Louise Miller knew her Deaf son, Kenneth, was going to experience even more discrimination than hearing Black children. Miller paid thousands of dollars to send Kenneth to an out-of-state school. But with two other Deaf children who would need similar support, Miller knew this wasn’t financially sustainable.
In the early 1950s, Miller wrote to the D.C. Board of Education, demanding Kenneth’s admission to the segregated Kendall School for Deaf children. With other parents of Black children with disabilities, Miller filed a class-action lawsuit and won. This monumental victory came two years prior to the Brown V. Board of Education decision.
With 23 other Deaf students, Kenneth attended Kendall’s Division II School for Negroes. The accommodations and curriculum were inadequate, and Black students received subpar support and resources. Determined to graduate, the 24 students completed all their courses. However, at their graduation, they were given only certificates of completion, not diplomas.
It wasn’t until 2023 that Kenneth and five of his surviving classmates were celebrated with a graduation ceremony hosted at Gallaudet, a university for the Deaf located where the Kendall School once stood. Founder of Gallaudet’s Center for Black Deaf Studies, Professor Carolyn McCaskill organized the ceremony to honor the Kendall 24 and hold Gallaudet accountable for its ties to Kendall’s racist past.
Like Miller and McCaskill, we must hold ableist systems accountable when they try to leave our more marginalized communities behind. Ablelism hurts us all, and must be abolished.