Signing Black in America
Carolyn McCaskill and Ceil Lucas, Gallaudet University
Robert Bayley, University of California, Davis
Joseph Hill, National Technical Institute for the Deaf/
Rochester Institute of Technology
https://yorku.zoom.us/j/93673216031
■Early work on Black signing:
Black signs were discussed by Carl Croneberg in an appendix to Stokoe, Casterline and Croneberg’s ASL dictionary in 1965 and in James Woodward’s 1976 Language in Society article about Black Southern Signing.
■Transmission of ASL
Most Deaf children are born to hearing parents. Traditionally, residential schools are the sites where many children learn ASL.
■Segregated Deaf schools in the South
The first school in the south for Black Deaf children was founded in North Carolina in 1869. The last school to be integrated was in Louisiana, in 1978. Black and White children were segregated for more than 100 years, ample time for a separate variety to develop.