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Abstract
As the black and deaf coauthors of The Hidden Treasure of Black ASL: Its History and Structure, Joseph Hill and Carolyn McCaskill reflect on their journey from the origin of the Black ASL project to the publication of The Hidden Treasure and beyond. Their reflections offer intimate details about and insights into the importance of the Black ASL project, issues in the black Deaf community, and challenges that lie ahead in expanding the black Deaf literature.
IN THIS PIECE are the reflections of Dr. Carolyn McCaskill and Dr. Joseph Hill as black Deaf university professors on their journey with the Black ASL project. They collaborated with two other researchers, Dr. Ceil Lucas of Gallaudet University and Dr. Robert Bayley of the University of California at Davis, from 2007 to 2011 in the publication of The Hidden Treasure of Black ASL: Its History and Structure (with accompanying DVD). In fact, Hidden Treasure is the first sociohistorical and linguistic study of the African American variety of ASL, a variety that was developed as a result of the widespread racial segregation in the South. Dr. McCaskill offers her perspective as a former black Deaf student who attended both segregated and integrated residential schools in the South during and after the segregation era, and Dr. Hill offers his as a black Deaf person who began his education in the mainstream educational setting in the Midwest three decades after the landmark civil rights case of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. McCaskill and Hill close the article with their thoughts on the future of research on the black Deaf community.
Origin of the Black ASL Project
McCaskill: In 2005 I became involved with the Black ASL project when Dr. Ceil Lucas and I met one day after I had successfully defended my dissertation, "The Education of Black Deaf Americans in the 20th Century: Policies and Implications for Administrators in Deaf Schools." The dissertation covered the experiences of former students, faculty, and staff at a few of the eighteen segregated schools for deaf students in the South. Dr. Lucas was present at my dissertation defense and proposed that we do a joint research project on a sign language variety used at the segregated schools. It took three tries...