This event features Joseph Hill, a graduate of Gallaudet University, who was born deaf. Currently, he coordinates UNCG’s American Sign Language Teacher Licensure program. Hill speaks English, Italian and Italian sign language. He also converses in a waning, but historically and culturally significant language not widely known, Black American Sign Language or Black ASL. Black ASL was developed among deaf African American children, especially in the South, as a distinct form of communication because school segregation kept them apart from their deaf white counterparts.

Hill is part of the Black ASL Project Team that won the National Black Deaf Advocates Andrew Foster Humanitarian Award for 2011. The Black ASL Project aims to describe the linguistic features of a variety of American Sign Language (ASL) used by African American signers, usually known as Black ASL. He is also co-author of the book, The Hidden Treasure of Black ASL, published by Gallaudet University.

Contact Carole Campbell Brown for more information.