Becoming Real in 24 Days - One Participant's Story of the 1977 504 Demonstrations is about the takeover of the fourth floor of the San Francisco Federal building in 1977 by disabled protestors demanding that the newly inaugurated President James Carter implement Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act. It's also about a turning point for the participants, including the author, in how they viewed themselves in the world.
With some 200 photographs, this memoir takes you inside a major event in the disability civil rights movement — the successful fight for the fair implementation of the first Federal civil rights law for people with disabilities. This is the story of how it was done, who had the courage to do it and how it shaped the Americans with Disabilities Act.
PRICE: $38 but for now: SPECIAL PRICE TO CELEBRATE ADA25 - $28
ISBN: 978-0-9961153
244 total pages, size: 9 x 12
Includes historic documents and photographs, suitable for research on civil rights history.
This book is formatted for persons with low vision.
Soon to be nominated for the 2021 Oscars, Crip Camp, winner of the 2020 Sundance Audience Award, uses over ninety photographs by HolLynn D'Lil taken during the 504 Demonstrations in 1977, many of which are in Becoming Real in 24 Days.
As one of the people interviewed in the documentary, HolLynn helps create the storyline of how some irrepressible teenagers with disabilities who met at a summer camp later led the fight for the first Federal law prohibiting discrimination against people with disabilities, Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act.
Both Crip Camp and Becoming Real in 24 Days illustrate how the 504 Demonstrations were as seminal to U.S. history as Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall.
In this telling of a remarkable moment in history, D’Lil has produced a powerful and moving chronicle of a successful but virtually unknown civil rights struggle that took place during 24 dramatic days in 1977. The goal was to get long-promised regulations outlawing discrimination against the disabled, signed into law. The struggle was waged by a small group of disabled activists who refused to be invisible. With scores of photographs and intimate insights into her own involvement, the struggle explodes into the public consciousness with sit-ins of Federal Office Buildings and then moves to ‘in your face’ confrontations with officials in Washington D.C. She was one of those sleeping on marble floors, riding in the back of U Haul trucks and having their wheel chairs kicked by Federal Guards who were trying to keep them out of public buildings. And through her photographs and narrative, D’LIL exposes the reality that most Americans at the time never saw the disabled… reflected by President Jimmy Carter turning away from them as he left his church after teaching his Bible class. It is a wonderful and very personal telling of a story of a struggle that turned unkept promises of inclusion into the Law of the Land, and paved the way for passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It is a “Must Read”.
~ Evan White, Channel 7 reporter in the Bay Area who covered the 504 Demonstrations in SF and DC
"Got your book yesterday. It is AMAZING! - Brava! I really couldn't put it down. The sit-in happened before I was all that involved in disability rights - or I was just starting out here in Louisville with a group but I really knew nothing about national stuff. It was only after The Rag started and I began to know the national scene that I realized what an amazing thing people had done in '77. Of course Mary Jane told me all about it, as did others, but your photos and text brought it home in a way that nothing had before. So many people - who looked SO YOUNG! Judy, Ed, Mary Lou Breslin, Mary Jane - almost every page I turned I'd see somebody I had known or known about! So thank you so much for sending it - and more than that, thank you for DOING IT! It is a great commemoration of a great page from history. All the best,"
~ Mary
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A disability-rights advocate for the last forty years, HolLynn D’Lil has played a major role in shaping California accessibility standards, including the first California Building Code standards for accessible public accommodations, historical buildings and housing.
She has participated on committees for the U.S. Access Board, the National Fire Protection Association, the California Division of the State Architect, the Secretary of State, the California Department of Housing and Community Development, the State Historical Building Safety Board and the State Fire Marshall.