Inside SLP

In 1968, the ASHA Convention became a moment of rupture. Not because of disorder, but because long-standing tensions were finally named. This episode examines what happened when Black clinicians challenged the limits of a profession that defined itself as “neutral,” and what that moment revealed about power, voice, and professional growth.

We explore:
  • The Denver moment: Why ASHA leadership responded to internal and external dissent with heightened security.
  • The “birdwatcher” debate: Whether a professional association can remain technically neutral in a socially unequal world.
  • Exit and voice in action: How the National Black Association for Speech-Language and Hearing emerged.
  • Clinical consequences: How this advocacy reshaped the profession’s understanding of difference versus disorder.
Sources:
  • Malone, R. (1999). The first 75 years: An oral history of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
  • Williams, R., & Wolfram, W. (1977). Social dialects: Differences vs. disorders.
Connect:

Creators and Guests

Producer
Megan Berg, SLP
Megan is an SLP based in Montana and owner of Therapy Insights.

What is Inside SLP?

Inside SLP is a limited series podcast that reveals how our profession came to be and why it functions the way it does. Most clinicians work inside a system they were never taught to see, shaped by decades of history, policy, economics, and unspoken assumptions. This show offers lightbulb moments that bring clarity to the structures beneath our everyday work and opens space for thoughtful, grounded understanding of the field we share.

Megan Berg:

Welcome to Inside SLP. This is a limited series podcast about how our profession came to be and where it's heading. Most of us work inside a system we were never taught to see. This podcast is about slowing down enough to understand that system with clarity, calm, and context. I'm Megan Berg.

Megan Berg:

Let's look inside. In the last episode, we talked about exit and voice. The idea that a system only stays healthy if you have the power to speak up or the power to leave. We feel like we live in a reality where the exit door is locked but today we're going to look at 1968, a year when the door wasn't just locked, it was guarded by armed men. Picture the nineteen sixty eight ASHA convention in Denver.

Megan Berg:

Outside the country was an upheaval. Inside, the ASHA leadership was, quite literally, terrified. The documents from that era do not use polite language. They describe a leadership structure that was absolutely terrified of their own black colleagues. They didn't see a professional caucus.

Megan Berg:

They saw a threat. So they hired Pinkerton detectives, armed guards to stand at the doors. At that time, you hired Pinkertons to break strikes and intimidate mobs. These men stood at the entrances checking badges, watching for external marchers or aggressive elements. The rumor was that the convention would be stormed because the organization was viewed as racist.

Megan Berg:

The threat wasn't an outside mob. It was clinicians like Orlando Taylor and Ernest Moore. When these black professionals finally walked into the business meeting, one council member described them as wanting to take over. The white members weren't just disagreeing, they were bracing for a riot that never happened. At that convention, the tension boiled over into a debate that defines our field to this day.

Megan Berg:

The ASHA president, John Irwin, scrapped his standard speech and instead hosted a forum on a single burning question. What should be the role of a professional association in a conflict society? Two men took the stage representing two completely different visions of what this profession is. On one side was Jean Michel representing the strict constructionist view. His argument was that Asha should stay in its lane.

Megan Berg:

He said, If I wanted to learn about birds, I'd join the Audubon Society. If the Audubon Society began taking up issues of politics, I'd wonder why they weren't spending that time studying birds. His view was that ASHA is a technical society like bird watchers insulated from the messy realities of the world. On the other side was Orlando Taylor, a leader of the newly forming Black Caucus. His argument was simple but radical for the room.

Megan Berg:

You cannot separate the profession from the humanity of the people it serves. He refuted the birdwatcher comparison. He said, asking should we be involved in the social and political issues of our times is akin to asking, should we be human beings? For years, black clinicians had tried to use their voice. They submitted resolutions.

Megan Berg:

They asked for representation, they asked for a black member to be appointed to leadership but time and again their requests were rejected, diluted or met with vague promises of future committees. If they had accepted that ASHA was the only option, if they had believed exit was impossible, the story would end there. The profession would have stayed stagnant. But they didn't. They realized that the existing structure was too small to hold the truth of their clinical experience.

Megan Berg:

So they founded the National Black Association for Speech Language and Hearing in Basla. Did this splinter the profession? Did it weaken the field? No. It made us better clinicians.

Megan Berg:

And here's the proof: Before this group organized, the profession had a massive scientific blind spot regarding African American English. It was largely pathologized, treated as a disorder to be fixed or corrected. It was the pressure from Imbasla and the Black Caucus that forced the profession to confront that bias. Their advocacy led to the creation of the Committee on Communication Problems and Behaviors in Urban Populations and that committee produced a landmark publication called Differences versus Disorders. Let's think about that concept, difference versus disorder.

