Andrew Foster was born in Ensley, Alabama and became the first Black Deaf person to earn a bachelor's degree from Gallaudet University and the first to earn a master's degree from Eastern Michigan University. After earning another master's from Seattle Pacific Christian College, he went to Africa in 1957.

Language is the method by which any two people must communicate. Without language, there can be no communication.

When Andrew Foster first arrived in Africa in 1957, there were no schools for the deaf in all of Africa, except for a few in South Africa and Egypt.

In Africa, he encountered cultures so oppressive of deaf people that parents often hid their deaf children at home or abandoned them altogether.

Hearing missionaries told Foster that deaf children didn't even exist in Africa. But he found deaf children and established schools for them—31 in all.

Before Andrew Foster was done, he had established schools in countries including Benin, Congo, Chad, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Cameroon and Ghana West Africa.

Accra, Ghana, 1957,  Andrew Foster,  (the tallest person on the left) pictured with children of the first school for the deaf in all of West Africa.

The Color of Ghana's Flag is Red, Gold, Green with a Black Star for the People. Red is for the bloodshed, Gold is in their land and Green is for the Tropical Beauty of their Country.

Much of Andrew Foster's life was spent, six months of the year in Africa establishing schools and the other six months in the United State raising money to support these schools.

In 1970 Gallaudet granted him an honorary doctor of humane letter in recognition of his accomplishment.

Andrew Foster met his untimely death in a plane crash in 1987 and the Black Deaf community lost an extraordinary leader.

When traveling to these countries today you will experience ASL spoken among the Deaf.

Laurent Clerc

Born December 26, 1785 in La Balme-les-Grottes, Isère, a village on the northeastern edge of Lyon to Joseph-François Clerc and Marie-Élisabeth Candy in the small village of La Balme where his father was the mayor, Laurent Clerc's home was a typical bourgeois household. When he was a year old, Clerc, while momentarily unattended, fell from a chair into the hearth, suffering a blow to the head and sustaining a permanent scar on the right side of his face below his ear. Clerc's family believed his deafness and inability to smell were caused by this accident, but Clerc later wrote that he was not certain and that he may have been born deaf and without the ability to smell or taste. The facial scar was later the basis for his name sign, the "U" hand shape stroked twice downward along the right cheek. Clerc's name sign would become the best known and most recognizable name sign in American deaf history and Clerc became the most renowned deaf person in American history. Clerc attended the famous school for the Deaf in Paris, eventually becoming a teacher there. In 1815 he traveled to England to give a lecture and there first met Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. Gallaudet was invited to visit the school in Paris, where, in 1816, he invited Clerc to accompany him to America to establish the first permanent school for the Deaf there.

DEAF HISTORY FAQ... 

Q: Who was the Father of Sign Language & Established the Royal Institution of Deaf and Mute in Paris. He supporeted the school monetarily and instructionally until his death in 1789 at the age of 77yrs?

A: Charles Micheal De L'Eppe

Q:  What was the first name of the American school for the Deaf, founded April 15, 1817 in Hartford, Connecticut by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, Mason Cogswell and Laurent Clerc?

A: The Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb.

Q: What is the name of one of the most noted deaf actresses in the United States. Starring in Love is Never Silent, Children on their Birthdays, Sweet Nothing in my Ear. Born February 29, 1944. Leap Year!

A: Phylis Frelich

Q: What was the name of the first doctor to say that people who are deaf can learn without learning to speak?

A: Girolamo Cardano

Q: Manually Spelled English aka The Rochester Method was developed in 1878 by a Yale graduate, advocating the prohibition of sign language and gesturing.  The Rochester Method was adopted, but only lasted for about 70 years. What was his name?

A: Dr. Isaac Lewis Peet

Q: The telephone was invented in 1874 by this famous man for his wife, what was his name?

A: Alexander Graham Bell

Q: The world's first college for the Deaf "Gallaudet" was authorized to award college degrees in 1864. Which president signed the bill into law?

A: President Abraham Lincoln

Q: What was the name of the child that is known as the inspiration for the development of American Sign Language in the United States?

A: Alice Cogswell

Q: What was the name of the Frenchman who that traveled to America and played an important role in bringing deaf education to America?

A:  Louis Laurent Clerc

Q: Who said, "The most beautiful things in life, cannot be seen or touched but must be felt with the heart?"

A: Helen Keller