36 * INSIDE DEAF CULIUKE would olheswise be dif ult or strained ina hearing school. In their “apart-ness,” schools for the deaf olfer sale harbor for deal students who find being alone—or with a small group of other deat pet s immersed among hearing peaple—too difficult io endure. Schools fo walls and inside their | have been demolished or entirely redesigned, ihe deaf in the twenty-first century carry within their aces the legacy of an older time. Buildings hopes that new spaces may lead schools to be more husriane places, The bound- of the school have become more Mlexible and porous. No Tonge are deaf children separated so severely from their families. There are experiments with educating deaf children both inside and outside schoo! walls—as in the case of deaf children who end half their day ata public school anid return to the deaf school ln Whe alternoons. Iu another experiment, Ue city of New York converted BS. 7 a formet public school for deaf children, into a fee bilingual school thet alse admins hearing children who use AG ther because their parents are deaf, or they have learned ASI. as a second language), The schoo! carries out the ideal of education ina language commumity-but does not segregate deaf children. These are tantalizing experiments because Ucy try to reconcile the bene- {lis of schools for deef children with the ideals of Lntegrauion, Deal people firmly b ‘ve in the power of education to save deaf chil: dren, 90 tbe question lingers: How can deaf children he educated within a community, a Deal people wish, without falling into the crap of the nineteenth-century asylum where their bodies are managed and rendered powerless? The answer seems almost at hand, but it requizes imagination for a new generation of deat children 2 An Entirely Separate School Just beyond the main building of the South Carolina School for the Deaf and the Blind, toward the edge of campus, there is a gently rising spot of land with low-hanging trees and a fence around iL. tt is the Cedar Springs Baptist Church cemetery. Once adjacent to the old Presbyrerian church farther down the hill, the cemetery over the years became surrounded by classroom buildings. fn existence when the school opened in 1249, dhe old family eemeter tombstones leaning to the side with faded carvings. Buried in the cemetery is the founder and first superintendent at te South Carolina Institution for the Deaf, Dumb and the Blind, Newton Pinckney Walker, who died suddenly {rout the measles in hac aged 1861, leaving his wile brielly in charge of the school. Soon after, Uaeir son returned Irom serving in the Civil War and rook over his father's position. Upon his death some fifty years later, he to was Ibnried in the cemerery.! For generations of families who lived in nearby Spartanburg, as well as devoted teachers and directors of Live sciaool, Le cemetery was thelr final resting place Behind the rows of family tombstones is less adorned section, where instead of gently hanging trees, the land is open and dotted with short bushes, This is the African-American section of the cemetery, where there lie mestly river rocks and temporary fu- necal markers where the handwritten names of the deceased have a”38 + INSIDE DEAP CULTURE faded. A few modest toinbstones stand in this section; one marks | spot of Jones Ed Mills, a laborer ay the school who drove Jawns wagon to nearby Cedar Springs each day 10 picle up and deliver the mail. Or his tombstone reeds, “In remembrance of his laithhal and love to the chileren at $.€.0. & 8.” Though there are no markers, African-American deat students were almost cer~ tainly buried here, along with other African-American residents of Cedar Springs. \der The two sides of the cemerery stand as 2 lingering rem that for most of their early history, schools for deal child the South taught their white and African-Americaa childre rately. From the middle of the ainetcenth century until desegrega- tion began in 1955, every school for te deat in the somthem states made “separate” arrangements based an race. Almost cvery south: fem state and the District of Columbia had separaie campuses for black deaf students; the rest, like Arkansas and South Carolina, hhad separaje buildings on the saine campus, In 1870, the State of Tennessee bought land adjacent to the school for the deaf for the express purpose of housing a new department; the land came with 2 former house, and some farm buildin to support a school for fifty African-American deaf children. At first, Kendall School lor the Deaf at Gallaudet University did not separate children based om rece. In 1906, however, the U.S. Con: giess, In Ly capaclty as oversight government of the District of Co: us, which were renovated lumbie, chenged policy anc disected the D.C. Board of Education to send African-American deaf chikdcen out ef stare to Balumnore at the Institute for the Colored Blind, which opened a new depact: ment lor Black deaf children.? ‘The practice of segregating by race and gender in deal schools Was followed a few years later with another type of segregation. As he oral method began 1o gaint currency in American deaf educa- Jon woward the end of the nineicenth century, schools began to place deaf children in different classrooms based on the type of ed. An Entirely Separate School + 39 cational method to be used with them. that. whether their teachers should sign (the “manual method”) or should only speak (the “oral method” |, From the earliest days of deai education, the bodies of deaf childrens have been organized