Nothing About Us, Without Us! - Interview with Leroy Moore

I originally published this in Left Turn Magazine, October 2007.

Leroy F. Moore, Jr. is a radical Black organizer in the disability and racial justice movements. He works with Disability Advocates of Minorities Organization, Poor Magazine, and Harambee Educational Council, an organization for parents, advocates and young adults focused African Americans with disabilities. Long a fixture in the anti-police brutality and homelessness efforts nationwide; he is now taking on the hip-hop industry with a groundbreaking compilation of disabled rappers: Krip-Hop. He is also a member of the Molotov Mouths Outspoken Word Troupe.

Leroy

LT: Tell me a little bit about your background, what led to your politicization?

LM: I was born with cerebral palsy into a family that was and still are activists. My father was a Black Panther and my mother was an independent thinker. I had no choice but to be an activist.

My experiences in both communities-Black and Disabled, and how they treated, or better yet, not treated both of my identities gave me a real eye-opener on how society treats Blacks and other people of color with disabilities.

Racism in the disability movement and services for people with disabilities became clear when I was mainstreamed from my all Black Special Education class to a majority White non-disabled mainstream class. From that point onward, I had the question of race and disability in my head.

LT: You talk about the “intersection of race and disability” How exactly are these entwined? Some present disability as color-blind, something that could happen to anybody.

LM: The reality of race and disability has been with us since day one. Disability is a part of our fabric of our being, just like race, all the way back to Moses. People of color have found themselves in situations where the onset of disability is delivered by the oppressive society we live in. From robbing the land from Native Americans to slavery to the Tuskagee Experiment, to today’s budget cuts in mental health, hospitals, and the violence we seemed to live in at home and abroad, this country’s action and policies have helped increase disability in POC communities.