PORT TOWNSEND — The Jefferson County Historical Society will open “Patient No More: People with Disabilities Securing Civil Rights” on Thursday.
The traveling exhibit will be on display at the society’s Museum of Art + History, 540 Water St., Port Townsend.
The exhibit is curated by the Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability at San Francisco State University.
“Patient No More” explores a moment in U.S. history when people with disabilities occupied a government building to demand their rights and won.
The protest centered around Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, a law that made it illegal for federally funded facilities or programs to discriminate against disabled people.
Four years after passage, the section still required one last signature for the law to take effect.
After a 26-day occupation of the federal building in San Francisco, the Secretary of Health Education and Welfare finally signed the regulations.
The exhibit explores disability themes as a source of creativity and innovation, not pity or tragedy; the daily life inside the occupied building; how the occupiers built networks of support, from unions to the Black Panthers; other national protests that occurred in concert with the occupation; how protesters influenced the media; and the controversies of Section 504, especially in regard to race and deafness.
In addition, the traveling exhibit includes exhibition text in Braille, large-print panels, audio description tracks and audio-described and captioned videos to make the show as accessible as possible.
“Patient No More” can be viewed from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays through Aug. 31.
Admission to the museum is $9 per person, $7 for seniors and military personnel. Admission is free on the first Saturday of each month.
For more information, visit www.jchsmuseum.org.
A protest photo included in the traveling exhibit “Patient No More: People with Disabilities Securing Civil Rights,” on display at the Jefferson County Historical Society on Thursday.