lp different kinds of schemes, [rom segregation by gender, to race, to separation by ed ucational method. Today segregation by race is legal in American schools, but some schools still separate deaf childeen—by keeping children with cochlear implants in dassrooms apast from other deaf children. ‘Through the nineteenth century, It was common practice in many schools for the deaf to arrange for the burial of children wite had died while under the care of the school. The school hed already taken over all needs of the child, from buying doth for doth- ing. supplying leather for shoes, and providing meals and board at the school as well as medical care. Taking care of the body after death was e natural extension of the schowl’s responsibility. The ‘Kansas School fur the Deaf has a cemetery across the stieel and down the road. Suadents as well as teachers from the american School for the Deal arc buried in a cemetery not Jer tom the original site of the school In the nineteenth century, students who died while at school were often simply interred in nearby cemeteries In July 1863, Elizabeth Gordon, a student atthe South Carolina Austitution for the Deal, Dumb and the Blind, fell ill to “inflaryen: tory theumatisin.” By Ociober, she had succumbed. Instead of re turning her body to her family, most likely because Charleston was ‘two days’ ride from Spartanburg, she was buried in the cemetery, Note was made of her death in the school’s annual report: “An honored member of your Board conducted the burial service and, followed by her silent and sightless companions, who deeply la ment her loss, her remains were deposited in the cemetery at-40 - INSIDE DEAF CULTURE. institution, Though this child baad ached Lo dhe grounds of ae been under instruction but a few months, she gave, during her i ness, pleasing evidences that shi had obtained at least some con. ceptions of spiritual things: for but a short time prior to her death, she pinied wih her pakied and auenuated bands to the skies, saying. in signs, that she was going thither after death,” If Elizabetta Gordon’s remains were marked with a tombstone, it xno Ionger extsts, nor does a tombstone remain for James Brown, an African-American deat student who was killed in 1888 while walking along a railroad track.> The school’s annual reports until the heginning ol the twentieth century refer to deef and blind chil ed while at the school, and some, it can be surmised were buried at the Cedar Springs cemetery. As schodls extended their command over the bodies of thelr stu= dents, they began 10 delermine Liow Uhese bodies should be orga- nized within the school. The segregation of white and African: American deaf children lasted over one hundred years, from 1867 when North Carolina established a separate Deaf ane) Duan Asy- ¢ such deal school dosed in Baton lum for the Colored until the Rouge, Louisiana, in 1978. Segregating deal children was official iolicy enacted by school directors and boards, 2 course of action that would put Into motion different histories for Alrican-Amieri= can and white Deaf people in the United States. Asin ie rest of so- Gety at that time, Airican-American Deaf ten and women often could not get ube same jobs as while Deaf men and women, Deal clubs were segiegated: aloag with white Deaf clubs, where Deal people associated in the evenings and weekends away from work, there were Black Deal dubs sometinnes only few blocks away The Union League, 2 large and powerful Deaf dub in New Yor City, aggressively sought out African-American Deaf athle basketball ream. but none were permitted to join as members. The separation vas so complete for sucit a long period of time that 10 Luly day, many white Deaf people do not know where the flack ‘An Entirely Separate School = 41 Deaf clubs were in their home cities, uor where their members worked and lived, nor do they know very much about the history of deat schools for Altican Amerieans, The history of scyarate schools is one of lost lstories. Though the American Armels of the Deef and Dumb regularly maintained a censws of schools for thee deai, Black deal schools or “departments were irregularly listed, often not at all” A cambination of shame, fear, neglect, and ignorance have fed t9 a massive loss of historical records front this peri cords were destraved in a rush to end the final chapter of their his tries. As segregation ended, African-American deat students were moved to white campuses, but never were white students moved J, When the Blac schools closed, many re- to @ Black compus. In the wensition, many Alrican-Amestean teachers did not move with their students, usually because there were no jobs for them in the newly integrated schools, which meant that much of the oral history of these schools was left be ‘ind.