The 504 Democratic Club
In this image: The 504 Democratic Club’s banner, which features on the left a donkey with a 504 flag next to a wheelchair, followed by the name of the club and its circular red white and blue logo on the right; underneath is the phrase “The First Democratic Club In The Country Focusing On Disability Rights;” and, at the bottom, the club’s contact information.
The 504 Democratic Club serves to promote and advance the interests of the disability community in the City of New York. Organized in 1983, it is the most recent institutional element to join the New York City Disability Rights Movement, and with its dual demographic and partisan focus, it is practically unique in the United States.
The club emerged out of the late 1970s, an era of great organizational and aspirational creativity in the New York City Disability Rights Movement. Existing bodies, like the City government’s liaison, the Mayor’s Office for the Handicapped (now known as the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities), and existing civil rights activist groups like Disabled in Action, were fundamentally added to by new entities--particularly independent living centers, such as the Center for Independence of the Disabled, New York (CIDNY). Increasingly ambitious efforts at public accessibility included the massive 1980 sit-in at the offices of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. These developments were part of the community’s ever more organized bid to leave behind its second class and segregated history. Direct involvement in the political system followed logically, as a next step.
In this Image: A photograph from The Village Sun, dated March 27, 2021. Identifiable individuals are as follows, from left to right: City Councilmember and former Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, 504 Dems’ president Mike Schweinsburg, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democratic District Leader Arthur Schwartz, and activists Carr Massi and Milagros Franco. Photo by Lincoln Anderson
Specifically, 504 Dems, as it is often called, began as an offshoot of PRIDE (People for Rehabilitating and Integrating the Disabled through Education), a disability rights group founded by Kurt Schamberg, a Holocaust survivor based in Queens. In or around 1979, two of the group’s officers, Marvin Wasserman and Joe Mulholland, who had long been involved in Democratic Party politics, began an effort to form a political club focused on disability issues. (An unexpected payoff for Marvin was that these discussions brought him into contact with his future wife, Sandra Schnur).
Over the next several years, disability figures like Marvin and Francis Perry found themselves nominated for positions as Democratic convention delegates and onto the New York State Democratic Committee, only to be asked by party higher-ups to step aside. This distancing act was only partially successful—Fran acceded, Marvin did not—but it added fuel to the idea of a disability-focused Democratic party body.
The concept became a reality after Mario Cuomo’s election as Governor in 1983. Terry Moakley was then leading the fight for accessible subway stations, and Cuomo was one of the only politicians to endorse the proposal, so he attracted enormous support from the disability community. A group of Cuomo campaign supporters joined with former staff of the Mayor’s Office for the Handicapped to form the nucleus of the new club.
The name 504 Democratic Club was an obvious choice, a salute to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the precedent-shattering statute that barred discrimination against people with disabilities by “any program or activity” that received federal funding. Larry Allison, ex-Camp Jened program director and longtime Deputy of the Mayor’s Office for the Handicapped, was the first Vice President.
504 Dems remained low-profile for its first few years. A multi-candidate race for President in 1986 or 1987, which pitted stalwarts like Julie Goldberg and Marvin Wasserman against each other, promised but failed to result in increased visibility.
In the early 1990s Kipp Watson became President, and he led the club to its first notable accomplishment—the Disability Independence Day March (or DIDM), which ran in 1992 and was repeated more or less annually for several years. DIDM consisted of a parade followed by a rally with speakers, which over the years included Kipp, Judy Heumann, and Justin Dart. The DIDM events seem to be remembered simply as celebrations, but Kipp set them up for a definite purpose—to advocate for specific goals and timetables to hire people with disabilities into the government of the City of New York. That effort, however, proved unsuccessful, and in 1995 a disillusioned Kipp resigned as President and left the club.
This time Fran and Marvin faced off against each other for the President’s slot, each with different visions for 504 Dems. Fran wanted to develop it as a vehicle for seeking job appointments, while Marvin saw it as a Citywide demographically focused political club, not unlike the Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats Club. Marvin’s vision prevailed, and the club’s trajectory began to turn.
