Geraldine Jerrie Lawhorn (December 31, 1916 – July 3, 2016) was a figure of the American deafblind community, a performer, actress, pianist, then instructor at the Hadley Institute for the Blind and Visually Impaired. At 67 years old, she became the first deafblind African American to earn a college degree in the United States of America.
Biography
Early life
Geraldine Jerrie Lawhorn was born on December 31, 1916, in Dayton, Ohio, to Pearl Walker and William Bert Lawhorn. Her parents were musicians, and at the time, the managers of a movie theater in Dayton. She had two older brothers, Melvin and Wendell Lawhorn.
Geraldine spent her childhood between Dayton and Chicago. When she was eighteen months old, her family settled in Chicago, where they started a confectioner's trade business. After her parents' divorce in 1922, Geraldine returned to Dayton with her mother and started elementary school. However, a traumatizing experience compelled them to move back to Chicago, where she lived with her mother and her brothers. During the Great Depression starting in 1929, the Lawhorns went through financial hardships. Pearl Walker opened a beauty shop in their apartment to earn some money and have time to take care of her children.
Handicap and school
Geraldine was about eight years old when doctors discovered she had an eye condition. She could not see well, and faced difficulties to read. Geraldine attended many church meetings because her parents thought religion could help her. At twelve years old, Geraldine lost her sight, but she could still perceive some glimmer of light. Doctors never found the cause of her blindness. As a result, she attended the Sight-Saving Room of the Sherwood Grammar School which provided some accommodations for the visually impaired pupils. Geraldine had to learn the braille language, but still had classes with sighted students. Her integration at school was not easy: in eighth grade, her classmates booed, stigmatized, and discriminated against her.
Then, Geraldine attended the Braille Department of Marshall High School. She became interested in writing and public speaking. She won several prizes for her short stories. She decided to change her name from "Jerry" to "Jerrie" because she wanted it to seem French. As for the sight, Jerrie progressively lost her hearing capacities. Therefore, she had to learn a new mode of communication: the One-Hand Alphabet, and joined a special academic program in the Braille Room. This situation did not prevent her from improving her writing skills. She won a writing contest in Chicago after presenting her short story Gift. She also wrote a novel entitled The Needle Swingers' Baby.
Artistic years
Geraldine graduated with honors from high school. However, she did not have plans to further her education. She received a scholarship from the AKA sorority and decided to take a correspondence course in short-story writing offered by Columbia University. The Hadley Institute for the Blind and Visually Impaired provided the braille material for the course. At the time, the Catholic Youth Organization conducted an experiment to see if dogs were able to lead blind people. Jerrie volunteered to participate and received a dog, Blondie. After a couple of months, she could keep it with her.
At 19 years old, Jerrie completely lost her hearing. Doctors credited this handicap with measles she contracted when she turned five. It was an emotionally painful situation. Nonetheless, Jerrie did not stay idle; instead, she became involved in many activities. She attended the monthly meetings of the Fellowship Circle of the Blind, where she discovered drama performance and started writing plays for the fellowship programs. The young lady performed her first full-length dramatic recital on May 2, 1940, at Poro College.
Geraldine desired attending college but she was refused many scholarships due to her handicaps. She decided to develop her artistic skills instead. She received a grant from the scholarship committee in Springfield to take private lessons in theater arts. Thus, she attended three days a week the dramatic department of the Chicago Piano College. Bessie Henderson, the head of the Drama Division of the school and an alumna from Northwestern University, taught her creative writing, diction, public speaking, and acting. Geraldine also had music lessons once a week. It was challenging since she could not hear the piano, but she reported feeling its vibrations.