[Brl-monitor] The Braille Monitor, February 2016
Brian Buhrow
buhrow at lothlorien.nfbcal.org
Fri Jan 29 08:12:58 PST 2016
BRAILLE MONITOR
Vol. 59, No. 2 February 2016
Gary Wunder, Editor
Distributed by email, in inkprint, in Braille, and on USB flash
drive, with the audio version being available in both Spanish and English
(see reverse side) by the
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
Mark Riccobono, President
telephone: (410) 659-9314
email address: nfb at nfb.org
website address: http://www.nfb.org
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Letters to the President, address changes, subscription requests, and
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for the Monitor and letters to the editor may also be sent to the national
office or may be emailed to gwunder at nfb.org.
Monitor subscriptions cost the Federation about forty dollars per year.
Members are invited, and nonmembers are requested, to cover the
subscription cost. Donations should be made payable to National Federation
of the Blind and sent to:
National Federation of the Blind
200 East Wells Street at Jernigan Place
Baltimore, Maryland 21230-4998
THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND KNOWS THAT BLINDNESS IS NOT THE
CHARACTERISTIC THAT DEFINES YOU OR YOUR FUTURE. EVERY DAY WE RAISE THE
EXPECTATIONS OF BLIND PEOPLE, BECAUSE LOW EXPECTATIONS CREATE OBSTACLES
BETWEEN BLIND PEOPLE AND OUR DREAMS. YOU CAN LIVE THE LIFE YOU WANT;
BLINDNESS IS NOT WHAT HOLDS YOU BACK. THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND-IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR
OURSELVES.
ISSN 0006-8829
© 2016 by the National Federation of the Blind
Each issue is recorded on a thumb drive (also called a memory stick
or USB flash drive). You can read this audio edition using a computer or a
National Library Service digital player. The NLS machine has two slots-the
familiar book-cartridge slot just above the retractable carrying handle and
a second slot located on the right side near the headphone jack. This
smaller slot is used to play thumb drives. Remove the protective rubber pad
covering this slot and insert the thumb drive. It will insert only in one
position. If you encounter resistance, flip the drive over and try again.
(Note: If the cartridge slot is not empty when you insert the thumb drive,
the digital player will ignore the thumb drive.) Once the thumb drive is
inserted, the player buttons will function as usual for reading digital
materials. If you remove the thumb drive to use the player for cartridges,
when you insert it again, reading should resume at the point you stopped.
You can transfer the recording of each issue from the thumb drive to
your computer or preserve it on the thumb drive. However, because thumb
drives can be used hundreds of times, we would appreciate their return in
order to stretch our funding. Please use the return envelope enclosed with
the drive when you return the device.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Palm-lined drive leading to front entrance to Rosen Shingle
Creek Resort]
Orlando Site of 2016 NFB Convention
The 2016 convention of the National Federation of the Blind will take
place in Orlando, Florida, June 30 to July 5, at the Rosen Shingle Creek
Resort, 9939 Universal Boulevard, Orlando, Florida 32819-9357. Make your
room reservation as soon as possible with the Shingle Creek staff only.
Call (866) 996-6338.
The 2016 room rates are singles and doubles, $83; and for triples and
quads $89. In addition to the room rates there will be a tax, which at
present is 13.5 percent. No charge will be made for children under
seventeen in the room with parents as long as no extra bed is requested.
The hotel is accepting reservations now. A $95-per-room deposit is required
to make a reservation. Fifty percent of the deposit will be refunded if
notice is given to the hotel of a reservation cancellation before May 27,
2016. The other 50 percent is not refundable.
Rooms will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Reservations may be made before May 27, 2016, assuming that rooms are still
available. After that time the hotel will not hold our room block for the
convention. In other words, you should get your reservation in soon.
All Rosen Shingle Creek guestrooms feature amenities that include
plush Creek Sleeper beds, 40" flat screen TVs, complimentary high-speed
internet capabilities, in-room safes, coffee makers, mini-fridges, and hair
dryers. Guests can also enjoy a swimming pool, fitness center, and on-site
spa. The Rosen Shingle Creek Resort has a number of dining options,
including two award-winning restaurants, and twenty-four-hour-a-day room
service.
