Diversifying Deaf History

In 2011, Carolyn McCaskill et al. published a study of Black American Sign Language (Black ASL or BASL).The authors highlighted the fact that, just as Hearing Black Americans have an idiom and culture that is clearly distinctive from the "White mainstream," Black Deaf Americans have such a separate idiom and culture as well, only that theirs is purely visual.We still know little about this visual Black Deaf culture and its history.In this article, I provide a much-needed overview of Black Deaf history from the U.S. Civil War to the present day that connects the available, somewhat scattered pieces of information.Proceeding chronologically, I focus on major stages of development, including, first of all, the role of segregated schools for the deaf in the U.S. South between the 1860s and 1970s.Moreover, I examine the unique contributions of Black Deaf Americans to the Civil Rights Movement since the 1950s and point to the rising self-awareness of Black Deaf people in the course of the 1960s and 1970s, which culminated in 1980 in the establishment of a national interest group, the National Black and Deaf Advocates (NBDA).In moving along, I contextualize Black Deaf role models like Black Deaf missionary Andrew Foster.I close by exploring how the Internet has opened up new opportunities for spreading Black Deaf group awareness as a basis for studying Black Deaf culture and history further

Black women · Ethnic group · Period (music) · Present day · Race (biology) · Diverse Musicological Studies · Hearing Impairment and Communication · Hearing, Cochlea, Tinnitus, Genetics

• Understanding Deaf Culture

  Paddy Ladd•Understanding Deaf Culture•2003

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• A Place of Their Own

  John Vickery Van Cleve, Barry A Crouch•Ear and Hearing•1989

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• Deaf Persons of Asian American, Hispanic American, and African American Backgrounds

  S Foster•The Journal of Deaf Studies and…•2003

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