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

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.

University of Wisconsin - Madison

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.

Black Feminist Health Activism

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

Black Disability Politics

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'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.

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