* fixiay it is hard to find ont very auch abort the fiest Afci- can American deaf students wine came to the southern sehoaks fur the deat, We know little about who they were, how they arrived at the school, or huw they spent their days at the school. Most ot what remains today are delicate sirands of oral histories, but even. these are slow disappearing as more of the older generation of African-American Deaf students are lost. to us, Some Black deat schools report informal histories describing how parents of deaf children approached a teacher or a superin- Tendent at a white school, asking for education for their deal child but rarely do we know who they were. The lounder of the Virginia School for the Colorcu Deaf and Blind was a whiie beat man, Wile liam €. Ritter, who had bee a teacher at the Virginia School for the Deaf in Staunton. It is said that-he petitioned the state to open a separate school because @ mother approached him and asked him to teach her deat child in exchange for “doing the family washing, As @ result of this encounter, he devoted the rest af his life to the42+ INSIDE DEAP CULTURE education of Afticar-American deal children in his state Bur the names of the mother and her child have disappeared. Unlike the Jamous fast deaf stademt at the American School for the Deal at Harulord, whom we know as Allee, the daughter of Mason Cogswell, we can find no memory of the first African-American deal children in either of these schools. The lingering eifect of seg- regation on deaf education is that the bistory of the American Deaf nity is 4 splintered one, just barely held together by the lives of Alrican-American and white Deaf people, who share common sign language and the experience of living as Deal people an the same country. Tn the years immediately after the Civil War, when the countr struggled 1 reunite, there were moments of tantalizing possibility, of opportunities for a different history—where African-American and white deal children could grow up together in the same schools, But as the stories of Kendall School in Washington, D.C and South Carolina show, the forces of segregation and racism were far joo great to overcome. A nunsive enfranchisement of Atitan-Ametican voters in South Caroling alter the Civil War ended brought into power the largest pumber of African-American state representatives and senators in. the state's history. In the euphoria of relorm and the energy of its new representatives, the government struygled mightily with the difficult task of rebuilding its government and economy.” A new siate superimtendent of education, Justus K. Jillson, was appointed and charged will ihe responsibility of executing the goals of his party—io bring equality and education tw she emancipated At can-American citizens in the state. In September 1873, Jillson ‘lina School thet he had approved applica: merican deaf students to enroll there.!! As wrote to the South C tions for three Alrican stare superintendent, he also held 2 wat on the board of commis. An Patirely Separate School © 43 sioners of the South Carolina Lastitution for the Education of the Deaf and the Blind, and it was inn this capacity that he wrote to Newton Farmer Walker, who had just replaced his father as super~ imendent of the school. When Walker did aot act, he weute a sec ond time to request that the school admit African-Amer dents who had been “approved by the proper authorities here.” Jullson knew that Walker opposed the Republican parry and its ide als, so he pressed on: He told Walker that he had to not anly adinit the student, but also put Into practice the principle of canal and not separate education Jor deaf children, tis leer to Walker siands today as an early expression of the ideal of integration, one that would not become law until eighty years later, when the Supreme Court ruled in 1 4 that separate eduaation was unconstitutional write in behalfof the hoard of Comm'rs of the Beat and Dumb and tue Blind to state that Lhe following points relalive to the admission of eolored pupils inte the institution now under your supervision willbe strictly and rigidly insisted pon: 1. Colored pupils must not only be admitted into the instiution application but an earnest and feithful effort must be made to Induce such pupils w apply for admissian 2. Sucli pupils, when admitted must be domiciled in the same building, eat at the some table, must be caughe in die same class tion, care, end consideration as white pupils. by the same teachers and must receive the same atten: By the end of September 1873, Walker and each of his teachers wrote letiers to Jillson announcing that they would resign their positions. Ackaowledging their resignations, Jillson required iat Walker rn aver all accounting books related to the operation of the school to his office in Columbia, an act that effectively closed down the school.) But Jillson and his party’s control of the South Carojina government was briel: Within three years, Tillson’s party was defvated in elections, and he was forced trom office Fora brie! momeat following ihe Civil War, the Republican-ledINSIDE DEAE CULTURE legislature in South Carolina fought to enact a new state constitu. Linn that would guarantee the rights of African-American voters. create an equal public education system, and bring labor rights to newly emancipated slaves. The constitutional effort would have guaranteed Inuegratcd education for Aftican-American aud witte deal children, but despite this axempr, the legilature’s brief suc- cesses would be undene by what South Carolina historian Walter Edgar called an “unrelenting nine-year war to overthrow the Re construction regime."H1 Another historian of the South, James Underwood, aptly describes the efforts of Iillson and the Republi cans a the “first Reconstruction.” which would succeed in grat ing Alfican-American men the right to yotc, but would fall nearly all other respects, It would take a “second Reconstruction Or the civil rigits batiles oF the 1950s and 1960s, co finally brin abou etna education, peotection of voting rights, and equal treat ment of Black citizens under the lav" With the Republicans overthrown and L im South Carolina, the South Carolina School reopened in 1879. ‘and Newton F. Walker and his sialf were reappointed by the