Leroy F. Moore, a poet, activist and founder of the Krip-Hop Institute, will be the featured speaker at the next Disability Studies Lecture, set on Monday, March 11.

 “Building Black Krip Radical Tradition from Past to Present” will be presented at 10:30 a.m. Free and open to the public, register online to receive the Zoom link to Moore’s talk.

The Disability Studies Lecture Series provides access to world-class scholarship and expertise in the vital multi-disciplinary field of critical disability studies. The aim of the series is to increase disability literacy in our communities and to enrich our own scholarship, creativity, and activism by engaging with new ideas in disability theory, history, culture, and the arts.

Moore, who was born with cerebral palsy, has spoken twice to the CSUSB community. He was the keynote speaker for the 5th Annual Disability Awareness Fair in May 2020 and was a panelist for a Conversations on Race and Policing program in September 2020.

His March 11 talk will examine the following: “Can Black disabled people in history and today add to Black Radical Tradition from Harriet Tubman to Elias Hill to Cecil Ivory to Brad Lomax to Fannie Lou Hamer to Al Hibbler to Blues disabled musicians to the real Jim Crow to internationally like Margret Hill in London to Shelly Black in South Africa to today's Black disabled movement in Brazil?  How do we learn and Krip the Black radical tradition?”

Moore’s Krip-Hop Institute seeks to “educate the music, media industries and general public about the talents, history, rights and marketability of Hip-Hop artists and other musicians with disabilities,” the institute website states. “Krip-Hop main objective is to get the musical talents of hip-hop artists with disabilities into the hands of media outlets, educators, and hip-hop, disabled and race scholars, youth, journalists and hip-hop conference coordinators.”

Moore was born in 1967 in New York City, and, in addition to being the founder of the Krip-Hop Institute, he chairs the Black Disabilities Studies Committee for the National Black Disability Coalition and the cofounder of Sins Invalid.  Moore is an activist, writer, poet, rapper, feminist, and radio programmer. Moore wrote for I.D.E.A.L. Magazine, and since the 1990s, has written the column "Illin-N-Chillin" for POOR Magazine.

As a youth, Moore discovered that most people had little knowledge of the historical impact of disabled African Americans. This led him to begin research, initially in the music industry, and to promote artists with disabilities for broader inclusion. Moore is a leading activist on issues of wrongful incarceration and police brutality against people with disabilities.

Upcoming presentations, all on Zoom at 10:30 a.m. Pacific Time, are:

The first presentation by Sir Tom Shakespeare can be viewed on YouTube at “Disability Studies Lecture: When Disability Is the Norm, Not the Exception.”
For more information, visit the Disability Studies Lecture Series webpage.