours that included a standoff between them at Califano who climbed on top of a table to say that the regulations needed further study. In New York another six protesters had to leave due to lack of food and medications.[8][10]

In San Francisco over the previous years, organizers Judy Heumann and Kitty Cone had been laying the groundwork among local organizations, community members, and people with disabilities themselves to educate them about the law and its significance. Heumann and Cone realized they needed to plan for something bigger than protesting outside in order to put pressure on regional HEW Director Joseph Maldonado who reported to his boss in Washington, Joseph Califano. They followed the lead of student activists at the time that called for occupying administration buildings on campuses across the country.[10][9]

Organizing an occupation that involved people with disabilities presented certain challenges that helped spur the decision to occupy. Due to the physical nature of their disabilities, and given the Federal Building's inaccessibility (one of the things that Section 504 was supposed to address), it was difficult to move large numbers of people with disabilities in and out of the building.[10] This meant having to plan for a longer occupation in advance but without alerting too many participants so as to prevent law enforcement from barring entrance to the building. It worked in the occupiers' favor that there had never been such a large protest involving so many disabled people before. A prevailing view held that people with disabilities were pathetic and deserving of pity, and therefore incapable of such political actions. This same perspective made officials reluctant to risk a public relations embarrassment that would result from arresting participants.[8][11]

The day after ACCD's April 4 deadline for signing the 504 regulations had passed, over 500 disabled people and their allies attended a rally on Civic Center Plaza where various speakers addressed why Califano needed to sign them. Heumann urged the crowd to “go and tell Mr. Maldonado that the government cannot steal our civil rights!”[10] Television stations and newspapers covered the initial confrontation between the protesters and Maldonado, who appeared to have no idea about the regulations or his boss’s stand in Washington.[10]

Then approximately 150 people with disabilities and their allies streamed into the Federal Building at 50 United Nations Plaza. Occupiers included people with many different disabilities. They also included many nondisabled allies such as ASL interpreters, personal care attendants, and parents of children with disabilities. The group was primarily young and racially diverse. Unlike most other major protest movements at the time (with the exception of Women's Rights), the 504 Occupation was led by women, with queer women playing an especially prominent role.[12][11][13]

They climbed to HEW regional director Maldonado's office on the 4th floor and refused to leave. Initially, HEW officials in San Francisco tried to remove them using similar tactics to those in other cities. But the large number of people, combined with the Bay Area’s atmosphere of activism and social justice, meant that the protesters had many outside allies. A number of people with disabilities had participated in the Civil Rights Movement and anti-Vietnam war protests which allowed them to understand calls for disability rights as part of the general foment of Bay Area social movements.[8][10][11][13]

Organizers Kitty Cone and Judy Heumann had built networks among activists for other causes and organizations, which was new for disability rights activism.[10] Over months and years, they had cultivated relationships with groups such as the Black Panther Party, Glide Memorial Church, the Gay Men’s Butterfly Brigade, Delancey Street, the United Farm Workers, the Gray Panthers, and others.[14] The protesters also had the support of politicians that included San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, Congressmen Philip Burton, George Miller, and Senator Alan Cranston. Georgia senator Julian Bond visited the occupation. Letters of support came from Cesar Chavez and labor unions, including the International Association of Machinists (IAM). The Salvation Army provided mattresses and blankets.[8][13]

This outside support enabled the occupation to continue until the regulations were signed on April 28, 1977. Especially important was the help from the Black Panther Party which, in the spirit of its food programs, provided hot meals daily in support of fellow Panther Bradley Lomax and his assistant Chuck Jackson.[15][11][13]

Meanwhile, support from the Mayor’s office and from some HEW staff working in the building made life easier inside. The City brought in inflatable air mattresses and portable showers and had new pay phones installed after HEW officials in DC had ordered the lines to be cut.[8][11][13]

Outside the building, hundreds of supporters held daily vigils. This kept the occupation in public view and encouraged the protesters to hold on. A few outside supporters even decided to join those inside.[11]

Protesters found life inside the building for 26 days both difficult and life-changing. Because of the need to keep the occupation secret at the beginning, most arrived with only a toothbrush and necessary medications. Some people with disabilities had medical needs that required special attention such as eating and taking medications at set hours and being turned at regular intervals during the night to avoid getting bedsores. Because many had entered the building without their usual care-takers, they turned to their fellow occupiers to assist them in the tasks of daily living. Blind people became attendants to quadriplegics who in turn read printed information to the blind people. This created strong bonds among the protesters and educated them about disabilities other than their own.[11][13]

Occupiers found innovative ways to transform an office building into a temporary place for over one hundred people to live. For example, they used duct-tape and other materials to seal off an air conditioner in Moldonado’s office to create a refrigerator for storing medications.[11][13]

Committees formed that gave everyone a job related to the occupation: food, safety, clean-up, entertainment, communications/media, fundraising.[11][13]

