Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has inspired many with his words.
Today, as we close Black History Month 2020,we hope to inspire even more dreams with this rendition of his “I Have a
Dream” speech in American Sign Language by #GallaudetU student JC Smith.
The 1963 March on Washington and Dr. King’s speech led to
the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965,
and forever changed the course of United States history.
Dr. King’s dream was racial justice and equality. At
#GallaudetU, our dream is a world where where Deaf people are seen as whole and
greatly valued for their global contributions, and where the #SigningEcosystem
grows and thrives. Please watch this video and dream with us!
#CelebratingBlackHistoryMonth
**** Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post presents a rendition of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's "I Have A Dream" speech in American Sign Language (ASL).
Information about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is also included in this post along with a hyperlink of a film clip of the actual speech that Dr. King Jr gave at the 1963 March On Washington.
This post also includes information about Gallaudet University.
The content of this post is presented for historical, cultural, and inspirational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr for his legacy. Thanks to JC Smith and other Gallaudet University students for this video. Thanks to all those who are associated with the other videos that are featured in this post and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post as well as the publishers of these two videos on YouTube.
Thanks also to Alexis for sharing this video with my daughter who then shared it with me.
**** INFORMATION ABOUT DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr. "Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15,
1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist who became
the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1955
until his assassination in 1968. King is best known for advancing civil rights
through nonviolence and civil disobedience, inspired by his Christian beliefs
and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi. He was the son of early civil
rights activist Martin Luther King, Sr..
King participated in and led marches for blacks' right to
vote, desegregation, labor rights, and other basic civil rights.[1] King led
the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and later became the first president of the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As president of the SCLC, he led
the unsuccessful Albany Movement in Albany, Georgia, and helped organize some
of the nonviolent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama. King helped organize
the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous "I Have a
Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial."...
**** INFORMATION ABOUT GALLAUDET UNIVERSITY From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallaudet_University "Gallaudet University[a] /ˌɡæləˈdɛt/ is a federally chartered
private university for the education of the deaf and hard of hearing. It is
located in Washington, D.C., on a 99-acre (0.40 km2) campus.[6]
Founded in 1864, Gallaudet University was originally a
grammar school for both deaf and blind children. It was the first school for
the advanced education of the deaf and hard of hearing in the world and remains
the only higher education institution in which all programs and services are
specifically designed to accommodate deaf and hard of hearing students. Hearing
students are admitted to the graduate school and a small number are also
admitted as undergraduates each year. The university was named after Thomas
Hopkins Gallaudet, a notable figure in the advancement of deaf education.
Gallaudet University is officially bilingual, with American
Sign Language (ASL) and written English used for instruction and by the college
community. Although there are no specific ASL proficiency requirements for
undergraduate admission, many graduate programs require varying degrees of
knowledge of the language as a prerequisite.[7] It is classified among
"R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".[8]"... **** RELATED HYPERLINK
I have a dream- Martin Luther King and the March on Washington in full HD Framepool
This pancocojams post showcases a video blog by De'Angelo Brown, a Deaf man who shares some remembrances of his childhood and teenage years. In this vlog De'Angelo Brown encourages families to be more supportive of their Deaf children than his family was.
This post also features a few comments from this video's discussion thread.
****
The content of this post is presented for cultural and educational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to De'Angelo Brown for sharing his remembrances with us and thanks also for his advocacy on behalf of Deaf people. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to De'Anglo Brown for publishing this vlog on YouTube.
****
SHOWCASE VIDEO LOG (VLOG)- What is it like to be DEAF?
Iamdeffamilia, Feb 20, 2013
Hi! My name is De'Angelo Brown.
Thanks for watching!
[...]
This VLOG is to educate the hearing people and help spread the awareness about our Deaf culture. The VLOG part two coming soon but If you have any stories to share what you or someone you know went through similiar experience and want to make a VLOG please email Iamdeffamilia@gmail.com and I can be reached at hangouts by using that email as well.
I hope to stay connected with every one of you!! ---Def Familia
-snip-
I didn't include the two social media links that are given in this summary because they are no longer operable.
