Schalk clearly states that all women are not feminists and all feminists are not women. While in the case of the NBWHP the vast majority of its members and leaders were Black women a organization does not have to exclusively be comprised of women to enact Black feminist health activism.

Do you have to be a woman to be a Black feminist?

Black women have always been involved in the healthcare professions and have served  Black communities whether it has been as doulas and midwives before healthcare became a more formalized professor or later as nurses fundraisers and volunteers in Black hospitals. Black women were also the majority of the health cadre who ran the Black Panther Party's free community health clinics.

Black women's Historic Involvement in Black feminism health activism

The NBWHP was the first organization to focus particularly on the health need of Black women and was the first, but not last, women-of-color led and focused organization to come from the feminist health movement.

NBWHP was a grassroots advocacy organization with the goal of reducing health disparities and instances of preventable conditions for Black women while uplifting the understanding of disability and health as political.

The Mission of the NBWHP

Schalk defines Black feminist health activism as health activism by Black people that is critically attuned to intersectional gender, race, and class politics. Note: Schalk makes clear it does not mater whether or not the word feminist is actively used by people enacting Black feminist health activism.

University of Wisconsin - Madison

- The History of the National Black Women's Health Project
- Black Feminist Health Activism

The National Black Women's Health Project as Black Disability Politics

bell hooks  posits in her essay Feminism: A Movement to End Sexist Oppression that feminism is the struggle to end sexist oppression and that it is not meant to solely elevate women to have the same privileges as men, or to elevate any specific group of women, or to privilege women over men. hooks defines feminism as a movement to acknowledges the interconnected nature of sexism, racism, and classism  and thus should center women who bear the brunt of sexist oppression.

Feminism

Schalk, Sami. Black Disability Politics, New York, USA: Duke University Press, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478027003

Black Disability Politics

The NBWHP began in 1981 as a subsection of the National Women's Health Network charged with focusing specifically on the health needs of Black women. The NBWHP hosted the First National Conference on Black Women's Health Issues at Spelman College on June 24th, 1983.

The History of the National Black Women's Health Project

Black Feminist Health Activism

Schalk analyzes the NBWHP as an example of Black disability politics because:
- how disability was explicitly and implicitly included within NBWHP's mission
- NBHWP's self-help phiilosophy
- NBWHP's holistic, cultural, and political approaches to health and wellness
- how spirituality was incorporated into NBWHP's public health work.

NBWHP as Black Disability Politics

While hooks offers her definition of feminism she also poses that the central problem within feminist discourse is that there is not a universally agreed upon definition of what feminism is. hooks points out that the multitude of definitions of  feminism that exist have made it hard for feminism to become a unified social movement.

Differing Definitions of Feminism

bell hooks notably preferred for her name not to be capitalized while there is a multitude of reasons cited for this decision, ranging from bell hooks wanting people to focus on her work, to the decapitalization serving as a reminder of the oppression faced by black women, to the decision being a tribute to her great-grandmother whose name was Bell Hooks, in women's studies, Black studies, and gender studies spaces the author bell books name is kept decapitalized when citing and discussing her work.

Note on the capitalization of bell hooks

Integrating disability as a category of analysis and a system of representation expands feminist theory and contributes to feminism’s intersectionality.


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