DPN10 Anniversary: In Their Own Words-Tim Rarus

[Tim Rarus as he looks in
1997]

"The fight is not over, we will always need to strive for equality in our world."

Tim Rarus

[photo of Tim
Rarus] Deaf President Now (DPN) represented much more than the birth of our first Deaf president. It represented Deaf People Now and their freedom. Freedom from ignorance. Freedom from being oppressed. It made me very proud to be a Deaf American.

DPN has left me with many memories but I will share two of my favorites. The first happened Sunday night during our march to the Mayflower Hotel to talk with the Board of Trustees. We marched through the streets of the District of Columbia without a permit. A policewoman who tried to stop us by using a megaphone. We kept on marching and the D.C. police realized they had a new challenge on their hands.

[photo to Tim Rarus at the Mayflower
Hotel] Tim Rarus, left, confronts Jane Spilman, right, in the Mayflower Hotel on Sunday evening, March 6. Jan Nishamura, center, interprets for Ms. Spilman.

The second is a memory which was a lesson for me personally. [photo of student in black leather jacket
standing guard at the gate] It was the same lesson that DPN taught Deaf people everywhere. The night Zinser resigned, we had been told that the police were now going to take control of the campus. We still had 3 1/2 demands left to go, so we were no where near finished. To prevent the police from breaking through the Gallaudet gates, we needed to put a Gallaudet bus next to them because we knew the police wouldn't damage the school vehicles which were federal property. We didn't have the key to the bus I was working on. We were in a hurry. One Gallaudet student approached me... I'd never met him before... he was "oral" and hadn't mastered ASL. He had on a black leather jacket and long hair and was from New York City. He told me he could "hot wire" the Gallaudet bus and that he did.

I tell this story because before DPN, I was not one to interact with deaf people who were not culturally deaf like myself. Deaf people have a history of fighting among themselves. Yet, during DPN, we all worked together for that common goal: a deaf president. Never mind the mode of communication our president would choose or his background, as long as he was deaf. And together we accomplished that goal.

Since DPN, Deaf America has seen changes—the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Closed Captioning bill, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and most importantly, the attitude of " Yes, I can" being adopted by deaf children and adults everywhere. The fight is not over, we will always need to strive for equality in our world. Yet, we have started that journey. And today as we continue to carry our torch, Deaf President Now symbolizes Deaf People Now. I am proud to be a Deaf American.

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Last modified January 20, 1998