****
Here are a few comments from this video's discussion thread (with numbers added for referencing purposes only)
1. Doffloffle27, 2013
"This is going to sound cheesy, but I honestly started trying to learn sign language because of the TV show Switched at Birth. But honestly, as I researched more into Deaf culture and language, I've found I've really come to have such an appreciation and respect for it. I couldn't imagine how difficult it is, yet I've seen so many Deaf people share their stories throughout which they're so positive. Rather than being pessimistic about their circumstance, they don't let it hinder them at all and so many of them come out with such amazing character! I think it would be really beneficial if it were possible for hearing people to try to go just one week without hearing. I think their perspective would really change and they'd be able to understand and respect Deaf people much better. I'm hoping to spend a part of my future helping to educate Deaf children as they grow up, and give them the love and support they need and that their families might not always provide simply because they don't know how. Keep being strong and confident in who you are! :) You're awesome!"
**
2. Darin McIntier, 2014
"Awesome video. I am the father of a deaf or HOH child. I never know which is the more appropriate to say. My son is 15 and hears 'well' with his hearing aides. He hears well enough that I often forget about it. Your comments about asking what they said in a movie or TV show really hit home for me. I am really big into the 'tempo' of a show or movie. I don't like to pause or interrupt the movie for anyone (ask my wife) - much less my son who has hearing aides and an FM system that is directly connected to the Audio system. I often tell him to put his "ears on" whenever he isn't wearing his hearing aides and starts interrupting the show with questions about who said what. Your video has opened my eyes to just how offensive that must be to him. I am trying to raise him to be independent in a hearing world, but I should be more sensitive to his needs than that. I really do thank you - your video has made a difference for this ignorant hearing father."
**
3. Tiffany Madden, 2014
"I'm deaf I know what is like when I was growing up hearing people bully me jump me because I was nice different but they know I was deaf they did not care about so they bully me and the hearing teachers did not care about it I got jump so I got home on the yellow bus I cry all the way home to tell my mom what happened my mom is hearing my family is hearing I'm the only deaf one in the family my mom was happy to have a deaf baby girl my dad was not okay with me born deaf my dad not in my life so my mom family teach me how to read lips understand what they say so being deaf in school with hearing kids was hard my mom fight the teachers for not giving me classes to learn understand my mom push the school to give me a try in different classes my mom said to me in front of the principal don't never let a hearing person say you can't do anything because you you are very smart . so what that my child is deaf my mom said my daughter deaf but all the hearing teachers did not wanna have me in there classes my mom stand by me and said to everyone you are going to give to teach my daughter the teachers was scared of my mom because see fight for me and she love me just the way I am so teach gave me a try in there classes they were shock I understand what I was doing my mom said my daughter us just like other kids but difference in her own way as deaf is beautiful to watch my daughter sign language in school I was still bully but that did not stop me from coming to school I teach some hearing kids sign language they wanna learn what is like to sign I said to the hearing kids you want to learn from me sign I laugh so I teach them I never been to a deaf school I learn what is like to be a hearing teenager but I'm still deaf forever I don't wish to be hearing because I like being deaf my mom always told me fight back at the hearing don't let them put you down like your dumb or something you are a smart baby girl I ever had my mom said she smile at me and hug me the end .so now I'm a woman 2014 I'm proud to be deaf I thank my mom for everything in my life she helped me stay strong woman my mom teach me to understand the outside world hearing people I thank my for standing by me.:-) :-)
**
4. AleahKCH, 2015
"I just wanna cry and hug this guy, not because that happened to him, but because he overcame so much (and he's pretty attractive). I hate that he barely even had his family in his corner, but he gained a new family at his school that gave him so much. His sense of pride is so admirable... I just love this video!"
**
5. Dannette Lira-Anderson, 2016
"Curious.. when are you planning to make part 2 vlog? I showed your video to my ASL class. They have learned a lot from you! Even share this information to hearing parents with deaf child. :-)"
This pancocojams post showcases three online articles about Black ASL (American Sign Language).
Two videos that are featured in the second article that is included in this post.
The content of this post is presented for cultural and educational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to the publishers of these videos on YouTube.
-snip-
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2020/02/how-do-deaf-people-experience-music.html for a video example of Black ASL. Other pancocojams posts that feature Black ASL can be found by clicking that tag below this post.
Many hearing people think sign language is universal, but it is not. [Dr. Joseph] Hill, who was born deaf, studied in Italy on a Fulbright and speaks Italian, as well as ASL, Italian SL, and Black ASL. American Sign Language developed based on the French sign language that Thomas Gallaudet learned from Clerc, so American and French signers understand one another better than British and American signers do, for example.
Hill is one of four authors of The Hidden Treasure of Black ASL, a 2011 book that explores the differences between Black American Sign Language and the ASL of whites in America. The differences are significant enough that black deaf students who went to segregated schools couldn’t understand white teachers and classmates when the schools integrated. The researchers created a filmed corpus of conversational vernacular Black ASL as it is used in the South, and the book examines some of those differences, which include disparate gestures for some words, such as “deer” and “have,” and whether words are signed with one hand or two.