The schedule for the 2016 convention is:
Thursday, June 30 Seminar Day
Friday, July 1 Registration Day
Saturday, July 2 Board Meeting and Division Day
Sunday, July 3 Opening Session
Monday, July 4 Business Session
Tuesday, July 5 Banquet Day and Adjournment
Vol. 59, No. 2
February 2016
Contents
Illustration: NFB BELL Academy December Seminar Highlights
A Dustup in Oklahoma and Its Importance to Blind Oklahomans
by Gary Wunder
Brad Smith's Address at the 2015 Accessibility Summit
A Modern-Day Pioneer in Our Midst: An Attempt to Say Thank You to a Civil
Rights Leader for the Blind
by Gary Wunder
The Blind in the World: From Paternalism to Self-Determination
by Fredric K. Schroeder
NAC: What Price Accreditation
by Kenneth Jernigan
Introducing Braille: Begin With a Positive Experience
by Doris Willoughby
Blindness: The Pattern of Freedom
by Kenneth Jernigan
How the First Self-Advocacy Organization of the Blind Met the Challenge of
Social Security, 1940-1950
by Anna Kresmer
Making Diversity Work
by Elaine Warn
The Kenneth Jernigan Convention Scholarship Fund
by Allen Harris
Recipes
Monitor Miniatures
[PHOTO CAPTION: Cane walk in the lunchroom: Corrb O'Connor (KY) leads James
Bevels (NC) on a Cane Walk under learning shades in the lunchroom of the
National Center for the Blind in Baltimore, MD.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Participants cutting out materials during a hands-on
activity: (Left to right) Mary Jo Partyka (NJ) cuts out a face that has
raised lines on its perimeter for accessibility while Rebecca Sherman (ID)
reads the lesson plan for this activity from the NFB BELL Academy
curriculum. Alison Steven (ID) and Debbie Wunder (MO) tactually review
their cut-out faces.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Participants making a beach ball make sound by adding
spaghetti noodles and rice: (Left to right) Wendy Bybee (UT) adds spaghetti
noodles to a beach ball so that it will make sounds when NFB BELL Academy
participants use it in a lesson. Beside her, Katie Chevalier (UT) does the
same with rice as the noise-making material.
NFB BELL Academy December Seminar Highlights
Each year, state coordinators and teachers from around the nation
gather to discuss upcoming Braille Enrichment for Literacy and Learning
(BELL) programs that will be conducted in their states. Teaching Braille to
young students in a two-week program can be challenging, and especially
when the students range in age from four to twelve years old. Since there
is no requirement that students come, at least part of the success of the
program must be in making what is done not only educational but fun.
At this year's BELL Academy, where the job was to train the trainers,
fifty-seven participants from thirty-one states and the District of
Columbia joined in the learning. Lodging and meals were provided for all,
and travel costs for one person from each state was provided. Twenty-eight
hours of training helped to fill a busy three-day seminar. But it isn't
just about the scheduled training. BELL Academy gives BELL coordinators and
teachers from across the country a chance to mingle, sharing experiences,
tips, tricks, and support as they prepare for the 2016 BELL sessions. A
single session was devoted to letting veteran BELL teachers and
coordinators share their experiences, while other sessions covered topics
like training for Facebook novices, specific strategies for using social
media to advertise BELL, grant writing, insurance and liability, and many
other topics.
Attendees got a chance to practice actual lessons and hands-on
activities from the curriculum including Braille Twister, UEB or Not To BE,
Cane Walks, Stick Out Your Braille Tongue, Splash Words, Drawing With Your
Perkins Brailler, Slides and Mountains, Frogs Do Jump High, Spreading 101
and All About Spreads, Pouring Practice, Beach Ball Braille (Letters,
Contractions, Nemeth, and Words), and making homemade scented play dough.
If the teachers got to have that much fun, just imagine how
interesting, amazing, and exciting the summer of 2016 will be for those
states lucky enough to have a BELL Program.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Director Joe Cordova]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Division Administrator Douglas Boone]
A Dustup in Oklahoma and Its Importance to Blind Oklahomans
by Gary Wunder
In the June 2013 issue of the Braille Monitor, the lead article was
"The Rehabilitation System in Oklahoma: Progress, Setbacks, and the Hope
for Greater Opportunities." It revealed that two leading rehabilitation
officials were fired or resigned three days apart, and the article
discussed the reasons for their severance. More importantly, it discussed
the progress that had been made in providing rehabilitation services to the
blind of Oklahoma and expressed the hope that it would not be derailed by
the inappropriate behavior of its previous rehabilitation officials.
