¹ú²ú´«Ã½

Drawing from the book, Black Disability Politics, this talk will detail the Black Panther Party ¹ú²ú´«Ã½ ’s involvement in the 1977 504 Sit-in and discuss it as a historical example of how Black cultural workers have engaged with disability as a political issue in ways that have sometimes been obscured in Black studies and disability studies alike.

Dr. Sami Schalk is a professor of Gender & Women ¹ú²ú´«Ã½ ’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of Bodyminds Reimagined (2018) and Black Disability Politics (2022), both available open access from Duke University Press. Dr. Schalk ¹ú²ú´«Ã½ ’s research focuses on disability, race and gender in contemporary American literature and culture. In addition to her academic work, Dr. Schalk writes for mainstream outlets and makes art as a form of pleasure activism. Her current research project focuses on the creation and impact of pleasure spaces for multiply marginalized people.