In the dairy aisle, right in front of the milk cooler, Narkita Cooper tapped a store employee on the shoulder to ask for assistance.
The employee signed that he was deaf.
His face lit up when Cooper signed back, and their communication shifted from accommodation to connection. Cooper shared she was learning American Sign Language through her work as a minister serving the Deaf community at The Faith Place (also known as First Apostolic Faith Church), a West Akron multicultural, Christian church rooted in Pentecostal-style beliefs.
The employee smiled and signed: “Awesome.”
A joyful high five followed. This December encounter in the Tallmadge Giant Eagle became an opening into shared language, recognition and respect between two people connected by ASL. And this moment echoes a largely forgotten chapter of Akron’s history, when historians say deaf and hard-of-hearing workers built deep roots in the city.
How Akron became a magnet for Deaf workers
More than a century ago, as much of the nation discouraged sign language in favor of oralism — a teaching method focused on spoken language and lip reading — historians say Akron’s industrial economy created space for Deaf workers to thrive. Over several decades, the city’s factories recruited hundreds, and later thousands, of men to fill roles in spaces where limited or no hearing was often an advantage.
Akron quickly became home of one of the nation’s largest Deaf communities, said historian Dave Lieberth, whose many titles in Akron include executive secretary of the Akron Bicentennial Commission and president of the Akron History Center.
These workers moved their families to Akron neighborhoods and took jobs at Goodyear, Firestone and printing plants such as the Akron Beacon Journal.
“At one point … there were deaf people from every single state — all 48 states represented here,” said Levi King, the Community Services for the Deaf Operations Manager at Greenleaf Family Center, which last year received more than 3,500 requests for interpreting. “The factories realized what good workers they were because the noise didn’t bother them. Plus [managers of the era often described that Deaf workers] didn’t stand around and chat; they worked. They had to work with their eyes; they had to stay sharp.
“For the first time in history, they were able to purchase homes themselves and have their own communities, have good pay, pension, etc.”
Speaking of community, they formed sports teams such as the Goodyear Silents, a semi-professional football team. Places of worship. And clubs such as The Akron Club of the Deaf Inc., which was founded in 1943.
Melissa Bradley Musser’s grandparents migrated too. Her grandmother grew up in the Appalachian region and lost her hearing at age 3. Her family moved to Akron during the Great Migration era; she later worked at the Akron Post Office. Musser’s grandfather, born deaf in South Carolina, attended Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., for one year before being recruited to Akron to work at Goodyear. Her grandmother could read lips and learned some spoken language in school. Her grandfather did not.
They raised Musser in their home in Ellet, where they communicated with sign language.
Musser believes Akron’s Deaf community was part of the broader groundwork that helped pave the way for later advocacy, including ASL’s recognition and the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990).
“They were able to actually fulfill the American dream,” said Musser, who is now a partner in a CPA firm and lives in Hudson. “They got their own home. They got to have community, church, fellowships, sporting events. They had their own deaf sports. All those things I think are important to making a healthy community.”
Decades later, Musser’s research was a major contribution to the “Forgotten History Forum Series” episode on the history of Deaf rubber workers, part of Akron Bicentennial’s project.
As of 2023, approximately 3.7% of Ohio residents — about 400,000 people — were deaf or have serious hearing difficulty. While the number of residents in Akron and Summit County is unknown, King said Greenleaf Family Center provided 10,000 hours of community services last year — from medical, legal, educational, mental health and case management to vocational rehab and helping residents find jobs.
“Although there have been some strides in understanding that we need to provide interpreters,” King said, “there’s still a pushback at times, and that can be disheartening, because I don’t know why we have to discuss this. It’s the right thing to do.
“I mean, if it was your mother, your brother, your wife, child, would you want them to have access to the information that’s being provided?”
How Cooper discovered signing
Cooper’s relationship with ASL began when she was in middle school, around the age of 12. Her great-aunt, Ruby Veal, taught at Schumacher Elementary for more than two decades.
And Veal? A deaf child inspired her to study sign language at the University of Akron, her way to recognize the dignity of the language and the importance of access. After retirement, Veal continued that commitment by teaching sign language to young people at Akron’s Greater Refuge Tabernacle Church through its deaf ministry.
At one point, Cooper and her twin sister moved in with Veal due to family circumstances. There, signing became a part of daily life.
After Cooper’s great-aunt died, ASL receded from the foreground until Cooper found her way back through the Deaf Ministry at The Faith Place. Approximately eight signers — including Cooper — are available for Sunday morning services, where they take turns signing prayers, music and sermon.
Deaf members and visitors are encouraged, but not required, to sit in the front row to make it easier to see sign language interpreters. Because of this, they never know how many people sitting in pews during Sunday services rely on their sign language services. So they take turns signing at all services, regardless of who shows up.
“If you would come on a Sunday,” Williams said, “you would see some children as young as five, learning how to sign up front. To my knowledge, none of the children are hard of hearing; just interested in learning to communicate with the Deaf.”
Over the years, several deaf members have regularly attended the church.
“There are a lot of hard of hearing people in our congregation, I will say,” said Alfreda Williams, who has been a member of the church since 1981. She wears hearing aides. “Some are public and some are silent. They don’t want people to know.”
Cooper, 47, is currently taking additional sign language classes from Paula Wray, a 1971 Buchtel High School graduate who first learned ASL in the mid-1980s and has taught sign language since the 1990s. She serves at The Faith Place alongside Ellery Smith Maillard.
Decades ago, Wray was inspired to learn sign language after a Sunday school instructor taught her how to sign the Lord’s Prayer. By 1994, she asked Bishop Francis L. Smith, then pastor of West Akron church, if she could start a deaf ministry. He agreed.
“I said that deaf people are just like us … they have a soul, and their soul needs salvation, just like ours,” Wray said.
And now, she’s pouring into Cooper.
Cooper describes the grocery store encounter not as coincidence but, rather, affirmation — “a wink moment from God” — a reminder of the enduring power of language, presence and the sacredness of being truly seen and understood.
Cooper said she wished she had invited the grocery store employee to The Faith Place. Which is why she’s committed to returning to Giant Eagle’s dairy aisle.