While the advocacy, work, and writing of the NBWHP was grounded in Black feminist work the women involved did not all identify as feminists. Women involved in the NBWHP came from a variety of professional backgrounds including: doctors, nurses, therapists, social workers, academics, politicians, writers, and mothers. NBWHP has deep links to the emerging Black feminist movement including several major Black feminist scholars (Angela Davis, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, and Dorothy Roberts) serving at different points on the NBWHP's board.

Individuals involved in NBWHP

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

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.

University of Wisconsin - Madison

One of the most attended conference sessions, Lillie Allen's "Black and Female: What Is the Reality?" This session, which was reserved exclusively for Black women, had participants discuss what being a Black woman has meant for them. The workshop was centered around Black women telling their stories and listening to other Black women to hear others lived experiences. This session in particular became an early cornerstone of the NBWHP's self-help philosophy and practice. The success of the conference also lead to the National Black Women's Health Project incorporating into an independent nonprofit in 1984 based in Atlanta Georgia.

How the First National Conference Shaped the Trajectory 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.

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

The Mission of the NBWHP

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.

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