Students gathered in Gamble Auditorium for a lecture with author and professor Dr. Sami Schalk. Photo by Bryn Healy ‘24.
By Melanie Duronio ’26 & Bryn Healy ’24
Features Editor | News Editor
Content warning: This article mentions ableism and racism.
A small cohort of students walked into Gamble Auditorium on Feb. 16, 2023, to hear a lecture by author and University of Wisconsin-Madison Gender Studies Professor Dr. Sami Schalk on Black Disability Politics. Schalk was invited by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to speak about the interconnection between the 1977 Section 504 Sit-In and the Black Panther Party as part of their Black Scholar Thursday series. Schalk discussed her book “Black Disability Politics,” which explores how disability rights as a political issue are tied to race and racism, and the role they have played in Black activism since the 1970s. The event was also live-streamed on Vimeo, although it was not captioned.
The talks started with Weisman Fellow Talya Denis ’24 giving a land acknowledgment. Before Schalk began her lecture, Vice President for Equity and Inclusion Kijua Sanders-McMurtry read aloud a poem by Alice Walker entitled “The Gospel According to Shug,” and discussed the founding of Black History month and how this history is real education which tells people to live abundantly. Steph Gomez ’23, one of four DEI fellows present, introduced Schalk, her book and her work overall.
Schalk began her presentation with the cover of the May 7, 1977, edition of the Black Panther Party’s newspaper, The Black Panther. It read, “handicapped win demands — end HEW occupation.” Schalk explained that cover stories, like this one, are kept for the most important issues at that moment, showing that the Party believed this sit-in to be a critically important issue directly connected to their work.
Schalk defined disability politics as “engagement with disability as a social and political concern rather than [an] individual or medical concern. Black Disability Politics are anti-ableist arguments and actions performed by Black cultural workers which address disability within the context of anti-Black racism.”
A key moment in the disability rights movement was the 504 Sit-In, a protest where members of the disabled community objected to the federal government’s delayed regulation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Section 504 was the first federal regulation stating that programs receiving federal funding couldn’t discriminate against disabled people. This includes schools, federal buildings and more.
Nixon passed Section 504 but never defined key terms in the law, so it couldn’t be enforced, according to Schalk. Disability Justice advocates worked for the next couple of years to determine how the law should be interpreted. When President Jimmy Carter was inaugurated, the movement hoped this was a good sign that the section would be enforced.
But, according to the Disability Rights and Education Fund, the Carter administration and Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Joseph Califano ignored this and organized a committee to “study” disabled individuals and continually weakened the proposed regulations. The HEW and Califano ignored the Office of Civil Rights’ recommendations about the law. The newly formed American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities established sit-ins across the country in response, with the longest-lasting one in San Francisco at HEW’s regional headquarters. The sit-in was a success, bringing critical attention to the intentional inaction of the government, and resulted in the signing and enforcement of Section 504 as is. The San Francisco HEW Sit-In lasted 26 days according to the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund.
In her book, Schalk argues that the sit-in’s success was due in part to the support from political organizations such as the Black Panther Party, a revolutionary civil rights group founded in 1966. Their original goal focused on self-defense and police patrol and expanded into national and international chapters at its height. They had a 10-point platform describing the goals of the party; this grew to be wider in scope and more intersectional over the years, shifting its focus from Black communities to Black and other oppressed communities.
The period of the 1970s saw change for the Party as many of the male leaders went into hiding and many women took over. Schalk described how scholars often ignore this period of the BPP due to its female leadership, claiming its community and charity work was not revolutionary. This is when the BPP started their free breakfast program, Safe Walk program for elders and help for disabled Vietnam Veterans, among others. Schalk highlighted how, in reality, this era was a continuation of the BPP’s ethos. Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the BPP, believed, “[the] community survival program is the basis of all of [BPP’s] work because we can’t expect people to organize and to politically educate themselves if they don’t have food if they don’t have housing.” The BPP began engaging in Black Disability Politics in the 1970s.
“The Panther supported the demonstration because disability rights and anti-ableism fit within their existing revolutionary ideology, even as disability was rarely an explicit part of the party’s liberation agenda,” Schalk said.
The BPP provided 504 Sit-In protesters, two of which were also Panthers, with hot daily meals, ran press endorsements and national articles in The Black Panther, held on-site speeches beginning from day one, provided security and joined the emergency coalition of allied advocacy organizations.
Black Disability Politics take on an intersectional lens, considering the relationship between multiple systems of oppression with race as the central focus. Schalk explained that there are four common qualities to Black Disability Politics: intersectional but race-centric, not necessarily based on disability pride/identity, contextualized and historicized, and holistic and broad. Unlike the mainstream disability rights movement, Black Disability Politics are not based on ideas of identity or pride. Many of its members do not even identify as “disabled.”
From a historical perspective, Black Disability Politics are often enacted by events and circumstances that have in turn shaped experiences with disability in Black communities. This includes secondary health effects such as disease, environmental racism, racial violence and state neglect.
The work also addresses the connection between the body and mind, including health, illness, disease and physiological or emotional well-being. Through this holistic approach, Black Disability Politics work to obtain social and political change at both the micro and macro levels.
“By identifying these qualities I aim to provide a framework for interpreting articulations and enactments of Black Disability Politics, one which accounts for the distinct ways that Black people have experienced, engaged with and countered the disability system,” Schalk said.
The next event of the Black Scholar Thursdays series is “Black Feminist Scholarship in the Digital Age” with speaker Lutze Segu. It will take place on Feb. 23 at 12 p.m. in Blanchard 318.