People all over the country, not just people shut in convalescence
homes, but everyone in this country has learned that disabled people have a
tremendous amount of strength, that we are capable of leading a struggle that
has won major gains from the government. There’s a great deal of
self-confidence, a great deal of pride, that we have given to ourselves and to
disabled people all over the country. But we’ve also shown that if you wage a
really effective struggle and you don’t give up, you can win a victory. (“Handicapped,”
1977, p. 6)
As one of the central organizers of the near-unprecedented feat of
political strategy and collaboration that went into the victory of the
struggle, Cone knew well the historic import of their achievement. With 120
disabled activists and supporters occupying the federal building inside,
hundreds more regularly rallying in support on the outside, and crucial extensions
of practical assistance forthcoming from sundry other social movements – including
that of labor unions, LGBT activists, feminist groups, and racial justice organizations
– the 504 victory was a paradigm of cross-movement, cross-cultural, and
collaborative solidarity in the fight against social oppression. Of particular
note in this vein, though reported and theorized to a lesser extent at the time,
was the intersectional positioning of Blackness and disability as mutually
reinforcing matrices of the struggle (Connelly, 2020; Erkulwater, 2018; Lukin,
2013; Schweik, 2011).
The Pre-History of 504 and the Politics of Solidarity
San Francisco in the 1970s was a seething ferment of radical, emancipatory
unrest. Activism against the U.S. war on Vietnam was widespread on the campuses
and amongst war veterans; disabled students at Berkeley College were agitating
against structural impediments to their equality; gender and sexual liberation
groups were challenging ingrained norms and roles; and the mass struggle for
Black freedom – personified by the movements associated with Martin Luther
King, Jr., Malcolm X, Huey Newton, and others – was upending virtually all
pre-existing relations of American society.
This was the crucible that shaped the personages, politics, and
characteristics of the 504 movement. Linkages made, lessons learned, and leaderships
forged amidst the general social upheaval preceding the 504 sit-in ultimately
proved indispensable to its success. Figures like Cone, who through her experience
as an organizer with the Socialist Workers Party, had spent many years involved
in campaigns against racial segregation and had developed a sense of the utmost
importance of building coalitions and networks of solidarity across social
struggles (Dash,
2009; Landes, 2000).
Another key figure was Donald Galloway, one of the first Black
people to occupy a leading position within the Berkeley Independent Living
Center (ILC) movement in the mid-1970s. Galloway had long been pressuring the
ILC to take a more active role in the politics of racism and the life of the
Black community. Galloway was keenly aware of the fact that disability activism
surrounding the ILC had been negligent toward the specific experience of Black
disabled people in San Francisco and nearby Oakland. This negligence, Galloway argued,
was to the detriment of both the ILC and the Black disabled population who
could benefit from the resources, politics, and activist opportunities offered by the former (Erkulwater, 2018; Lukin, 2013;
Pelka, 2012, pp. 218-222).
I didn’t see very many black people. I was the first black person that I knew of at the Center, hired on the staff full-time. I was the only black, and I started bringing black people into the center as drivers and attendants, and bringing in professional types.... There was just a handful of us that came in, but we came together and decided that we needed some input into this system....
We were in a predominantly black community.... The movement was predominantly white. We needed to reach out to the black community in Oakland, get the Black Panthers involved, and any other group that would like to be involved. (Pelka, 2012, p. 220)
Although Galloway ultimately felt frustrated in his attempts to
establish overt connections between the disability movement and the local Black
population, his efforts were not without significant posterior effect. As
Galloway later recalled:
There was a severely
disabled man in the Black Panther Party[2]
named Brad [Lomax], and Brad was our link to the Black Panthers. We would go
and provide him with attendant care and transportation because we had a small
transportation system going, a fleet of vans going out to the community. Ed
[Roberts, the ILC director] made a decision that he wanted us to get more
involved with the Black Panthers and with Oakland. So we would go to some of
their meetings and explain our programs. Because Brad, one of their members, had
a severe disability, we were quite accepted. (Pelka, 2012, pp. 221-222)
This connection with Bradley Lomax and the
Black Panther Party (BPP) would prove to be eminently pivotal in the 504
struggle to come.
