Kitty Cone Remembers the 504 Sit-in

Background: In 1977, Kitty Cone became one of the organizers of the sit-in at the San Francisco federal building where the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare had its offices. Although confined to a wheelchair after a childhood bout with polio, Cone had a long history of political activism that included belonging to the NAACP, being a Marxist, and organizing against the Vietnam War. In 1974 she began working at the Center for Independent Living in Berkeley, where she connected with many activists who became involved in trying to pass Section 504 regulations. This excerpt from an article Cone wrote for the twentieth anniversary of Section 504 describes the events leading up to the sit-ins and how the sit-in was organized.

So, after the law was passed, in order for it to become effective, regulations had to be issued defining who was a disabled person, what did otherwise qualified mean, what constituted discrimination and nondiscrimination in the context of disability, etc. Enforcement timelines had to be developed as well as an administrative enforcement mechanism. The regulations would provide a consistent, coherent interpretation of 504’s legal intent rather than leaving it up to any judge who heard a 504 case to interpret what the law meant.

There were contradictory rulings being handed down by courts. There was one case involving the right of a wheelchair user to use public buses in which the decision was that if a driver stopped and opened the doors that constituted nondiscrimination. Another case acknowledged that steps prevented a wheelchair user from boarding. These cases illustrated the need to define nondiscrimination, and also to define differences as well as similarities with race and gender discrimination.

The Department of Health Education welfare (HEW) was the lead agency, and their regulations would become the guidelines for all the other federal agencies. . . . It was crucial that the regulations be strong, because ultimately 504 would cover every area that received federal financial assistance. . . .

During this time, the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities (ACCD) a national cross disability [group] was formed. ACCD became deeply involved in leading the effort to get regulations out. . . .ACCD, realizing our civil rights protections were being gutted, demanded HEW issue the regulations unchanged by April 4, or action would occur. They called for sit-ins. . . .  April 5th if HEW didn’t comply. I think this was brilliant, because rather than waiting until watered-down regulations were issued publicly and then responding, issue by issue, this meant the government would have to respond to the demonstrators. Additionally, it was not that easy to organize people, particularly people with physical disabilities, in those days, due to lack of transit, support services and so on. A sit in meant people would go and stay, until the issue was resolved definitively.

The San Francisco federal building sit-in, the only one that endured, lasted 28 days and was critical in forcing the signing of the regulations almost unchanged. It began with a rally outside the federal building, then we marched inside where between 1 and 200 people would remain until the end. The composition of the sit-in represented the spectrum of the disability community with participation from people with a wide variety of disabilities, from different racial, social and economic backgrounds, and ages from adults to kids with disabilities and their parents. We all felt that we were acting on behalf of hundreds of thousands of people who were not able to participate, people all over the country who were institutionalized or stuck in other dependency situations.

In the Bay Area, a broad cross disability coalition . . . set up committees to take on different tasks such as rally speakers, media, fundraising, medics, monitors, publicity, and outreach. The outreach committee was very successful in garnering broad community support: from churches, unions, civil rights organizations, gay groups, elected politicians, radical parties and others. . . . Those organizations built support rallies outside the building and the breath of the support made it more difficult to move against us. The International Association of Machinists facilitated our sending a delegation to Washington. Politicians sent mattresses and a shower hose to attach to the sink. Glide Memorial Church and the Black Panther party sent many delicious meals that nourished us between days of coffee and doughnuts...

The committees had a great deal of work to do and kept many people involved. This was good, because the conditions were physically grueling, sleeping sometimes three or four hours a night on the floor and everyone was under stress about their families, jobs, our health, the fact that we were all filthy and so on. All the participants met daily to make tactical decisions. These were flowing, creative meetings but they often went on for hours, which meant very little sleep. But they were important in developing consensus and arriving at a course of action. . . .

At every moment, we felt ourselves the descendants of the civil rights movement of the ’60s. We learned about sit-ins from the civil rights movement, we sang freedom songs to keep up morale, and consciously show the connection between the two movements. We always drew the parallels. About public transportation we said we can’t even get on the back of the bus. A high point was Julian Bond’s visit to the building. . . .

The sit-in and contingent it sent to Washington were pivotal in getting strong 504 regulations signed that embodied concepts of equality and integration, and the affirmative steps that must be taken to achieve that for people with disabilities. 504 has never been enforced as it should be. The Department of Transportation 504 regulations which called for reasonable, phased-in measures to make public transportation accessible turned into a bitter fight between the American Public Transit Association and the disability community and were overturned in federal court in 1980. Those measures became part of the ADA 10 years later. . . .

Even though 504 wasn’t strongly enforced, the sit-in was of historic importance. For the first time we had concrete federal civil rights protection. We had shown ourselves and the country through network TV that we, the most hidden, impoverished, pitied group of people in the nation were capable of waging a deadly serious struggle that brought about profound social change. . . . Those of us with disabilities were imbued with a new sense of pride, strength, community and confidence. For the first time, many of us felt proud of who we were. And we understood that our isolation and segregation stemmed from societal policy, not from some personal defects on our part and our experiences with segregation and discrimination were not just our own personal problems .

Without 504—its coverage and example and the disability civil rights principles contained in the regulations we fought so hard for, and the empowerment of tens of thousands of disability activists through 504 trainings, and activities and mobilizations—there might well be no Americans with Disabilities Act, that finally brought us up to parity with federal civil rights laws covering gender and race. 

Source: Source: Kitty Cone, “Short History of the 504 Sit-In,” Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, https://www.google.com/url?q=https://dredf.org/504-sit-in-20th-anniversary/short-history-of-the-504-sit-in/&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1628009042338000&usg=AOvVaw2jzmB9yeVsEkJ4M6E9PoxJ.