newly stalled board of commissioners. The board decreed the schoo! restored as operating under the same provisions as before, and decided that no Altican-American deaf children could be admitted until the slate provided additional funds to support them. Tn 1883, funds weve Binally authorized, and the school opened its fast dass of AF ricon-American deaf children. Jessie Anderson, Jt, the son of 3 former slave, was me af the first to enroll. Ie had lost his hear- fee from meningitis, and at that time had been liv ing at age d ing with bis family in Newberry, about filty-five miles east of Spar- Ianburg, Jessie came to the South Carolina School at age nine, nil remained une years until ke Tele in 1886. For Jessie aud he other African-American deaf students, the hoard designated “the wooden building known as the old hotel situated near to the spring be set apart for the use andl oceupation of colored deaf and dumly and blind pupils." An Fnively Separate School > aS ‘The ole! hotel. dating from before the Cedar Springs property and barely suitable for habitation. but its main quality was that it was at a distance from the main building. Though Use old hotel and the grand main hall were only about wo hundred feet apart, there was a thick grove ol luces scporating tent, shielding wien from each other. Walker sought to reassure the legislature that he had indeed carried out the wishes of the new government end that h ment was was purchased for a sebool, was decrepit colored depast propriately segreyated, because it “occupies a hutise some distance from the main building, and although, under the sare general management, is an entirely separate school.” AS Lhe twentieth century approached, segregation became en- acted in public institutions. Deat schools joined the practice and began to put into place a complicated systern of classification that would divide deal children ine uultiple categorivs of disunction The South Carolina School had already had wo categories ol students, the deaf and the blind, Walker found shostly after he opened his new schex hat he was receiving applications from 15, He knew he could persuade the state 1 provide funding Jor lind students as well as deal if he represented bath as 8 category of children suffering trom sensory lass. and the school as an institution responsible for the pitiable and afilicted Indeed, he was successful, ay were supevinucndents in many other parents of blind studer states; many schools had both deaf and blind departments. With his budget augmented, Walker bized a new teacher and bought equipment and books for the blind.22 Despite being housed on the same campus, children were always separate Irom Ue start; Deal siucients were taught in sign language and blind students were taught music. At South Cerolina, as at otler schuols for dhe deat and the blind, the blind and deaf teachers of the different departnienis were eltlaer dedicated to mu Sic or 10 speech training and sign language, but never did they teach in both departments. Blind students were never taught sign language even though there was the possibility of reaching ther a46 + INSIDE DLAE CULTURE ost part, the two groups could not tactile sign Janguage. For the 0 communicate with each other The Introduction of race expanded the classifteation scheme. Geoflrey Bowker and Susan Leigh Star describe che practice ul classification as not merely forraing absiract semantic distinctions, but as materially enacted, a “spatial, temporal or spatio-temporal segmentation of the world." When Alrican-American children enrolled at the South Carelina School lar the Deaf and the Blind, the categories uf race needed to be mapped onto the existing struc- lure of Lwo separate cepariments for the different cisabilities, deat and blind. since deaf and blind students were already housed mm. different wings of dhe main building, race had 10 be added 10 the cenisting spatialized scheme. The solution was to further subdivide fhe school into four separate categories, or “departments”: two for Mirican-American and white deaf children, and two for African American and white blind children, ‘lo match the new physical ar- rangements, new teachers were hired for each department, for the African-American deaf and African-American blind departments, and yeperate Cassrooms and sleeping and eating quarters were desiguatcd ay well maintaining the system quickly grew costly As can be imagin ‘Over the next years, Walker would submit repeated requests for more funds: “To the casual observer our coxps of teachers and of- licers nay appear large for the number of pupilsin attendance but ik must be remembered that we not only have two separate and distinct departments of the deaf... .and che blind, respectively, but lwo subdivisions of these, one for the whites and one for the col- red, thus giving us four distinct schools under one gene1al man~ agement The state legislature, grappling with a depressed state ceonmy, balked at giving more funds to the sehoal until 1900, when it finally appropriated funds for a new building for the “colored” de- paruneal. By then, the African-American deat students were liv ing in a building that Walker complained was “unsightly, insecure An Entieely Separate School = 47 ond very dangerous ... a very old wooden structure... lighted by lamps and candles,” unlike the comparatively better furnished main building for whi stalled with electricity. Racialiring dealness |and blindness). or institutionalizing dls. Unctivns based on race, wititin an already small population of