An Evening with Anita Cameron – June 27, 7pm EDT, Join Us!

 

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

We are launching the DisCoTec Center with a reading from disability justice legend Anita Cameron followed by a Q&A! Please join us!

An Evening with Anita Cameron

Moderated by Damien P. Williams

Thursday, June 27, 2024 at 7:00pm EDT on Zoom.

Registration: https://bit.ly/3Rs5pk8

Anita Cameron is a disability justice activist who has been involved in social change activism and community organizing for 42 years. She’s been arrested 140 times fighting for disability rights with ADAPT and involved with social justice work in healthcare, transportation, voting rights, emergency preparedness, representation, and LGBTQIA2S+ nondiscrimination. As a Black Disabled Lesbian, Anita’s unique intersectional perspective allows them to promote understanding among different groups of disenfranchised people.

Anita has been honored with the Autistic Self Advocacy Network’s 2017 Service to the Self Advocacy Movement, ADAPT’s 2018 Lead On Award, Rochester Museum and Science Center’s 2020 Changemaker Award, NCIL’s 2023 Corey Rowley National Advocacy Award, and she was selected in 2024 as one of 10 Black disability justice activists to receive a grant from Borealis Philanthropy’s Black Disabled Liberation Project for We Were There, Too: Blacks in the Disability Movement.

During the past month, the DisCoTec Center has been host to Anita as a virtual writer-in-residence to work on her memoir about her life, entitled Troublemaker, from which she will read this evening.

The Disability Community Technology Center (DisCoTec) is a shared set of projects and events meant to serve our broader region and disabled expertise. DisCoTec seeks to aid in developing disabled-led technology and disability-forward futures through humanities-based scholarship and justice-oriented arts outreach.

DisCoTec, our writer’s residency, this event, and much more have been made possible through generous funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation as part of the Just Dis Tech Project between University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Virginia Tech.

Please come, and please share within your networks! ASL and CART will be provided.

Anita Cameron sits proudly in her wheelchair against a dark background. They are wearing black pants and blazer and a green turtleneck.
Anita Cameron sits proudly in her wheelchair against a dark background. They are wearing black pants and blazer and a green turtleneck.

Anita Cameron is Inaugural Artist In Residence at Virginia Tech!

 

Anita Cameron is Inaugural Artist In Residence at Virginia Tech!

On June 1, 2024, I began my tenure as a Virtual Writer in Residence at Virginia Tech. The Residency will be until June 20th.

I am the first Artist in Residence at Virginia Tech’s DisCoTech Center.

I am working on my book, Troublemaker: The Life and Times of an Intersectional Activist. Each night, I work on certain topics. Actually, the book is mostly written; I wrote it back in 2016. I’m mostly updating and adding more about my childhood.

I’m working with an editor and others and will be reporting on my progress so that I can be accountable.

I will write a book proposal to be submitted to a publisher. My editor already has a notable publishing house to submit to.

At the end of the Residency, I will give a presentation where I read a polished chapter (or two) from the book. More on that soon!

Here is the link announcing my Residency, that has more information and a link to register for my talk that will be on June 27, 7:00pm-8:15pm EST. We will have CART captioning and ASL interpretation provide