But Hill, who is a member of the specialized-education-services department at the Greensboro campus and directs its ASL teacher-licensing program, says there are many more research opportunities, including chronicling changes in Black ASL as its signers have more contact with white signers, and with spoken African-American Vernacular English. He told us about the Black ASL Project, which seeks the recollections of people who went to black schools for the deaf. Much more is to be learned about the schools themselves. And his own research has only begun to look at lexical variations between ASL and Black ASL—the different signs for the same word—and at what linguists call “prosody” in sign, the use of facial expressions, eye and head movement, and other physical behaviors.
“Black signers tend to be more theatrical,” he said later via telephone, using a video relay service and an ASL interpreter to take the call. White signers, especially older people, may sign in a smaller space because they were taught to be discreet."...
-snip-
Here are two comments from this article's discussion thread:
nyhist, 2013
"A fascinating book about another version of a separate sign language that might have contributed to the creation of ASL (many of its practitioners were among the students at the Hartford school) is Nora Groce, Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language, about the hereditary deaf community of Chilmark, Mass."
**
[REPLY]
Unemployed_Northeastern, 2013
"Indeed. Though the article disabuses me of this notion, when I saw this link on CHE's homepage, my initial line of thought was that there is a separate sign language developed on Martha's Vineyard (Chilmark), and one of the first vacation spots for African Americans, going back to the late 1800's, was also on the Vineyard (Oak Bluffs), so I was wondering if the two strands - Vineyard ASL and Black ASL - had any common ancestry. But it would seem that the latter was developed in the south as a consequence of Jim Crow laws barring children from all receiving an equal education."...
****
ARTICLE EXCERPT #2
From https://splinternews.com/asl-and-black-asl-yes-theres-a-difference-1793840928
ASL and Black ASL: Yes, There's a Difference
by Amy Stretten, 2/25/14
..."Code-switching involves moving freely between two different languages or dialects of a single language. For many people of color, especially mixed-race and multi-cultural people, code-switching is natural and happens in speech without much thought–if any at all.
The same can be said about Sheena Cobb, 29. Cobb uses both ‘mainstream’ American Sign Language (ASL) and Black ASL depending on who she is with.
“I've used mainstream ASL because a lot of people in the community use it, she said through a video-phone interpreter system called VRS. "When I'm with black deaf people, then we usually, naturally revert to Black ASL."
... Dr. Carolyn McCaskill, professor of ASL and Deaf Studies at Gallaudet, a federally chartered private university for the deaf and hard of hearing located in Washington, D.C., has called this type of switch cultural and linguistic code-switching.
But the act of code-switching, at least among the black deaf is nothing new. Phrases like “what’s up” and “my bad” are signed differently in Black ASL, which tends to be more expressive in nature than mainstream ASL.
A common misconception is that sign language is a universal language. It is not. In fact, there are more than 200 distinct sign languages around the world.
According to Dr. Joseph Hill, assistant professor in the Professions of Deafness Programs at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, language variation happens for two reasons: social factors (such as age, gender, race and socio-economics) and geographical factors (such as whether someone is from the North or the South). So, it would be impossible for there to be one universal sign language.
[...]
Because "black deaf people have been exposed to the same social elements that black hearing people enjoy and practice in their communities, it makes sense that there are elements of black culture that appear in Black ASL such as religious practice, cooking, humor, musical entertainment, clothing, hairstyles, words and phrases that typically used in the black communities, and protections against racism," said Dr. Hill in an e-mail.
People who use Black ASL tend to sign with two hands, in different positions, in a larger signing space and with more repetition than with mainstream ASL signs.
[...]
According to Dr. Hill, there exists some bias against Black ASL among the deaf, just like there is against Ebonics among hearing people."...
-snip-
This article features these two videos:
Video #1: BLACK AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE
Mike Carter-Conneen, Jun 6, 2011
****
Video #2: Black ASL
ASLized!, Mar 22, 2012
Signed and produced by Dr. Joseph Hill at http://aslized.org/black-asl/
****
ARTICLE EXCERPT #3
From https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/08/gallaudet-franklin-jones-carolyn-mccaskill/536949/
‘We Have 14 Black Deaf Americans With Ph.D.s—14’
"A conversation with a deaf-studies professor and a student she’s been supporting throughout his academic career"
by B.R.J. O'DONNELL, AUGUST 16, 2017
"In many ways, Gallaudet University looks like any other liberal-arts college in America: Brick buildings and leafy walkways are abundant on its campus in Washington, D.C. But at Gallaudet, American Sign Language (ASL) is the lingua franca, and creating space for deaf culture a main priority. Walking to class, students sign in rapid-fire bursts of kinetic language.
