“All in the Family: The disabled in activist Black American families”

By Leroy Moore Jr and Tamari Kitossa

What happens when well known Black activists and prominent individuals become disabled or have a history of disability in their families?  Unfortunately, there are cases where they remain hidden.  When Harry Belafonte became disabled I reached out, but no reply. The same response from rapper Foxy Brown when she went Deaf. 

The list is endless of well-known Black people artists and activists who either became  disabled or they had family members with a history of disabilities. Teddy Pendergrass became a paraplegic from a car accident and Curtis Mayfield was paralyzed from the neck down from a stage injury. Ida B. Wells had a brother who was disabled. 

Malcolm X had  a learning disability,  his mother was institutionalized due to a mental breakdown,  his little brother had back problems and was also institutionalized due to a mental breakdown, his daughter’s led difficult lives living with the burden of their father’s assassination, his grandson Malcolm lived a short life marred by intergenerational trauma, and sadly, Betty, who was killed in a fire started by Malcolm Jr, too lived a life of intense emotional pain from the murder of  her husband.

In all of these cases and more, well known Black figures from Prince, Jesse Jackson, to  Muhammad Ali  are not many  Black political, cultural and historical figures who have embraced  their new found identity as  disability and become advocates for Black and other people with disabilities. Important exceptions to this rule were Curtis Mayfield and Teddy Pendergrass who both stood firm on their racial and social politics and had Black disabled mentors to guide them into their new identity as a Black men with disabilities. Johnny Wilder from Heatwave was their disabled mentor who became disabled and returned to not only singing but living proudly as a Black. Disabled man, father and husband.

We need more activism and mentorship in the Black community when it comes to disability to break out of this well known Black tradition that has us keep certain things at home behind closed doors.  This out of date “keep it in the family” is sending the wrong message to young Black disabled and able-bodied people, as well as other disabled and abled-bodied people in general. We need to embrace, come to terms with, welcome and develop new ways to experience the fact that disabilities are foundational to the arts, culture, history, politics and life-ways of Black America.

Leroy Moore Jr and Tamari Kitossa, authors of “A Krip-Hop Theory of Disabled Black Men: Challenging the disabling of Black America, resisting killing and erasure through the arts and self-empowerment”. In T. Kitossa (Ed.), Appealing Because He Is Appalling: Black masculinities, colonialism and erotic racism. Edmonton: University of Alberta (2021). Link.