Feeding such a large group was essential to keeping the protest going. Initially some people could enter and leave the building. This made it possible for them to collect donations of money and food. Major outlets such as McDonald’s and Safeway contributed in the spirit of “helping the handicapped” until it became clear that protesters were engaging in civil disobedience.[11] Within the first few days members of the Black Panther Party arrived to volunteer to feed all of the occupiers, including Brad Lomax and Chuck Jackson.[15] ”We support you because you're asking America to change, to treat you like human beings, like you belong,” one explained, “We always support people fighting for their rights."[11] When FBI agents tried to prevent them from delivering food, the Panthers held their ground. After that, the Panthers provided hot meals each day until the end of the occupation and never asked for money.[11][13]

Eight of the approximately 120 occupiers who remained in the building went on a hunger strike to underline the urgency of the cause.[13]

Protesters celebrated Easter and Passover with a mass, a seder, and a hunt for eggs.[8][13]

When the FBI began restricting entry, occupiers convinced building guards that ASL interpreters and anyone provided healthcare needed to be free to come and go. During the many hours of boredom, protesters learned enough ASL that guards allowed some to move more freely. Thus the occupation was rather fluid.[11][13] Some protesters even described sneaking off to the beach.[13]

People slept on the floor in sleeping bags and blankets that were smuggled in. Some found places under desks or at the foot of a stairway. There was an unused elevator that became a favorite place for intimate encounters. There were some issues with cleanliness, including reports of lice and crabs.[13]

Occupiers held daily meetings in one of the larger meeting rooms to keep people informed, to run the occupation, and to make plans. Because not everyone could fit, smaller networks united by disability, being from the same city, or linked by identities such as being queer sent representatives who would report back. Each committee also reported daily on what was important. Decisions were always discussed and arrived at collectively. Care was taken to make sure that each person felt their voices had been heard.[11]

Communicating with the outside world was challenging in an era before computers, cell phones, and fax machines, especially when HEW officials ordered the office phone lines to be turned off. The building’s few pay phones quickly filled with coins as the phone company stopped coming to collect them. The occupiers became resourceful. In addition to unfurling banners out the windows, they used Deaf people inside the building to transmit messages in sign language through windows on the fourth floor to other interpreters outside on the street below. They used this way so that press releases got out into the public and occupiers got news of the outside world.[8][11][13]

To pass the many hours of boredom waiting inside an office building, occupiers played cards, sang, held wheelchair races, and talked late into the night. Friendships and intimate relationships formed. Occupiers, some who had never spent time away from home before, were meeting other people with the same and different disabilities to their own. They argued and bonded and discovered people with a common sense of purpose. They also gained confidence. One young woman filmed during the occupation said, "I used to know what I would wish for. I wanted to be beautiful. I wanted to stop being a cripple. But now I know I am beautiful."[13] Summing it up later, another participant explained: "It didn't matter if you were mentally retarded, blind or deaf. Everybody...felt, We are beautiful, we are powerful, we are strong, we are important."[8]

As the occupation dragged on, organizers sought ways to keep morale up and media attention focused on the protest. Ten days in, they came up with the idea of working with representatives Philip Burton and George Miller to host a day-long hearing in the building so that protesters could educate America about the plight of people with disabilities. The sympathetic politicians declared the 4th floor of 50 UN Plaza “a satellite office of Congress,” which brought television and newspaper reporters. As cameras rolled, dozens of protesters testified on one of several panels related to specific disabling conditions: blindness, deafness, addiction, and others. In a highly public way, people with disabilities were educating Americans about low employment rates, housing discrimination, lack of educational opportunities.[13]

During the hearing a low-ranking HEW official sent from Washington let slip that Califano was considering making twenty-two changes to the 504 regulations. These included eliminating rules that would require hospitals and schools to provide ramps and other features for access as well as setting up special schools for disabled children rather than keeping them in mainstream schools. The official used the term "separate but equal," a fact that made them even angrier and strengthened their resolve.[8] Disability rights leader Ed Roberts - then head of the California State Department of Rehabilitation and who visited the occupation regularly - condemned this solution, stating: "Integration is the key word: people with disabilities have to come back into our society."[8]

Two weeks into the occupation, protest leaders realized that in order to succeed, they would need more national attention. Twenty-five people reflecting racial and disability diversity were elected to travel to the nation’s capitol where they planned to meet with groups on the east coast and put more pressure on politicians. The IAM helped raise money for airline tickets and for travel once the protesters were in Washington. In these early days of the disability rights movement, it was hard to find accessible transportation, public or private, for people who used wheelchairs. This meant they had to travel in the back of a dark U-Haul truck that had a cargo lift. They slept on the floor of a church.[11][13]

In Washington, protesters had meetings with congressional representatives, a challenge at a time when many federal buildings - including the Capitol - were not accessible for people in wheelchairs.[13] They also held candle-light vigils outside the wealthy suburban home of HEW Secretary Califano where they sang “Sign 504” to the tune of the Civil Rights Anthem “We Shall Overcome.”.[10] They even protested outside of President Jimmy Carter’s church, but Carter slipped out the side door. Another day, they held a large rally in Lafayette Park across the street from the White House that attracted hundreds of supporters.[10][11][13]