button, Sign 504, Handicapped Human Rights, ACCD

N. G. Slater Corp. · n.d.

Pin-back buttons serve many purposes. They are efficient advertising vehicles, handy for fund-raising in support of a cause, concise statements of a person’s beliefs, a form of educational outreach, and convenient ice-breakers for conversation. NMAH has several hundred pin-back buttons related to disability, including this one created by ACCD, the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities. Before the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 provided the core of legal protection for most people with disabilities. Disability activists organized protests and sit-ins to pressure the government into signing the regulations needed to implement the law. Joseph A. Califano, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare signed the regulations in 1977.