Disability in the Presidential Campaign of 2012: Abram Powell

Saw this ad/video today from the Obama campaign, featuring Abram Powell, a deaf African-American auto worker from Michigan.  I like how specific it is to his life--it's not a generic disability message--and it's full of photos, and we see him speaking to an audience in ASL, etc. 
Seen other ads, from any campaign, that focus on disability themes? Drop a link in comments.

January 4: James Nack (1809-1879)

Poet James M. Nack was born 4 January 1809, and wrote a poem for New Year's Day for his daughter Eveline:

A New-Year's Greeting to my Daughter (1859)

So it is gone! -- another year!
A drop of time lost in the sea
Of dark and deep eternity,
In which we all must disappear!
Well, since so transient our career,
The blessings that attend the way
More precious grow with every day:
So is it with my EVELINE,
And ever was since she was mine;
Since first she nestled on my breast,
And on its beatings rocked to rest;
And when her little arms at length
To twine around me gathered strength,
And her young eyes replied to mine
With love's intelligence divine;
When first her lips began to frame
Sweet murmurings of a father's name;
Or with more eloquence of love
Those rosy lips to mine were prest--
Oh, closer still I clasped my dove,
And could have died so very blest!
....

Nack, a lifelong New Yorker, was deaf after a serious head injury when he was nine years old. He was among the first successful alumni of the New York Deaf and Dumb Asylum, which he attended from 1818 to 1823. He worked in the office of the Clerk of the City of New York for many years, and frequently contributed poems to the New York Mirror. He published several volumes of verse, starting with The Legend of the Rocks and Other Pieces (1827). Much of his poetry celebrates his happiness in family life--he married in 1838 and was the father of three daughters (including Eveline, above). Nack also did translations from French, German, and Dutch. Several books of Nack's poetry are available in Full view on Google Books (The Romance of the Ring, Earl Rupert, and The Immortal, for three).

For further reading, see:

Christopher Krentz, ed., A Mighty Change: An Anthology of Deaf American Writing 1816-1864 (Gallaudet University Press 2000).

John Lee Clark, ed., Deaf American Poetry: An Anthology (Gallaudet University Press 2009).

Virginia McKinney (1924-2009)

Obituary in the Los Angeles Times today for Virginia McKinney, who founded and ran the Center for Communicative Development in Koreatown. She became deaf in 1957, when she was 33, from an allergic reaction to a vaccine. Her program addressed the needs of adults with hearing loss, especially those for whom few other options existed. The obituary mentions her making 16mm films to train herself to read lips in the 1960s, and publishing an ASL dictionary; and that in recent years she worked on creating educational software. Oscar-winning director Jessica Yu is making a documentary about McKinney and her work--if the obituary piques your interest, keep an eye out for the film's release.

Notes from the Field: The West Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind (WVSDB) in Romney, WV

The West Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind (WVSDB), originally uploaded by Edu-Tourist. Image note: Photograph, taken at night, of the West Virginia historical marker located at the entrance to the WVSDB campus. The marker reads: "Established, 1870. The Classical Institute was donated by the Romney Literary Society as the initial building unit. Co-educational school giving academic and vocational training to the State's deaf and blind youth."

While returning from vacation with family in the Ohio Valley, I had the opportunity to visit the Hampshire County Public Library and briefly view the grounds of this distinguished West Virginia institution. Amongst the interesting and instructive stories attached the school is the life of one of the school's most successful graduates, Ernest Hairston.

By the early twentieth century, there two institutions, for 'white' and 'colored' deaf and blind youth in the state of West Virginia. As a result of the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown vs. Board of Education, the students of the West Virginia School for Colored Deaf and Blind (located in Institute, near Charleston, WV) were transferred to WVSDB in Romney. One of the students transferred, Ernest Hairston, went on to score at the top of his class at WVSDB, receiving encouragement from his English teacher to rethink his intentions(driven by the largely vocations curriculum at WVSCDB) to become a barber. Harston went on receive his Bachelor Degree in Education from Gallaudet College (now University), his Masters Degree in Administration and Supervision is from California State University at Northridge, and a doctorate in Special Education Administration from Gallaudet University. He is currently Education Research Analyst at the U. S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP).

Sources:Ernest Hairston and Linwood Smith (1983) Black and Deaf in America: Are we that different (Silver Spring, Md.: T. J. Publishers).
Glenn B. Anderson and Katrina R. Miller (2004/2005) 'Appreciating diversity through stories about the lives of Deaf people of color,' American Annals of the Deaf 149(5):375-83, profile on p. 378.