chile © studemts, which had recently been in- dren, was to institute a crippling legacy ot economic and social inequity. Deaf children alseady segregated in asylums and insite tions would be further segregated {rom within, cleatinyg categories, each with different standards. At the South Carolina School, white students lived in a new building, but the African-Amesican deaf students lived in older, deerepit quarters without elecaicity. Mu, Boney, a teacher in the Black department in South Carolina in 1890, was paid $180 yearly salary, but Miss Ballard, a teacher of ar- Hulation i the white department, was paid significantly more at $500.a yous” And though they lived on a school campus, African. American deaf students often did manual labor, driving mules and working on the small farm nearby, while whi lieved of these responsibilities» students were re. In addition to race and sensory condition. many schools for the deaf in the lete nineteenth century introduced yet another cate- sory, separating signing Deal children from those who were taugiit in the “oral” method, or the exclusive use of speech training Thongh there had been seeds of the oral moverent in deaf schouls earlier in the nineteenth century, it did not become an organized and visible movement until the 1870s and 1880s, when propo: ents of the methed gained greater intluence.® In 1820 when the Tennsylvania Institution for the Deal and Dumb apened its doors, use of sign Jengunage by its studenis and cachers was accepted as 3 primary mode of instruction, but by the turn of the century, the ‘same school had changed couse and revised the school’s teaching, methods in favor of the oral approach” Oralists, as they came: 148 > INSIDE DEAF CULTURT cong weapon in their arsenal: the be called at the tisne, had ¢ jvocate Alexander Graham Bell, who highly visible and vocal « wducation as a personal cause, in part because he had ‘al wile Bell argued thar the manual ap- ach was “hackwaris,” and harkened (0 a primitive age whe humans used gesture and pantomime. He believed that teaching speed to deaf students would free them from he confinement of ‘heir ited worlds, and enable them 10 move more freely anon rook on deat and a de a deaf moth hearing people2* For eases thal Douglas Baynton argues hed a great deal 16 de with a Laseination with scientific methods and rational practices, the oral philosophy spread quickly to deaf schvols throughout the country. Schools increasingly replaced their older teaches with ed more on scientific and rational oul curricula turned more 10 training aad lipreading stalt whose training approaches Lo education, Se inediods of dilfereut types, with speech-readir added co vocational education. By the end of the century, the oral would overtake most schools fur the deal in the eoun. try, with neatly 40 percent ofall deaf students reported to be ed «din the oral method. By 1920, che number increaseil even more dramatically. ib 80 percent. In his annual plea for funds 10 the South Carolina state legislature in 1890, Newton Farmer Walker added that he wes obligaicd to support not only tour “dis Inci schools under one management,” but also “two subdivisions end manual.” By 1881, the superintendent of the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, AL. E. Crmter, became convinced that separation of stu ents by teaching method led to better results. Learning to speak required complete devotion and absence of distraction from sign language. Ifthe school tried to keep signing siudemts sepazate hom ial students, Grouier believed, speaking students could Focus on he task at hand and perform bette Uf the legacy of the early nine ment of the centralized asylum, the l snth century was the establish acy of the late nineteenth An Entirely Separate Sdhaol © 49 century was the proliferation of distinctions and segregations within the asylum: first by gender, chen by race end language When the Pennsylvania Institution for the Deal and Dumb moved to a new campus in the Philadelphia suburh of Mount Airy in 1892, the opportunity was taken to redesign the organization of the school: “The requirements to be met wer general division of the two systems of teaching (oral / manual) therefore, first, 3 secondly, a separation of the younger from the older pupils: thirdly, in each of these sections, 2 division by sex, and finally in each of these resultant pants, a sill further division into stall gromps and families to facilitate supervision,” To cerry out theli goal, the Pennsylvania Institution for the Deal and Dumb “vevided to erect four depantment buildings... the advanced, intermediate, primery and cral departments, each complete in itsell. with irs own dining-rooms, dormitories. assembly rooms, play grounds. ete and with its own school-house in the tear" Like the Feansylvania Institution for the Deal and Dumb, many Schools reorganized their campuses to accuanravdate the growing, popularity of the ozal method, but the reality was that the dea! stu- dents often defeated the best efforts of their teachers. In some schools the separation was hand 1a enforce, liecause students in the oral and manual departments interacted with each other in spaces eway from ihe classroom, and in the hours after school ended Playgrounds, dormitories, anit dining halls were sometimes as dlosely supervised as classrooms, but many Limes not, Despite the best efforts of school administrators, sign language continued to be used. often furtively, among students, and even among some teachers with their students But there were