Disability Action Month: Disability Pride Flag Raising
Description
To kick off the celebration of October as Disability Action Month, join the Disability Access Center and Disability Outreach Center for a raising of the visually safe Disability Pride flag on Tuesday, October 1 at 4:30 PM at Flag Plaza. Everyone is welcome to attend! The Disability Pride Flag will wave on the University flagpole throughout the month of October in recognition of Disability Action Month.
The Disability Pride Flag, designed by Ann Magill, a writer with cerebral palsy, is the symbol of the disability pride movement. The original Disability Pride Flag, which featured brightly colored zigzagging stripes over a black background, was created by Ann Magill in 2019. Ann Magill had “attended an event for the 20th anniversary of the ADA and was disappointed that it was confined to the basement and grounds of an independent living center — instead of out in public. The experience motivated her to create a Disability Pride Flag” (Columbia University, 2023). As she explained in an interview on The Accessible Stall podcast, "My first design idea was to make the stripes zigzag, to represent how disabled people have to maneuver around all the barriers we face. We have to go this way and then we have to go that way, and then we have to go this way and then we have to go that way. And that’s how we move through the world." However, it came to Ann Magill's attention that “when viewed on a phone or computer screen, the design was causing symptoms for individuals with visually triggered disabilities including seizure and migraine disorders” (Ballard, 2023). The redesigned version of the flag, created by Ann Magill in 2021 in collaboration with several people with visually triggered disabilities, softens the colors and made the stripes straight instead of zigzagging. The order of the stripes was also changed to accommodate people with red-green colorblindness (Magill, 2022).
The visually safe Disability Pride Flag features a muted black background with a diagonal band from the top left to bottom right corner, made up of five parallel stripes in red, gold, white, blue, and green. Each element of the flag carries meaning for the disabled community:
- Faded Black Background: Represents "the anger and mourning over the eugenics and the neglect that disabled people have to fight against,"
- Six "Standard" Flag Colors: Represents that the disabled community “is pan-national, spanning borders between states and nations,”
- Red Stripe: Represents physical disabilities,
- Gold Stripe: Represents neurodivergence,
- White Stripe: Represents non-apparent disabilities and undiagnosed disabilities,
- Blue Stripe: Represents emotional and psychiatric disabilities,
Green Stripe: Represents sensory disabilities, including d/Deafness, blindness, lack of smell, lack of taste, audio processing disorder, and all other sensory disabilities (Magill, 2022).
Disability Action Month is Western Washington University’s month-long celebration for our disabled community. Throughout October, the Disability Access Center and Disability Outreach Center, in collaboration with our partners such as the Institute for Critical Disability Studies and the Career Services Center, will have a variety of events and programs for students, faculty, and staff. We invite everyone to celebrate our disabled community and continue to learn about the issues we face and how we can make Western and the rest of the world a more accessible place. For its inaugural year, this year’s theme for Disability Action Month is ‘Disability Justice in Action.’ Events during Disability Action Month include the raising of the disability pride flag on the University flagpoles, an Accessibility 101 workshop, The Centers Lunch and Learn: Disability, the Job Search, Employment, and You!, Disability Studies and Action Collaborative (DSAC) UnConference including a keynote speech and disability pop-up mini-fest featuring a student film produced by the Disability Outreach Center, and more!
Other Disability Action Month events:
- Accessibility 101
- The Centers Community Lunches: Disability, the Job Search, Employment, and You!
- UnConference Keynote & Art Exhibit (more details coming soon)
Additional opportunities:
AA/EO. Accessibility Statement: This event is intended for all participants including those with apparent or non-apparent disabilities. For disability accommodation(s) (such as ASL interpretation or TypeWell transcription), please contact Axel.Cichocki@wwu.edu. Advanced notice is appreciated and sometimes necessary to arrange for some accessibility needs. Masks are strongly encouraged and will be available at entrances and upon request. WWU Flag Plaza is on South Campus Drive located between Wade King Student Recreation Center and the Academic Institutional West building. Please refer to the Campus Map and select the ‘Accessibility’ filter for information about the nearest accessible doors, elevators, walkways, routes, and parking spots and refer to the reflection and meditation spaces page for low-sensory spaces on campus.
Image description: Poster with a white background and abstract wave-like patterns in shades of red and yellow in each corner. The text reads “Disability Action Month: Disability Justice in Action" and “Throughout October." The text is in red with a yellow shadow.