Everyday throughout February, for Black History Month, Disability Rights North Carolina is celebrating Black disability justice leaders, influencers, and innovators!

Brad Lomax (1950-1984)
Brad Lomax (1950-1984), a Civil Rights leader and disability rights activist, brought together the two movements to present a united front in the fight for equity.
Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in his teens, Lomax founded the Washington, D.C. chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP) and organized the first African Liberation Day demonstration in 1972. A move to Oakland, California, where Lomax was unable to access public buses without being physically lifted onto them, launched his participation in the disability rights movement.

Audre Lorde (1934-1992)
Audre Lorde (1934-1992) was a “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet”, but she was also disabled. As a child in New York, she was considered legally blind due to her shortsightedness, and she would go on to write in great detail about her cancer diagnosis and treatment in later years.
Audre Lorde is remembered as a trailblazer, a hero and a phenomenally skilled writer, thinker and activist.

Barbara Jordan (1936-1996)

Donald Galloway (1938–2011)

Haben Girma (born July 29, 1988)

Tiffany Hammond

Imani Barbarin

Wesley Hamilton 1988-

Ever Lee Hairston

Lois Curtis (1967–2022)

Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977)

Leroy F. Moore Jr.

Harriet Tubman

Joyce Ardell Jackson

Anil Lewis

Claudia Gordon

Curtis Hill

Taryn Mackenzie Williams

Charlotte V. McClain-Nhlapo

Dara Baldwin

Keri Gray

Justine “Justice” Shorter

Tonier Cain

Kelechi Ubozoh

Erricka Bridgeford

Mama Cax

Andy Anderson
