The Civil and Disability Rights Movement

Deaf people sought from the very beginning to participate in the American Dream that was promised them. The American Dream promised prosperity, freedom, happiness, and full participation in society as citizens (a promise that was explicitly not for indigenous peoples or enslaved peoples or their descendants). This participation meant economic security, freedom from government interference, and inclusion in the public sphere as political subjects. This promise was made explicit through the state’s investment in deaf education (signed or oral). Deaf people interpreted public support for deaf education as a two way obligation. Mainstream society owed it to themselves to see that their investment via tax dollars was worthwhile and deaf people owed taxpayers a return on their investment by becoming hard working, tax paying, law abiding, voting citizens. However, despite participating in the educational, economic, and political systems, deaf people found themselves on the margins, frustrated by the barriers presented by inaccessibility, lack of resources, and attitudes toward deaf people. Deaf people were not alone in recognizing that the American Dream was not attainable or open to all. Deaf people agitated for inclusion in the public sphere from the earliest days of the American republic; the founding of the National Association of the Deaf in 1880 and the National Fraternal Society of the Deaf in 1901 were both early disability rights advocacy organizations.

By the mid-twentieth century, many Americans on the margins organized to demand that the United States, in the context of Cold War politics and illusions of a perfect multiracial democracy, deliver on its promise of the American Dream. The 1970s and on witnessed a minority rights revolution where disability rights, deaf rights, women’s rights, queer rights, black and indigenous rights mvoements coalesced to expand inclusion in American society. While political participation was being contested, linguists and scholars were busy behind the scenes affirming that American Sign language was indeed a bona fide language and deaf people needed to be understood as a sociolinguistic cultural group.

This resulted in a more affirmative understanding of deafness and what we might understand now as Deaf Pride or deafhood. Riding this wave, the deaf rights movement crescendoed with the Deaf President Now movement in 1988, demanding that Gallaudet University, as the world’s sole liberal arts university serving deaf and hard of hearing students be led by a deaf person. After a weeklong protest, the students prevailed; a deaf president, I. King Jordan, was selected. This period inspired an affirmative acceptance of deaf identities, cultural spaces, and communities. A part of this was the De’VIA movement that celebrated deaf artists such as Chuck Baird and Betty G. Miller.

Betty G. Miller

(Pennsylvania 1934 –Washington DC 2012)

Spectrum: Deaf Artists, c.1991

Acrylic on canvas

36 x 48 inches (91.4 x 121.9 cm)

Purchased through the Permanent Collection Acquisition Fund

2008.04.001

Spectrum was established in 1975 as a Deaf artists’ colony in Austin, Texas, bringing together deaf visual artists, theater performers, writers, and dancers in an early example of what we now know as the Deaf Ecosystem, an ethos of cooperative capitalism. The replacement of the stars on the American flag with hands is an assertion of deaf citizenship and the sensual potential of deaf spaces.

Culture Shock, c.1989

Acrylic on canvas

35 x 47 inches (88.9 x 119.3 cm)

Gift of Brenda Schertz

2017.06.001

The tension in Culture Shock, inspired by Stout’s first time watching television with closed captioning, alludes to access friction and contradictory sensory orientations. A black and white photo is notched between an amorphous wash of blue with black streaks and a vivid yellow square within a black frame, suggesting tension between imagery and text with a monochromatic sensibility.

Marjorie Stout (Washington DC 1959 – )

Facets of Sound, c.1989

Acrylic on canvas

36 x 47 inches (88.9 x 119.3 cm)

Gift of Eleanor Shafer

2017.07.001

Harry Williams (Washington DC 1959California 1991)

17 x 13 inches (43.1 x 33 cm)

Gift of Malinda Mangrum

2021.09.029

In Three Naked Men, the nakedness of these running men, in contrast with their footwear and the pillowcases over their heads, hints at illicitness and concealment. But what is concealed is also celebrated in Over the Rainbow. This undated painting of a single foot treading on a sheet of music juxtaposed with the colors of the rainbow suggests several levels of representation and improvisation. It is a celebration of queerness and visual music as a repudiation of societal conventions regarding sensory and sensual orientations.

9.25 x 11.25 inches (23.4 x 28.5 cm)

Gift of Malinda Mangrum

2021.09.008

Morris Gayle Broderson (California 1928 - 2011)

Linda, 1981

Watercolor on canvas

45.5 x 35.5 inches (115.5 x 90.1 cm)

Gift of Joan Ankrum

1984.01.003

Morris Gayle Broderson (California 1928 - 2011)

The Answer, 1982

Watercolor on canvas

34.5 x 45 inches (87.6 x 114.3 cm)

Gift of Joan Ankrum

2009.04.001

Morris Gayle Broderson (California 1928 - 2011)

Two Birds, 1982

Watercolor on paper

23.5 x 28 inches (59.6 x 71.1 cm)

Gift of Tsukuba University, Japan

1992.01.001

Cantata, 1985

Oil on canvas

32.25 x 42.5 inches (81.9 x 107.9 cm)

Gift from the artist

1993.02.001

Ralph Miller

(Illinois 1905 - Washington DC 1984)

Expressionless, 1981

Acrylic on canvas

20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

Gift of Nancy Creighton

2022.01.001

Chuck Baird

(Missouri 1947 - Texas 2012)

Untitled, 1989

Acrylic on canvas

33 x 50 inches (83.8 x 127 cm)

Gift of Richard Nowell

2014.06.001

Baird’s painting conveys a sense of surrealism in its juxtaposition of a ghost-like deaf body, complete with an FM-style hearing aid attached to the left ear. This ghost figure is set beside a field of mocking, advancing lips on a dark, foreboding background. The disembodied lips color connect with the ghost body’s FM system. The figure’s left ear with the aid in it turns toward the advancing lips, devoid of bodies, while its hands are overly large, somewhat distorted, and register a sense of surrender. The oppression and disconnection of self, rights, and language shadow the scene.

Black, Brown, and Indigenous Artists and Lack of Recognition

We cannot claim there is little or no art generated by black and indigenous people of color during the 20th century. There certainly were works generated and circulated. Rather, this section reflects the politics of dominant institutions. The RIT/NTID Dyer Arts Center’s collections are primarily determined by donations and purchases. Those who bought and accepted art for the collection likely sought out well known artists, and being well known depended on certain currencies (e.g. personal networks, connections, relationships with NTID itself, community acclaim). Mainstream deaf community discourses and political organizing was dominated by white deaf people. The leadership of national deaf advocacy organizations like National Association of the Deaf and National Fraternal Society for the Deaf were both dominated by white deaf men and women. Looking inward and to each other, this collection reflects back the values of the institution and its agents. And it is clear through the politics of this collection that the works of black, brown, and indigenous deaf artists were not valued.

John Louis Clarke (Montana 1881 - 1970)

Bear in East Glacier Park, MT, n.d. Wood sculpture

9 x 4 x 3.25 inches (22.8 x 10.1 cm x 8.2 cm)

On loan courtesy of the Patricia Mudgett-DeCaro and and James DeCaro Family

As the only known indigenous artist represented in this collection, Clarke’s rustic wood carved bear appears to be looking at, or for, something, leaning and listening toward it. Bears are known to have extraordinary hearing and yet little clear or far-range sight. The bear’s open stance is both engaged towards the world around it but also seems ready at defense.