Megan Berg:

That is a fundamental clinical distinction. It protects thousands of children from being misdiagnosed every year. It is the bedrock of ethical practice today. That innovation didn't come from the Audubon Society approach. It didn't come from the center.

Megan Berg:

It came from the edge. It came because a group of clinicians stopped waiting to catch up and decided to lead the way themselves. Imbasala did not form to destroy ASHA. It didn't destroy licensure. It didn't break the field.

Megan Berg:

It formed because the monopoly was failing to serve the whole patient. And in doing so, it revealed something important for all of us today. Monopoly is not the same as unity. Unity is when we agree on our purpose. Monopoly is when we are not allowed to go anywhere else.

Megan Berg:

The fear that everything would fall apart if ASHA weren't the sole professional home is not supported by our own history. When Imbasla formed, the sky didn't fall. Instead, the profession got smarter, it got more humane, and it got more clinically accurate. Here is the light bulb moment I want to leave you with. We have this deep professional anxiety that splintering means violence.

Megan Berg:

We think that if we divide, we break. But look at how the rest of the world works. In biology, when a cell divides, we don't call it breaking, we call it mitosis, we call it growth. If cells don't divide, life wouldn't exist. In geography, when a massive river splits into smaller streams, it doesn't dry up.

Megan Berg:

It forms a delta, the most fertile, rich, and vibrant ecosystem on the map. The river has to split to feed the land. In physics, when you split a beam of white light through a prism, you don't destroy the light, you reveal the spectrum of color that was hiding inside it all along. When Imbasla created a new home for black clinicians, they didn't subtract from the profession. They acted like that prism.

Megan Berg:

They took the single standard view of the field and split it open. They revealed the spectrum of black leadership, black dialect, and black clinical needs that had been invisible inside the white light of ASHA. They didn't break the profession, they revealed its full color and because they did, we are all seeing more clearly today. So back to that question someone asked me when I was in DC last year, Is it illegal to start another association? The answer is no.

Megan Berg:

But the fact that we are asking it tells us how stuck we have been. For so long, we have operated from a place of scarcity, fear that there aren't enough resources, fear that if we critique the center, the center will collapse, fear that if we build something new, we are betraying the old. But that fear has cost us. It has kept us root bound in a pot that is too small for who we have become. It has convinced us that we have to fight each other for scraps of influence instead of just building a bigger table.

Megan Berg:

There is no enemy here. ASHA is not a villain, it's an organization trying to survive just like we are. But survival is not the same as growth and we are living in a time that is ripe for bold moves, moves rooted in abundance, not fear. Imbasla proved that we don't have to wait for permission to be excellent. We don't have to wait for the monopoly to approve our existence.

Megan Berg:

We just have to decide that we are ready to build. But if we are ready, why does it feel like we are still just yelling at each other? If the door is open, why is the tension so high? Next time we're going to look at the noise, the Facebook threads, the Instagram comments, the circular arguments because when we are yelling about fees or influencers or CF nightmares, we aren't usually yelling about those things at all. We're yelling about something much deeper.

Megan Berg:

I'm Megan Berg. This is inside SLP. Thanks for sitting in the complexity with me. If you are finding this podcast informational and helpful, please leave it a rating in a written review. This helps other people find the show.

Megan Berg:

My intention with these episodes is to help us all move forward as a profession and the more we all understand how the system works, the more we can move forward together. If you'd like me to present this information to your workplace, grad program, or SLP book club, please contact me at therapyinsights dot com slash inside SLP. I've also put that link in the show notes for easy clicking. If you want to understand this system more deeply, I invite you to learn about the PACT survey, a national effort to capture how SLPs, audiologists, employers, and consumers experience our profession. You can sign up for updates at pactsurvey.com.

Megan Berg:

That's pactsurvey.com. PACT stands for perspectives, credentialing and training. This series has been informed by conversations with speech language pathologists and audiologists who generously shared their experiences, questions, and institutional memory with me. I'm deeply grateful for the time, care, and honesty they brought to these conversations. Historical context for this episode draws in part from the book The First seventy five Years, an oral history of the American Speech Language Hearing Association published in 1999 by ASHA and written by Russ Malone as well as publicly available reports, legal records, and financial documents.

Megan Berg:

This podcast represents my independent analysis and interpretation of these materials. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or speaking on behalf of ASHA, any academic institution, or any licensing or credentialing body. Any errors are my own.