Franklin Jones Jr. is one of those students. Though he is thriving now—having gotten his undergraduate degree and now attending graduate school at the university—his path has been a difficult one. In fact, Franklin wasn’t sure college was for him at all. But Dr. Carolyn McCaskill, a professor of deaf studies at Gallaudet who researches the history and structure of black ASL, worked with Franklin to make sure he reached graduation. Not only did he do that, but he graduated magna cum laude with a degree in ASL, linguistics, and deaf studies, and he was selected to deliver remarks at his graduation ceremony.
For The Atlantic’s series on mentorship, “On The Shoulders Of Giants,” I spoke with Jones Jr. and McCaskill about their bond, the experience of being black and deaf in America, and how mentorship can promote inclusion.
B.R.J. O’Donnell: Can you talk about what black ASL is particularly well-suited to capturing and communicating?
Carolyn McCaskill: You know how some people may talk loud? I sign loud. So that's one of the features—a larger signing space. Two-handed signing is also one of the features. In mainstream ASL, someone might just sign with one hand, but in black ASL, two-handed signs are also okay. And then there is repetition. If you sign, “I’m getting out of here,” you will sign it not just once, but twice—you might even sign it three times, for emphasis and also for clarification purposes. So we incorporate our culture from black English in our signing."...
This pancocojams post showcases a video about how Deaf people experience music.
This video [which includes captions] focuses on Shaheem Sanchez, an African American man who is a Deaf dancer and instructor with his own method of feeling music's vibrations to learn a song.
This post also features a few comments from this video's discussion thread.
****
The content of this post is presented for cultural and educational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to Shaheem Sanchez and all those who are featured in and/or are associated with this video. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to AJ+ for publishing this video series on YouTube.
-snip-
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2020/02/asl-american-sign-language-black-asl.html for the closely related pancocojams post entitled "ASL (American Sign Language) & Black ASL- Yes, There Is A Difference: Three Article Excerpts About Black ASL".
****
SHOWCASE VIDEO: How Do Deaf People Experience Music? | AJ+
AJ+, Nov 27, 2018
Shaheem Sanchez is a Deaf dancer and instructor with his own method of feeling music's vibrations to learn a song.
It's a common misconception that Deaf people can't enjoy music. But there's actually a whole community of Deaf dancers and sign language music interpreters. Shaheem is also an instructor at ASL Music Camp, which is making music more accessible to the Deaf community.
Transcript available in the comments.*
Archival photos courtesy of Shaheem Sanchez.
Music tracks courtesy of APM and Audio Networks.
Special thanks: Justin Kirk, Hugo Lopez, ASL Music Camp, Melissa Elmira Yingst
Note: When "deaf" is capitalized as "Deaf," it's referencing the Deaf community, an important and empowering distinction to those in the community."...
-snip-
*The transcript that is found in this video's discussion thread is actually the transcript for Part I of this series. That same incorrect transcript is also found in the discussion thread for the other video of Shaheem Sanchez that whose link is given in this embedded video's summary.
I wrote to these video's publisher (on Feb. 12, 2020) to inform them of this mix-up. Hopefully, the correct transcript/s will be uploaded for these videos. If so, I will add that transcript to this pancocojams post.
****
SELECTED COMMENTS FROM THIS VIDEO'S DISCUSSION THREAD
(with numbers added for referencing purposes only.)
1. Sandy Germain, 2018
"Love this video very inspiring! We need more off this beauty in our world."
**
2. Underrated Art, 2018
"Made me realize how much I take my hearing for granted. Thank you for sharing his perspective."
**
3. Nikki, 2018
"The production on this is great! You guys did a phenomenal job :)"
**
4. Eugene Fisher, 2018
"I'd love to learn sign language"
**
5. POLM PHOTO, 2018
"Awesome video. Great information and great stories"
**
6. Melissa Mitchell, 2019
"I la la love this video and this guys great energy vibes! I shared this on my Facebook so some people understand how I’m trying to explain n this is how I memorized the beats and I dance to it!! ❤️"
**
7. Chickity Chick, 2020
"Very educational and appreciated. ❤️"
