Tusler stayed only for a few hours, long enough to capture 36 shots of the diverse crowd staging the April protest at the Health, Education and Welfare building in San Francisco before heading back to his post as the co-founder of the Disability Resource Center at Sonoma State University and his work advocating for equal access and rights.
But, the protest lasted on, evolving into a 26-day sit-in that’s credited with spurring Joseph Califano Jr., then-U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, to sign into law the anti-discrimination safeguards of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, giving people with disabilities civil rights protection under the law for the first time. The sit-in, which is one of the longest occupations of a federal building in history, is regarded as a precursor to the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990.
Nearly four decades later, the 69-year-old Penngrove resident’s photos, which have become a prominent symbol of the protest, are on display as part of the upcoming “Patient No More: People with Disabilities Securing Civil Rights” exhibit at Santa Rosa Junior College. His images have also been donated to the University of California, Berkeley’s Bancroft Library and were incorporated in a larger 2015 exhibit at The Ed Roberts Campus to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the passing of the ADA.