Every week, Evon Black would go to church with her family. The choir would sing. The piano would play. The preacher would preach.

Black's family sang gospel music in the church. Sometimes Black would join them.

But Mostly, she just watched.

Black watched everything.

Born deaf, Black needed signs to understand speech. But there were no interpreters in churches in those days. She kept her mind busy by watching other people. She watched people and she was never bored.

Then she began to show what she saw.

She showed what she saw by imitating the people watched. She slid her mouth around like the man with funny lips. She swooshed her body from side to side like some of the people when they prayed. She showed how some ladies arrived in church all prim and proper--but left with tears in their eyes, their makeup smeared, and their clothing shifted and crumpled.

Everyone loved to watch Black do her imitations--and she loved it when they laughed

Black knew that she had a special talent.

She knew how to use it, too.

"It was Mother's Day," she remembered. "I was six years old, and I didn't have any money. So I told my brothers, if you don't give me some money, I'll tell manna what I saw. "

She chuckled. What she saw was one brother smoking a cigarette ... and one brother kissing his girlfriend.

They both paid up-and Black had enough money to buy her mother a gift.

Then one day, she found herself on stage at a family reunion.

"Imitate Your mother " called out one person,

"Imitate your grandmother, " called out another person.

Black did the impersonations. She made everyone laugh.

She loved it, too.

New Student

Black entered the Arkansas School for the Deaf (ASD) when she was seven years old. It was 1969, and ASD had only recently combined its separate schools for black students and white students.

"Black children and white children sat together in the classroom," she remembered, "But we lived separately. Black students slept on one side of the dorm, white Students on the other."

In the mornings the black girls had to wait for the white girls to shower and comb their hair. It was not a pleasant experience.

Still Black knew she had power in her talent.

"When people were mean to me, I'd just take it," she says grinning. "Then I'd show them what they looked like."

Like the white girl who tried to change the color of her skin.

Black widens her eyes and wiggles her tongue to show how silly that girl looked. Black was a new AS student when the white girl attacked her with a mixture of bleach and detergent. She tried to rub off the brown in Black's skin, and make her look white.

"It made my skin burn and peel and itch," Black says. "But of course it didn't change the color. "

Still, her memories of the school are mostly happy. From the time she entered, she starred in school plays, and she credits acting with keeping her in the school.

"I was so little that I didn't understand why I had to live at the school," she says. "When my mother dropped me off and drove away, I was heartbroken. "

She cried every day. She stopped eating, too. After a week, worried school officials called her mother. "Come back here and get your daughter, " they said. Black went home for a while. Her mother explained again and again the importance of going to school.

Finally she returned. This time she stayed.

"Every Friday, we would perform nursery rhymes, " she notes. " We did Mary Had a Little Lamb, Little Miss Muff et, and Three Blind Mice. We would read the rhymes first, memorize them, and then perform them. I loved it."

Just like at home, she became famous for her imitations.

Once, the students dared her to imitate the Muff et superintendent-to his face.

"You do it and we'll give you root beer and Cheats! " they promised.

"A big glass of root beer?" Black demanded.

A big glass!

It was a deal.

Black walked up to the superintendent. "I can do what you do," she told him smiling. At first he did not understand. Then Black burst into one of her imitations. She made pleasant but wooden signs like the superintendent, and copied the way he greeted people.

"He wasn't mad," she remembers. "He laughed... "

Then he told her to imitate his assistant!

Her teachers encouraged her to make a career in drama. Black knew that even with her talent she would need a good education. She went to Gallaudet University and majored in psychology. Then she got her master's degree in Educational Technology. Today she works as Coordinator of Residence Life for Gallaudet University. She also produces and performs widely for people--deaf and hearing--throughout the United States.

When Black performs, she uses many stories from her past.

"I talk about my mama, and I talk about the church," she says.

She put the episode about the girl who tried to wash away her skin color into "I Didn't Hear That Color, " a famous play about black deaf people.

She was working at Gallaudet when she met her husband.

"I had just boarded a bus to go home to Arkansas," she said. "There were only two seats left--I saw this crazy woman who seemed ready to take the seat next to me. "

She didn't want share the long ride with the crazy woman.

"You know how deaf people are," she said. "I would have sat there, nodding, and being polite--and meanwhile she would be making me crazy."

A man stood next to the woman, and Black waved at him.

"Sit here," she gestured.

And he did.

They were on the bus together for 48 hours. When he got off in Tennessee, he asked for Black's telephone number.

"I gave him my work number," she says.

And she forgot all about it. Until the man called.

They were married four years ago. Today, they have a three-year-old son, Dennis, who everyone calls "DJ." The whole family lives in a dorm at Gallaudet University, where Black works.

"It's a great experience for my son to grow up on this campus," she said. Both her son and her husband hear. Her husband signs a little, and her son signs fluently.

"He's like me," she said. "He takes in everything."

And gives it back, too.