Black Disabled Activists and Figures
Claudia Jones
Jones was Trinidadian and was a prominent activist in the US fighting for equality before her time in Britain. She set up Notting Hill Carnival as a community show of resistance to the race riots of 1958. Throughout her life, she dealt with poor health as a result of growing up in poverty.
Brad Lomax
He worked with the Black Panther Party (BPP) to bridge the civil rights and disability rights movement. He was also instrumental in setting up the East Oakland Centre for Independent Living and, alongside other disability activists occupied a building to get the government to sign into federal law protection from discrimination for Disabled people.
Audre Lorde
In her own words 'Black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, mother, warrior, poet', who wrote fiction, non-fiction and poetry about Black womanhood, illness and disability.
Her phrase 'the masters tools will not dismantle the masters house' is something we should all bear in mind when fighting for our rights.
The Triple Cripples
The Triple Cripples, Kym Oliver & Jumoke Abdullahi, are organising together to highlight the experiences of Black Disabled people within the disability movement “invisible population, within an invisible population”. Learn more about them!
Milliedrette Hill
Hill was a writer, training barrister and activist in race and disability involved in the movements across the UK, US and Canada. At 18, Millie founded Bermuda’s first DPO and co-founded the Black Disabled Peoples Association in 1990.
Menghi Mulchandani
The CEO of Action Disability Kensington for over a decade and the Chair of the National Centre for Independent Living.
Barbara Stewart
A poet, artist and activist in disability hate crime, who passed on in October of last year. Barbara worked with local East London communities out of Tower Hamlets and worked as a benefits adviser.
Johnie Lacy
Lacy was an early leader in the independent living movement, and a founding member of the first Centre for Independent Living in Berkely, California, who worked to target racism in the Disability movement and ableism in the Black community.
Leroy F Moore Jr
A Black Disabled artist, writer, poet, community activist, and feminist. Moore was one of the founders of Krip Hop, a movement that used hip hop music as a means of expression for disabled people.
Moore writes:
‘From Slavery to homeland security,
Black disabled artist’
Roots grow deep
However, this garden is starving for recognition
Black DPOs and Intersectional DPOs based in the UK
Black Disabled People’s Association
Organisation of Blind African Caribbeans
Sheffield African Caribbean Mental Health Association
Somali Disability and Elderly Support Group
Resources
Black Disability Politics by Sami Schalk
Reflections with Milliedrette Hill (Begum, N, Hill, M and Stevens, A, 1994).
Reflections with Nasa Begum and Andy Stevens (Begum, N, Hill, M and Stevens, A, 1994).
Thank you letter to British Black Disabled women activist and campaigners (Daley, M., 2017)
Samuels, Ellen. (2014). Fantasies of identification: Disability, gender, race. New York: NYU Press.
Academic papers
Artiles, Alfredo J. (2013). Untangling the Racialization of Disabilities. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 10(02), 329-347. Open Access
Berberi, Tammy, & Berberi, Viktor. (2013). A Place at the Table: On Being Human in the Beauty and the Beast In: Johnson Cheu (Ed.), Diversity in Disney films: Critical Essays on race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and disability (pp. 195-207): McFarland.
Brown, Tony N. (2003). Critical race theory speaks to the sociology of mental health: Mental health problems produced by racial stratification. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 292-301. Open Access
Campbell, Fiona Kumari. (2008). Exploring internalized ableism using critical race theory. Disability & Society, 23(2), 151-162. Link (open access)
Carmen, Elaine (Hilberman). (1995). Inner-City Community Mental Health: The Interplay of Abuse and Race in Chronic Mentally Ill Women. In: Charles V Willie, Patricia Perri Rieker, Bernard M Kramer & Bertram S Brown (Eds.), Mental Health, Racism And Sexism (pp. 217-236): University of Pittsburgh Press
Cermele, Jill A, Daniels, Sharon, & Anderson, Kristin L. (2001). Defining normal: Constructions of race and gender in the DSM-IV casebook. Feminism & Psychology, 11(2), 229-247. Link (open access)
Davis, Lennard J. (1995). Introduction: Disability, the Missing Term in the Race, Class, Gender Triad. Enforcing normalcy: Disability, deafness, and the body. (pp.1-22) Verso. Link (open access)
Deegan, Mary Jo. (1981). Multiple minority groups: A case study of physically disabled women. Soc. & Soc. Welfare, 8, 274. Link (open access)
Dossa, Parin. (2005). Racialized bodies, disabling worlds “they [service providers] always saw me as a client, not as a worker”. Social Science & Medicine, 60(11), 2527-2536. Link (closed access)
Erevelles, Nirmala. (2011). The color of violence: Reflecting on gender, race, and disability in wartime. In: Kim Q Hall (Ed.), Feminist Disability Studies (pp. 117-135). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Erevelles, Nirmala, & Minear, Andrea. (2010). Unspeakable offenses: Untangling race and disability in discourses of intersectionality. Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, 4(2), 127-145. Link (open access)
Jarman, Michelle. (2011). Coming Up from Underground: Uneasy Dialogues at the Intersections of Race, Mental Illness, and Disability Studies. Blackness and Disability: Critical Examinations and Cultural Interventions, 21, 9. Link (open access)
Kennedy, Stefanie. (2015). ‘Let them be young and stoutly set in limbs’: race, labor, and disability in the British Atlantic World. Social Identities, 21(1), 37-52. Link (closed access)
Merkwae, Amanda. (2015). Schooling the Police: Race, Disability, and the Conduct of School Resource Officers. J. Race & L., 21, 147. Link (open access)
Mitchell, David, & Snyder, Sharon. (2003). The Eugenic Atlantic: race, disability, and the making of an international Eugenic science, 1800–1945. Disability & Society, 18(7), 843-864 Link (closed access)
Mollow, Anna. (2006). “When Black Women Start Going on Prozac”: Race, Gender, and Mental Illness in Meri Nana-Ama Danquah’s “Willow Weep for Me”. MELUS, 31(3), 67-99. Link (open access)