places where the separation was toral, as in the ‘ase of “purely oral” schools sucht as the Clarke School founded in Northamptm, Massachusctss, In 1867, where use of sign language was prohibited throughout school grousids. No doubt the oral movement had a deep effect on the geography of American Sign Language at the beginning of the wentieth centary, with some50 © INSIDE DEAF CULTURE deaf children able to associate with deaf children in other schools, through use of sign language. while others were kept entirely iso lated {ron sign language. It shoul he recognized thal separations by educational philoyoplyy did not divide deat people from onc ati other as deeply and ay insidiously as did race. Students in gral and sigaing departments could, and ofien did, seek out cach other out side the restrictions of the classrooms, bur racism kept white and Alriean American deal children more completely apart. A white Deal student who graduared from the South Caro. Jina School in 1954 remembers that while there, she almost never spake t the Alriean-American Deal stadents because she kept herself strictly separate trom them. At his and other deat schools hroughout the South, there were separaie docmiteries, diflerent teachers and administrators, even separate graduation ceremonies. Sick children uid not visit hie same inflmmary; there way a separate Bleck infirmary. Their movernenty on campus through the day fol- owed different paths, She remembers the grove of trees separating the white and Black sections of campus as 0 dark curtain though which she was afraid to travel When M. I. Bienvens, a the Deal in Baton Roiige. first net Joe Sarpy. an acclaimed actor in the National Theatre of the Deaf, she discovered to her surprise thet be too bad graduated from the Louisiana School for the Deaf she same year she did In 1970, yetshe did not know him, He was @ ate of the Black deat school across towa, the Loutsiana rraduate of the Louisiana Sehool lor School for the against every other white school for the deaf in the South, but ever onec against the Black deaf sciaoel in the same city. When 2 lull history is written of Black deaf sehook, the story of the dillerent schools will he enriched with detail. Not all Black schools for the deaf were alike, While sorte schools subdivided their campus as did South Caroling and Arkansas, other schools, merlean deaf students (0 a different campus. Colored Deal and Blind. Her school played sports moved the Abic An Entirely Separate School © 51 When the North Carolina School for the Deal in Raleigh found itself receiving applications to admit Africar- American deaf chil- Uren, the directors of the school decided they would look for sepa rate quaners for the children belore accepting then. They peti- Hloned 10 the Freedian’s Bureau bat received only a commitment to improve a building in addition to seme support for sincents Two years later, in 1869, the state agreed to fund a separaie Black deal department, and nearly thisty students were admitted > few years later, the stare appropriated funds to move the white deaf children to a separate canipus in Morganton, North Carolina, some two hundred smiles west."* Thus Nonh Carolina joiacd West Virginia: Washington, D.C; Mexyland; Louisiana; Virginia; Ala bama: Horida: Georgia: Kentucky; Mississippi: North Corolina, Te nessec: and Texas in having “dual,” entirely separate, campuses lor Aftican-American anid white deaf children Feest Hairston atienited a separate campus in West Virginia. Deatened from spinal meningitis at the age of live-ond-e-hall Emes'’s mother heard about the West Virginia Institute for the Colored Deaf and Blind from a relative, and enrolled herson there When he arrived in 1946 at the age of seven, there were about 131) students, mostly deaf with a smaller blind department. He reme ber not heing expecially homesick at his new school because he auickly made friends—indeed. more friends than he had had in his small hometown, Located near Charleston, the institute was adja cent (0 an Alrican-American college, West Virginia State College, and during his years there, he would be educated by African: American teachers whe had been trained at the college. His voca- tional raining in ba:bcring and telloring were aught by men wih ‘owned shops in Charleston. The mornings were devoted 10 aca- demic taining, and in the alternoons, the boys took up barherin upholstery, 1 sirls took beauty culiure. cooking, sewing, pressing, oF typing. Bar bering was lavored by boys, who liked the idea of the relative inde iloring, “pressing” (deycleaning), or shoe repair. TheINSIDE DEAT CULTURE pendence of awning one’s awn barher shop. Specially skilled bays could work on the upholstery deparunent at West Virginia State College, In this sense, ihe Black deaf school was very much 2 pant of the African-American community of Charleston, a quality Hairston feels made this Black deaf school different [rom ethics Hairston rememibieis thet the houseparents and teachers lived in the students’ dormitory, in rooms benween the girls” and the boys’ ‘wing of the building. In her memoir about growing up African. American and deaf in the South, Mary Herring Wright remembers with fondness the teachers and school principals who lived of campus with the students at the North Carolina School for the Colored Deaf and Blind at Kaleigh. She also remembers many tn teractions between deaf and blind students ox tke campus, as does Hairston who credits 2 partislly blind student with teaching fim the alphabet when he frst azvived at the West Virginie Sehpol.