In 1988, Gallaudet University students came together to form a single "voice" that was heard, but more deeply seen, by the world . Now known as “DPN” (“Deaf President Now”), these deaf students formed a community around a cause. They affected pedagogy: abandoning classes, closing the school doors, refusing to move until their demands were met. They changed the power structure and strengthened their own community: rejecting the newly appointed president and inspiring many professors to join their cause. Shortly after the protests, schools for the deaf in Canada and West Germany closed their doors in their favor, and the media poured in, fumbling in their attempts to obtain interviews with students who did not speak and to record rallies in which protest “voices” were an important element. a sea of ​​silent, limp wrists waved above 2,000 heads. These students wanted the end of oligopoly; They wanted a voice, similar to their own, that represented them in decisions that affected their school and their lives. They simply wanted a deaf president. For 124 years, Gallaudet's president was hearing; for 124 years, these presiding judges had been elected by a primarily hearing board; for 124 years, the Deaf have had no authority, had no representation, in the one place they should have it most: their exclusive, one-of-a-kind Deaf University. So on March 9, their hearing committee elected yet another hearing chair from two fully qualified deaf candidates, Gallaudet students decided to protest. Forming a powerful and consistent voice, these students have made themselves highly visible in the news and increased Deaf awareness around the world about a dozen times over. By the end of that week, their short-lived presiding judge had resigned; their heads...... middle of paper...... Gallaudet had grown up thanks to language, because of language. Now that they had a language of their own, a language that even the dominant hearing culture could no longer refuse to grant the status of "reality," these students had something to fall back on. Before the linguistic acceptance of a language they called their own, deaf people, whether culturally or individually, had no way to oppose the dominant "social grammar" nor any way to persuade and take responsibility. Persuasion and power, definition and acceptance of self and society begin with language in all cultures. And these socially and individually constructed beginnings among deaf people, these questions of literate and linguistic (re)definition with the use of ASL, and these successful demonstrations of power and persuasion like those that occurred at Gallaudet in 1988 form the core of studies in rhetoric and literacy. and culture.