AJ+ wins a Capital Emmy for its story “Inside A Deaf School’s Fight For Civil Rights”

AJ+ was honored with a Capital Emmy® in the category of Historic/Cultural - Program Feature/Segment for their Untold America’s story “Inside A Deaf School’s Fight For Civil Rights”. The piece takes the audience to Gallaudet University, an institution of higher education for Deaf and hard of hearing individuals that has become the center of the Deaf community in the United States (U.S.). It is part of a larger series entitled “Deaf in America”, which aims at making visible the lives and stories of members of the U.S. Deaf community in an inclusive and compelling way. The series was produced for AJ+’s Untold America, a show that explores underrepresented, forgotten and misunderstood communities in the U.S.

The Capital Emmy is a regional Emmy®, awarded by the National Capital Chesapeake Bay Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, in recognition of outstanding achievements in television production. The chapter covers Maryland, Virginia and Washington DC.

“We’re so grateful that the Capital Emmy® has recognized this piece that features the Deaf community, whose stories don’t often get told. We’re especially proud of this piece because of the lengths we went to make it accessible to a Deaf audience,” said Maggie Beidelman, Senior Producer of Untold America. Along with Maggie, Producers Emily Gibson and Jun Stinson, Editor and Cameraman Michael Nguyen, Animator Marisa Cruz and Executive Producer Sarah Nasr were part of the team that produced this award-winning story.

This is the second regional Emmy® for AJ+’s Untold America show. The first one, in 2018, was awarded in the category of Historic/Cultural-Feature for its piece “How Chop Suey Saved San Francisco’s Chinatown.”

“It was certainly great that AJ+ was honored with an Emmy back in 2018 for the first time. Now, it feels even better to maintain our position among the best video content creators. They say that keeping up with success is harder than getting there. Congratulations to the Untold America team for this award and for keeping up in an extremely competitive market while telling the stories that matter”, mentioned Moeed Ahmad, Head of AJ+ English.

The 61st Emmy® Awards Gala took place on Saturday, June 22nd, in Bethesda, Maryland. The Emmy® Award is the premier television production award presented in various sectors of the television industry, including entertainment programming, news and documentary shows, and sports programming. The awards are presented in various area-specific ceremonies held annually throughout the year, honoring excellence in television programming.