% I sould seem that in some Black deaf schools, the: separation be: ween blind and deaf students was not as yawningly wide as it was tat Black dleet schools were more likely 10 be manual schools, and the azal fn some white school campuses. Baynton also Linds philosophy was not enforced as striclly ay it was In many white deal schools.” As theswories of dilfezent schools come together, we an start 10 assemble a composite history of deaf children: that ae: Knowledges the effects of classification by rave and language, ‘The end to segregated schools for deat children came slowly and unevenly. After the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v Raard of Faw cation (1954) thal separate education for African-American chil cen was discriminatory and unconstitutional, only a few separate schools closed immediately. Mast schools tok longer to Integrate, ‘The West Virgiola School was oue of the Hest wo comply and closed # Helrsion and his classmates ity doors just one year later, in 19) moved lo the white school campus in Romncy as he started high school. Many African-American teachers at his school did not 1s; some because they had homes and family mave with the sth An Entirely Seperate School + 53 in Charleston and did not want to relocate, but others because the school at Rommey did not have jabs for them. Tn his history of the integration o the North Carolina schools for the deaf, the former prindipal of the Black schoo! in Raleigir writes with some lingering bbittemess about the year his schol closed in 1971, when it “was only a shell of what once had been, Integration had arrived, anc we were benefiting, but segregation on a local level was still alive and well, atid had been its usual pattern, cominuing to disrupt and damage human lives, both Black and White." invatiably, Black schools were tlie ones to close in the meve toward integration: African-American students and their teachers were relocated to white schocls, but never white students tw Black campuses. As AF rican-American students moved 10 thelr mew schools or depart ments, theit teachers and principals lost much of their former sta- tus and, more often, thei: jobs. In 1952, aller a long legal battle, the parents of Africen-Amct can deaf students in the Disirier of Columbia successfully won ent onder to force Kendall School on the Gallaudet campus to admit cir children instead of sending themn to Baltimore to the Mary- land lnstitute** Predating the Brown v. Beard of tau tim ruling of 1954, this decision did not spccitivally address segregated educa- tion, only that cach state and the Disirict of Columbia were obli- gated 19 educate children within their boundaries, The parenis were within their 1 hts to insist that as residents of the Distciet of Columbia, their childeen should be educated there, At first Gallaudet resisted admitting the students, claiming that “no faci ties were available on campus for them,” and that there were “no ‘qualified Negro teachers to teach them."** Under pressure, Kendall School admitted the Afticau-Auerican students but housed them ina separate building, an old gym. The students had litle interac Gon with white students, traveling to and from campus not in a schoo! bus with other students, but on contract with Yellow Cab. In a chronicle of the struggle 10 integrate, the former teachers of54> INSIDE RAP CULTURE the “Division! 2," or the Black department of Kendall Scitool. de: seribe how heir teaching facilities were clearly less ideal, and how. the administration's eiforts to Keep African-American deaf chil: dren, their teachers, and their families separate from the white de- partment continued even alter the African-American deal students were admitted to Kendall? Aller the West Virginia School for the Colored Deaf and Blind closed in 1855, other schoo! ‘ined separate deparuancnts and campuses until as late as 1978, when the Louisiana Schou! for the Colored Deaf and Blind finally closed followed suit. but some states main in Baton: Rouge. Former students at the West. Virginia School lor the Colared Deaf and Blind were mailed a leticr ex- plaining that the school’s records were about to be destroyed. and they had a final opportunity t0 ask for their owa records. But lew responded: it seemed inconsequential 10 ask for one's records from so long ago. Individually, the records 1cll a story: together they would cell a richer story, but uiey are mostly gone, The former su- perinicndent of the white campus in Baton Rouge remembers that after the schools were integrated, the remaining records of Ue Black school were pack -4 into a single trunk and shipped to the white campuss—signifying a melancholy ending to this chapter of history, Thew are lingering lessons to be learned from the history of white and Black deaf schools, the most impertant of which Is the deep in- finence th: political forces in the larger society eau impose on mi- nority cultures, Fist, in the ease ef Deal people, the effects of one hundred years of segregation were broad and deep. Even as white deaf childyen did not always reccive the education they deserve, African-American deat children in many cases received an even more inferior education. Segregation of deat children by race as sring children ted to unequal cducation. Further- more, the social inequities persisted after deaf children lett school An Entirely Separate School > $5 Deaf clubs. which grew in nu the twentieth century, often enforced strict segregation; African American Deaf men and women could not