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Drawing from the book, Black Disability Politics, this talk will detail the Black Panther Party’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’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’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.