Published February 18. 2021 10:54AM
Erik Caswell, Special to The Times
Each year, Deaf History Month is observed from March 13 until April 15 to highlight three key dates in deaf history. Despite being a relatively overlooked month in the public imagination, one of those key dates holds local significance.
Deaf History Month begins by commemorating the March 13, 1988, Deaf President Now movement’s successful push to make I. King Jordan the first deaf president of Gallaudet University, the world’s only university specifically for students who are deaf or hard-of-hearing.
Another key date Deaf History Month recognizes is April 8, 1864, when President Abraham Lincoln signed the charter for Gallaudet University in Washington D.C., more than 100 years before that university had its first deaf president.
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Published February 03. 2021 2:32PM
Robert F. Welt, Special to The Times
Early in my teaching career, the guidance department placed a new kid in my seventh grade social studies class, a child who turned out to be a delightful little girl and a pleasure to add to my class list.
They told me that she was hard of hearing, had a tutor, had learned lip-reading, and that my class was chosen because I lived near the Oral School.
While I’m not sure their criteria for classroom placement would stand up to educational scrutiny, they were correct in the fact that I had and did live near the Oral School. In fact, the front yard of the school faced my backyard.
Black, Deaf and Extremely Online
On TikTok and in virtual hangouts, a younger generation is sharing the origins and nuances of Black American Sign Language, a rich variation of ASL that scholars say has been overlooked for too long.
Nakia Smith’s popular TikTok videos celebrate the history of Black American Sign Language and delight in its divergences from standard American Sign Language.Credit.JerSean Golatt for The New York Times
Published Jan. 23, 2021Updated March 25, 2021
“I have to make sure my hands are not ashy before I sign,” Nakia Smith, who is deaf, explained to her nearly 400,000 followers.
In one of the dozens of popular videos she posted to TikTok last year, Ms. Smith compared her habit of adding a quick dab of lotion to her hands before she starts signing to the sip of water a hearing person takes before beginning to speak.
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