North Carolina
North Carolina Institution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind, Colored Department (Raleigh)
- Established 1869
- Integrated with Governor Morehead School for the Blind, 1963, 1970
In 1945, in his survey of teaching practices in the segregated schools, Charles Buell called the North Carolina School "a leader in the education of the Negro blind and deaf."1 North Carolina was the first state to establish a school to serve the African-American blind and deaf population, just four years after the Civil War. The United States War Department offered to rent a building if the Carolina Institution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind would supply teachers and instruction. The Colored Department opened In Raleigh in January, 1869, in a building rented from the American Missionary Association with twenty-one deaf and seven blind students. It remained in this location until 1929, when the North Carolina legislature appropriated the funds for a new building.
Integration of the schools for the blind and deaf began in North Carolina in 1963 when the state announced that deaf and blind children could enroll in all state schools, regardless of race. The former school for the whites was renamed the Governor Morehead School. Seven years later, in 1970, the building for the Colored Department was closed, and students were transferred to the Governor Morehead School in Raleigh.
- Charles Buell, The Education of the Negro Blind in the United States, unpublished master's thesis. 1945.