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Franklin Jones, Jr., is in a race against time. 

Jones, a lecturer in Deaf studies at BU Wheelock, researches Black American Sign Language (BASL). He’s interested in its historical roots, linguistic intricacies, and cultural significance. But with each year that goes by since Black and white schools integrated, there are fewer and fewer people who know BASL, let alone use it to converse. 

“It’s really critical to interview and take the opportunity to look at the experiences and history of the Black folks that are left, because many of them are dying,” Jones says. “So can we pull together those last bits of information that are still in our history from these senior members of our community, and ask about different sign production and what that looks like, before it’s too late?” 

Read on at https://www.bu.edu/wheelock/magazine/articles/2024/a-race-to-study-and-preserve-black-american-sign-language/?fbclid=IwY2xjawGc3dtleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHZtCZVIMNOjSUQ-ER_tS7vpEHzYgm2ZbVl9czUL624e4UEW3Gdsrq_cBRw_aem_LIzjYH_M7BxC5pRYyUJ-Hg&sfnsn=mo