[JI] Hello, I'm Jill... ... [JE] and I'm Jenna.
[JI] Welcome to ASL Stew!
(hand slap.... ♪♪♪)
[JE] So, this is kind of a new thing that we're trying out.
I don't know if you remember, but before we had Deaf history month.
Since then some people have wanted some other type of videos like that.
So, I thought why don't we start a Deaf history series.
So, we'll be doing this every once and a while.
We'll give kind of a short video talking about an important event in history
related to Deaf people in general. It's not gonna be too long of a video.
Just something short, and then we will put some links and resources down below
that way you can read and learn more about it.
[JI] Okay, so the first video in the Deaf history series will be related to DPN.
What does DPN mean?
[JE] Deaf President Now! So, that happend at Gallaudet university back in 1988.
[JI] Really, it started March 6, 1988.
The reason that this happened is because around that time
Gallaudet university was deciding on who it's next president was going to be.
So, the Board of Trustees had decided and picked from 3 different candidates.
The first one was hearing and the other 2 were Deaf.
So they decided to pick the one hearing candidate.
Her name was Elizabeth Zinser.
So she was the one chosed to be Gallaudet's 7th president.
After that people were not exactly happy.
[JE] Gallaudet university was established in the 1800s.
So, meaning by 1988, they had been established for well over 100 years.
In that time they had never had a deaf president.
They've always had hearing presidents.
So, they felt it was time! They were ready to have a Deaf president.
And, like she said, 2 of the final candidates were deaf.
They had PhDs. They were well qualified for the position,
but still a hearing candidate was chosen.
Probably because it just kept with what they had all this time.
Faculty, staff, even the community in general were outraged by this
and said NO! That's not what we want.
So, they decided to get together and start a well organized protest.
[JI] So, as she mentioned they started a protest. A well organized protest.
There were 4 main student leaders. Their names were...
Bridgetta Bourne...
Jerry Covell...
Greg Hilbok, he's one of the most famous that I've heard of before...
and Tim Rarus. So, there were all student leaders.
Now, there were other people obviously involved as well.
For example, at that time the president of NAD,
Gary Olsen, he decided to get involved and
he encouraged people to go ahead and march and protest
to where the Board of Trustees had their meeting and where they picked their candidate.
So, he said protest there. So, he got everybody to go and march and protest.
[JE] Now, during the meeting some people say, it's not 100% proven,
but some people say apparently one of the Board of Trustees,
a woman named Spilman, actually made a comment saying
"Deaf people can't function in a hearing world. It's impossible."
Now, she says that she did not say that,
but many of the protesters said "Yes she did say that."
So, there's not proof but it seems that it's a strong possibility.
So that made everybody feel like the Board of Trustees didn't understand
Deaf community, Deaf culture, and what Deaf people can do.
They seemed "out of touch" and that's just not a good fit.
Actually, if you didn't know, it wasn't only Deaf people who were protesting.
The local African American community recognized this protest and saw the march.
So, what they did is they loaned a banner that they had from the civil rights movement
that said "I Have A Dream". So that's representing Martin Luther King (Jr).
So they loaned that to the protesters and the protesters were very thankful.
Just to show solidarity between the two groups.
So they went ahead and used the banner during that protest and it was a very powerful message.
[JI] So, the protesters had 4 demands that they wanted.
Those four demands were:
1. Elizabeth Zinser must resign and they must pick a deaf president.
The second was that Spilman must resign.
She was the chairperson of the Board of Trustees. So she must resign.
The third one is that within the Board of Trustees,
there must be a 51% majority of deaf people compared to hearing.
And any student, or any faculty/staff at Gallaudet university who is protesting
would not have any punishment or reprisal.
If all four of those demands were met, then the proest would stop.
[JE] Now, the protest by day 4 had become such a media frenzy
that they had the famous actress Marlee Matlin,
she was actually interviewed on TV concerning what was going on at the protest.
Which put A LOT of pressure on the Board of Trustees.
Then one of the Board of Trustees, I. King Jordan who was Deaf,
he announced finally he did not support the Board of Trustees
and he supported the protest.
Later that night, Zinser decided to resign.
So, by the end of the week, all the demands... all four of the demands had been met.
Then they picked the new president who was I. King Jordan.
So, he became the first Deaf president of Gallaudet.
So, that event was SO crucial to American Deaf history.
It really showed how Deaf people can march in solidarity and have a Deaf president.
Someone who can lead. That was unheard of before.
It was amazing! It was really powerful.
A big impact, showing that Deaf people can do things.
We can! We can protest. We can have power. We can do this!
So, looking back that just shows us now that we have the ability
to set up a well organized protest and it was really inspirational
and empowering to the Deaf community. It's amazing!
[JI] Yeah, and remember this video is just a small explanation of what DPN was.
If you want to know more, there's a lot more details you can read
and you can read why this protest was much more successful than other protests.
So we'll have all of that information from Gallaudet's website about DPN.
Which is where we got a lot of our information from and I will link that down below.
Plus, if there's any other links we can put those down
and read those and learn from them. Learn about Deaf history more and more.
Then share with other people and show that Deaf can!
If you guys have enjoyed this video and you're enjoying the Deaf history series, click LIKE
and remember to subscribe to see more videos in this series.
Also, let us know what type of different videos do you want to see about Deaf history?
I'm just curious! Let us know down below and leave a comment.
[JE] If you want to show support in any other way
you can look at our Patreon page.
There's some really cool perks on there if you want to provide monthly support.
Or we have a link that you can leave a small tip of whatever amount there.
We have a few different ways, so take a look!
We really appreciate any support you've given us. Thank you!
[JI] Thanks! See you in the next video. Bye!
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