VIDBE-Q 2025 Volume 70 Issue 3
ASB is one of the many jewels within AIDB. Our staff strives to provide a
high-quality, accessible educational environment in order to help each
student reach their maximum potential. At AIDB, our highly qualified staff
in Blind or visually impaired education remove the barriers to direct
instruction and meet our students where they are, so they can elevate them.
The ASB staff helps students identify and evaluate obstacles in their lives to
implement strategies to overcome them.
- Dennis Gilliam, President, AIDB
Founding a Future: A History Rooted in Purpose
The Alabama School for the Blind was established in 1867, during a time of
reconstruction and rebuilding across the South. It was founded as a companion to
the Alabama School for the Deaf (ASD), which had been established in 1858 by
Dr. Joseph Henry Johnson. The creation of ASB was inspired by Talladega native
Reuben Asbury, a member of the ASD staff whose traumatic imprisonment in
darkness during the Civil War led him to dedicate his life to educating children
who are Blind. In an era when children with disabilities were often overlooked by
traditional education systems, ASB emerged as a groundbreaking school, offering
quality education and vocational training to students who were Blind or visually
impaired.
