There is often a tendency from Black communities to note the improper labeling  of Black kids as disabled to distance Blackness from disability. Huggins instead argues that yea Black kids are improperly labeled as disabled because of racism but also that disabled children deserve better education asssitance that is not mired by racism, ableism, and the practice of warehousing. 

Huggins' Rhetoric on Blackness and Disability

The Oakland Community School and Huggins' work is not normally presented in scholarship as being about disability. Yet this link becomes extremely evident when looking at the school's policies and Huggins' background. This is an example of how Black disability politics are often articulated and enacted in ways that do not use explicit disability rights rhetoric. This silence on disability is thought by Schalk to be caused by how those enacting Black disability politics understand disablement and disability and inherently tied to racism and classism so there is a lack of need to identify disability separately.

Scholarship around Huggins Not Addressing Disability

- Huggins' Rhetoric on Blackness and Disability
- Scholarship around Huggins not addressing disability

University of Wisconsin - Madison

In 1976 Huggins became the first woman and first Black person to be appointed to the Alameda County Board of Education. Whilst on the board Huggins identified problems with the County's education of disabled children including Deaf education programs being located in back hallways, a county proposal for a development center for disabled children being located on a fault line, the overrepresentation of Black boys in special education classes, and the use of Ritalin and other amphetamines on children without doctor approval.

Ericka Huggins' Disability Advocacy

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

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