The National Black Deaf Advocates grew out of a 1980 meeting at the offices of Deafpride, Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based group dedicated to assisting minority deaf (see MSS 192). Deafpride’s Board of Directors, including black deaf leaders such as Linwood Smith, Ann Wilson, and Lottie Crook, proposed the idea of a national conference of black deaf. This eventually developed into a caucus at the 1980 National Association of the Deaf conference chaired by Charles Williams of Cleveland. At this caucus, black deaf attendees expressed frustration at their lack of representation in the NAD and other national groups, and the possibility of creating a national organization for black deaf was discussed.

Over the next year, the DC and Cleveland black deaf communities organized a conference on black deafness, including coming up with the name Black Deaf Advocates and establishing the DCABDA as the first chapter of the new organization. Their efforts led to a mini-conference held at Howard University in June 1981. The first full BDA conference was held a year later in August 1982 in Cleveland, which became the second BDA chapter. The third and fourth BDA chapters were set up in Pennsylvania and New York, which also hosted BDA conferences in 1983 and 1984. At the 1984 convention, Sheryl Guest-Emery was made executive secretary, and later executive director, of the organization, and was instrumental in creating national bylaws for the organization and renaming it the National Black Deaf Advocates.

Since then, the NBDA has grown to over 25 chapters. NBDA provides services, advocacy, and activities for the black deaf community, including workshops, education, interpreter training, conferences and events, networking, publishing, and more.