Recognizing those who have gone before . . . .

As we closed Black History Month 2023, I’d like to express my gratitude to a pioneering few speech-language pathologists who blazed the trail.

Less than 5% of speech-language pathologists in the United States are Black. The numbers have actually <risen> to this level since I earned my undergraduate degree 22 years ago, which underscores how few of us there are.

With that in mind, I am deeply appreciative of those who researched and fought to prove that “ain’t” and “gonna” are simply parts of a beautifully complex dialect and not a disorder.

Those who advocated for Black kids at educational meetings and for Black elders in nursing homes.

Those who returned to HBCUs to teach and those who pushed at PWIs to recruit Black students.

Those whose entire lives, both professional and personal, were an exercise in code switching.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Kimberly Parmar, MA, CCC-SLP