The Black and Deaf Movements in America Since 1960: Parallelism and an Agenda for the Future

This paper traces the political and educational movements of both black and hearing-impaired Americans since 1960 and compares their common as well as disparate but equally significant experiences. The purpose of the comparisons is to identify problems and proven solutions that collectively suggest a strategy for the continuing movement of hearing-impaired people.

The authors, through their ethnicity—three are black and two are white—and personal and professional experiences bring divergent but relevant points of view to the question of multicultural coalitions and their abilities to effect social change. Four principles or suggestions for advancing the agenda of hearing-impaired Americans are presented: (1) the need to define the issues that will continue to confront hearing-impaired Americans through the year 2000, (2) the need to enlarge the membership and participation of existing coalitions, (3) the need to address local, vocational, technical, and educational issues, and (4) the need to facilitate hearing-impaired networking groups within religious, social, business, and cultural organizations.