become members of ‘white clubs, Infocmal networks of iriends and associates were also separate: white Deaf men helped cach other get jobs whea they heard of openings at the Goodyear Aiscralt Company In Akron, Ohio, bue they did not extend the same netwouk to Alricant-Ameri- can Deaf men, Second, the imposition of vategories (deaf, hard of heati mber and prominence at the warn of oral, manval, Black, white) separated deaf children into overly small communities, dramatically increasing the cost of educating them. In Lhe late nineteenth century, segregation was seen as a solution to the problew of deafness and race, IL Is now against the law 10 segregate Alviver separating deaf children on the basis of other cheracteristies con Atacrican and white children, but the practice of tinues today, In some public sehools, parents who want theis deaf children educated orally can insist that they attend classrooms sep. arate from Dest children who sigan. Same schools will likewise honor requesis by parents of children with cochlear implants 1 ‘educate their children separately so that they can receive special- ining In speech without interference from sign language, eed The impulse 10 segregate deaf childien from owe another by some dimension—oral versus toral communication, signing versus implanted—is a stubboraly persistent one. And in the twenty-first century asin the nineteenth century, making educational divisions based on cat children into smaller groups must find space and funding for each ciflerent program, from “otal communication,” witch permits {ory is expensive. Public schools that subdivide deat signing, 1 cochlear implant elassrooms, which emphasize speak- ing, increasing the overall cost of educating them and running the real risk that some will he inadequarely funded, ‘Today African-American and white Deal people are members of Lhe same professional organizations; oral and signing Deal people who once attended different schools and programs as children now56 INSLDE DEAF CULTURE zncel Logether on common ground as adults. Even today, deaf edil- dren who attend separate classrooms in public schools still find ach other on the playground, or socialize after school, The separa fous are, on one level, artificial aiid difficult 1p enforce ance ciuil- dren are adulis. Yer such separations create deeply conflicted histo- ries across dilferent groups of Deaf penp In recent years, Deal people of various ethnicities have brought their cule 1 the American Deaf community. Deal people of Mexican heritage often maintain their bilingualism in AST. and Mexican Sign Lan of the boner, viewing themselves nol only as muttiingual (hey know wettten Spanish and English), but multicultural as well. In souther Califurnis, Deaf churches are altended by recent immi- rants [rom Asia as well ay Mexico, and though serviees are held in SL, members of the congregation converse among theruselves using multiple sign languages. True, the Deal community grows lage and travel Trequently across both sides more diverse, but its diversity is still managed: While there is no longer segregation by ethnicity or race, there are still ether kinds of segrcgations that are permitted, such as by educational philesop hy of language preference, Even in the highly contested area o bilin- gual education, no one would propose that children from Spanish- speaking amilies be prevented from hearing or using Spanish » teach them English, but the prracice: of preventing deaf children from seeing or using sign lenguage is pe initted, even encouraged, by some educators who believe there is, while at school in oud no other eilective ws to teach them to speak English. The reason why deal children are treated so severely must he re- lated (o their Iong history as bodies under the control of institu- tions. This history of deai children being cntircly and completely assigned 19 institutions, from the me they are admitted as stu cents to the time they die and ave buried in cemeteries within the walls of the institution, smust represent an enduring belief that deat childrens’ bodies do not belong to anyunu: but uacir caretakers, The Problem of Voice Some of the very first films made in America featured an elephant two men rating pies, Italians eating macaroni—and a Deal woman reciling the “Siar Spangled Banner" in sign language. Dated 1962 the signing film was among a collection of short segments made by Hdison to demonstrate the potential of “moving picture Thom films." Previously, film could only be viewed through a pecy 4h had among its drawbacks the lini tation that only one person vould view the film at a time. By 1896, deviee, oF “kinietoseape,” wh a projection-zype device called 3 *vitasenpe” was developed thar allowed moving picture images to be displayed onto a sereen, wid toning lle audience for Edison's new medium. It is easy 16 imagine why Edison chose a Deal woman as one of his frst subjects for projected Lnages. Through sign language, Bison could show the potential of film to communicate and w show ihe boxy and hands in movement, The vitaseope was immediately successful and within a year, over a hundred such projectors were in use throughout the country, featuring films for information and enter cainment.! A scarce ten years after the invention of cinema, the Nation: Association of the Deaf (NAD) undertook ta make “moving picture lms" of their own that would he used to advance the goals af the organization, to promote sign language, and to spread Lhe voles of 37Carol Padden Tom Humphries INSIDE DEAF CULTURE