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Famous Deaf People
Here you will find a short list of famous and historic Deaf (and Hearing) people.Alexander Graham Bell
Everyone knows about Alexander Graham Bell and his invention of the telephone. What is not as well known, is his ties to the deaf community.Bell taught deaf students at schools for the deaf (a school in London, Boston School for Deaf Mutes, the Clarke School for the Deaf, and at the American Asylum for the Deaf). He also opened a school for deaf and hearing students together, but the school had to be closed after just two years.
Although he married a deaf woman, a former speech pupil, Mabel Hubbard, Bell strongly opposed intermarriage among deaf people.
Amy Ecklund
The soap opera star Amy Ecklund was not born deaf. She lost her hearing at age 6 and was raised in a total communication environment.Ecklund has not won any Emmys yet, but has been nominated. In 1998, she won the Daytime Webbie Awards for "outstanding supporting actress in a drama series." She has also been named one of the 50 most beautiful people by Soap Opera Weekly.
Like any actress, Amy Ecklund has participated in celebrity internet chats. One chat touched briefly on the producers' decision to have Ecklund stop using sign language on the show.
Dr Andrew Foster
If there is any deaf African American man who has had a major impact with his life's work, it is Dr. Andrew Foster. Not only did he establish many schools for the deaf in Africa, he was also the first African American to graduate from Gallaudet University (then Gallaudet College). Unfortunately, Foster was taken from this world in 1987 at the relatively young age of 62.C.J. Jones
One of the hardest-working deaf and African American actors in Hollywood is C.J. Jones, whose career spans the seventies through the present time.Born hearing to deaf parents and deafened at seven from spinal meningitis, Jones is a 1972 data processing graduate from the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. However, he has done anything but work in data processing since his graduation, choosing instead to make his career in theatre and film. And what a career it has been. Even before college, he was acting and directing plays.