Oliver Sacks on Seeing Voices

The last week of every September is the International Week of the Deaf, to commemorate the first World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf in Rome in 1958. Here’s a clip from when Oliver was on the Dick Cavett Show in 1989 to talk about Seeing Voices, his book about ASL and the Deaf community.

Dr. Sacks marched with the 1988 “Deaf President Now” protestors at Gallaudet University, The Washington D.C. school for the Deaf and hard of hearing. The protest kicked off when the Board of Trustees appointed a hearing person as the school’s seventh president, and only ended with the appointment of I. King Jordan, the university’s first deaf president. The clip below is from the a PBS Newshour interview with Oliver Sacks in 1989.

 Dr. Sacks, as featured on the back cover of Seeing Voices.