The National Black Disability Coalition

“The National Black Disability Coalition (NBDC) is a response to the need for Blacks with Disabilities in America to organize around issues of mutual concern and use our collective strength to address disability issues with an emphasis on people who live in poverty.”

 Their goals are to:

To promote UNITY among Black people with disabilities, their families and communities

To advance EQUITY within the disability movement and communities

To foster OPPORTUNITY for Black people with disabilities

The NBDC believes that Black people with disabilities must unite to obtain and secure the rights and privileges of full participation in their communities.  Using strategies from the civil rights movement, NBDC seeks to achieve collective power and inclusion for Black people with disabilities within their families, faith organizations and the greater disability community.

Reverend Calvin Peterson is the Chair for the National Black Disability Coalition.  He has been a spiritual and a social activist for people with disabilities living in poverty throughout his professional career.  Rev. Peterson is a licensed and ordained minister in the AME church and a lectual at the Interdenominational Theological Seminary in Atlanta Georgia. 

In 1970 Rev. Peterson founded Disabled in Action, a nonprofit organization that addresses issues of disparities of people with disabilities living in poverty.  Rev. Peterson was the first Black person with a disability appointed to the Atlanta Disabled Task Force and the first Black person with a disability to run for the Public Service Commission in Georgia.  He was also appointed to the Georgia Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities.