"With Sami Schalk’s incredible book, Black Disability Politics, we begin to move into a different kind of book doing intrinsically connected work—a rigorously researched look at all the ways that disabled people’s concerns have been foundational to Black resistance organizing. . . . If knowing your history is a key ingredient to success, Black Disability Politics presents a deeply researched and still incredibly readable map of the past, with implications for the shimmering future. This, along with what I can only describe as a muscular clarity in her writing, was incredible as a beginner to the topic to feel my understanding grow as I read, and that is only possible in the capable hands of a great writer like Schalk." — S. Bear Bergman, Xtra!
"Sami Schalk explores the histories and essential lessons of Black disabled labor, politics and movements. This is a long-overdue and essential volume." — Karla Strand, Ms.
"Black Disability Politics is a profound exploration and documentation of a cultural topic that has gone overlooked throughout the entire history of the Black American experience. . . . A deeply important view of the fight for the rights of disabled Black people in America since the 1970s." — Jordannah Elizabeth, New York Amsterdam News
"This book will be of particular interest to undergraduate and graduate students because it invites continued exploration of Black disability studies and politics. Recommended. Undergraduates through faculty."
— S. Burch, Choice
“Black disabled genius is crucial to the work of creating a free present and future. In Black Disability Politics, Sami Schalk does so much absolutely brilliant Black queer disabled femme labor of surfacing buried Black disabled activist histories and organizing lessons. Her book is a Black queer disabled love offering, and reading it made me shout for joy and learn so much. I’m so grateful this book is in the world. Read it and give thanks that we get to share the world with the brilliance of Schalk and the organizers she writes about—then get to work putting into practice the lessons you’ve learned, so we can win.” — Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, author of Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice
“Black Disability Politics bravely and humanely confronts shortcomings in social movements beyond the dualism of romanticizing them or throwing them away from a presentist perspective. Challenging myriad assumptions about disability activism and Black social movements, this book is an essential and overdue bridge between how we think about Blackness and how we think about disability.” — Kimberly Springer, author of Living for the Revolution: Black Feminist Organizations, 1968–1980