504 Dems became a leader in the Taxis For All Campaign. It forged alliances with LGBT activists, leading the since-departed Harry Weider, among others, to move from one camp to the other.
What’s more, 504 Dems built a relationship with the Democratic National Committee, and began offering endorsements to political candidates who passed through a screening process—a practice that has helped to seed networks of elected officials with ties to the City’s Disability Rights Movement.
Around the turn of the millennium, 504 Dems was joined by an uptown affiliate—504 Northstar, which was based in Harlem and had the support of Charlie Rangel and Al Sharpton, and oriented itself more towards minorities with disabilities and to issues in northern Manhattan and the Bronx. It was headed by Pam Bates and then Chris Noel, now the disability liaison for the Parks Department. Prominent among 504 Northstar’s allies were Gale Brewer, Inez Dickens, Mark Levine--and Letitia James (now the Attorney General of the State of New York). James dubbed Chris “Denzel” while accepting a Leadership award at a 504 Dems awards dinner, and Chris returned the favor by nicknaming her “Beyoncé.” Sadly, though, Northstar faded in the 2010s.
Marvin Wasserman stepped down as President of 504 Dems in 2005. Officers at the time included Pam Bates, Pat Walls, and Marty Sesmer. Michael Schweinsburg became Vice President. Schweinsburg was selected as a delegate to the next Democratic National Convention, where he and other disability delegates from around the country led the party platform to include 35 references to disability issues (as opposed to just eight four years before).
Marvin was succeeded by Edith Prentiss, who remained President until 2017, when Schweinsburg took over. The present Executive Committee includes Elisabeth Axel, Matt Axel, and Chris Noel (formerly President of 504 Northstar). In January of 2022, 504 Dems elected 18 year old Rami Sigal as its new 1st Vice President.
Some of the club’s current projects include an educational and networking effort to improve retail business accessibility, known as Businesses Committed to Access and Inclusion (or BCAI); a measure to remove from policy discourse the “R” word as a reference to intellectual disability; AND widening the geographic scope of the e-hail program (a medallion cab-based alternative to Access-A-Ride). It has been involved in accessible transportation lawsuits as well.
But 504 Dems’ primary focus remains the grooming and cultivating of political and elective connections. Sometimes this takes a dramatic form—as when Mike Schweinsburg pushed Jumaane Williams against a wall and told him “You are a person with disabilities. Own it!” More often, however, 504’s work involves screening, endorsing, lobbying and imparting information to elected and aspiring elected officials. Among other things, the resulting alliances recently earned Schweinsburg a spot on Eric Adams’ Mayoral transition team, surely a first for a City disability activist.
It is this deliberate party enmeshment that has made 504 Dems unique in the City’s movement. By contrast, for example, MOPD is a City agency which serves mainly as a liaison, as an intra-government policy coordinator and as a technical resource. Activist groups like Disabled In Action agitate from the outside to direct attention to issues and causes. Publicly funded independent living centers like BCID and CIDNY are primarily community coordinators and service facilitators. It is, of course, true that these groups (and United Spinal as well) also work within the political process to influence legislation and policies, and that they use the court system to achieve change. The difference with 504 Dems is that it gets in at the beginning to identify candidates for various offices, school them, and offer endorsements in primaries.
Distinctively among the many branches of the New York City Disability Rights Movement, 504 Dems works primarily within the political system itself, to “bend the curve” in favor of policies and public officials who support, and are supported by, the disability community.
Mike Schweinsburg summed up his view of the club’s role as follows. “Unless you build the political will,” he said, “nothing is ever going to happen. Demonstrations and press conferences may bring visibility, but then you’re competing against all the other marginalized groups’ issues. You have to develop relationships with officials and educate them, so that they call us and they take our calls. That’s how we are going to continue moving the community’s needs forward.”
(DHNYC thanks Michael Schweinsburg, Marvin Wasserman, Chris Noel, Kipp Watson and Pat Walls for their assistance in the preparation of this entry.)
by Warren Shaw
