Deaf German Missionary Berta Foster (1939-2018) and Deaf Education in West Africa

In 1960, twenty-one-year-old Berta Zuther left her life in West Berlin behind to join African American missionary Andrew Foster in Ghana, thus embarking on a journey that would span three continents and result in the establishment of schools for the deaf across Africa. Berta and Andrew were both deaf themselves. They got married in Nigeria in 1961 and devoted their lives to building educational opportunities for deaf Africans—founding 32 schools, churches, and community centers in 13 African countries between 1957 and 2009.

This volume places Berta Foster at the center of interest, a woman who has remained largely invisible in existing accounts of her husband’s pioneering educational mission. While Andrew Foster has been celebrated as an icon in Black and Deaf American history, Berta's crucial contributions as administrator and driving force not just behind their German support network have been overlooked. Drawing on private family archives, including hundreds of personal letters, and interviews with family members as well as former students and colleagues from deaf communities in Ghana and Nigeria, this book explores how deafness, gender, and race intersected in the lives of an interracial couple working across cultural boundaries during the Cold War era.

Deaf German Missionary Berta Foster (1939-2018) and Deaf Education in West Africa will be beneficial to students of Deaf History, Disability History, Diversity History, West African History, German History, American History.

Anja Werner works as a freelancer historian and writer in Germany.