The fear that elected officials in Oklahoma would retreat from the
task of improving their rehabilitation system by promoting low-profile
bureaucrats and ordering them to keep rehabilitation services below the
radar was unfounded. Oklahoma moved boldly to hire Joe Cordova as the
executive director of the Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services
(ODRS) in December of 2013. His work in the field is well known to members
of the National Federation of the Blind and professionals in the field of
rehabilitation, having distinguished himself throughout the country as an
innovative and hard-working leader in getting services leading to
employment. He has been the assistant commissioner for services for the
blind in New Mexico, headed the Division for the Blind in the
Rehabilitation Services Administration, became a regional commissioner in
that agency, and then moved to Hawaii to head their general rehabilitation
agency. "We want people to have good jobs at good wages, and we want to
avoid providing the kind of minimalist service that leads to them coming
back to the department again and again because they don't make enough money
or the employment doesn't represent something they really want to do."
Cordova is emphatic in his conviction that the bar for his agency is not
met or exceeded by helping clients secure entry-level employment and then
walking away with the agency feeling satisfied that it has a case closure.
The agency should feel that it has been successful only when it has helped
one of its consumers to find employment where they make a good, sustainable
living wage. Cordova believes that achieving this goal can often require
several years of hard work to produce these results, but he notes with
pride that the wages of disabled customers in Oklahoma went up by 5 percent
this year. This is happening in a state that is currently suffering
significant financial difficulty as a result of lower oil prices and the
need to dramatically cut government expenditures.
Many of the changes brought by Cordova have been warmly welcomed, and
as we detail those that deal specifically with rehabilitation for the blind
later in this article, it is easy to see why blind residents of Oklahoma
are embracing the changes. One change, however, that has generated some
controversy is the replacement of the superintendent of the Oklahoma School
for the Blind, a department which falls under Cordova's jurisdiction.
Cordova says that the decision to dismiss Dr. James Adams was difficult and
that he made it after it became clear that he and Adams did not share the
same vision for student success. Cordova says that Adams did a good job in
coordinating the day-to-day activities of the school, but his expectations
of students and the careers that might be theirs were not consistent with
Cordova's. "We need a long-term vision for people at the school. Our data
for a six-year period clearly demonstrated that graduates of the school
performed below blind students who attended public school. I believe that
the expectation for students should be that they will get an education
beyond their post-secondary experience." But Cordova said this was not what
Dr. Adams envisioned. Cordova says that Adams believed that the
superintendent should not be encouraging students to go to college and that
their demonstrated failure to thrive in this environment was an indication
that they could not. Cordova believes that the more appropriate view for
the school and the rehabilitation agency to take is that the failure of the
students is more likely the result of deficiencies in training that the
school should identify and address. He believes that the school needs to
assess how it's doing in providing academics, independent living skills,
and extracurricular activities and to use these assessments to improve the
ability of the school's students to face the challenges they must meet to
succeed in the world today. "If we aren't producing successful students,
either something in the curriculum needs to be changed or maybe we need to
give them some remedial courses, tutoring, and other support services that
will help them get to that place."
The charge has been made that changes at the school for the blind
have occurred in an attempt to eliminate the residential school. Cordova
says this couldn't be further from the truth. "As a former blind student
who has attended a school for the blind from age five until graduation in
my home state of New Mexico, I believe I can speak from personal experience
as to the many benefits of attending a specialized residential school for
the blind, benefits which are not always readily available in regular
public schools. I attribute much of my success over the years directly to
the programs and services offered in a special residential school for the
blind, and I want future blind students to have the same opportunity to
benefit from those types of programs and services here at the Oklahoma
School for the Blind."
Cordova removed Adams in June of 2015, having made the decision
earlier but not wanting to disrupt the school year. He was replaced by
Christine Boone, the wife of Douglas Boone, who is the director of Visual
Services. This sparked charges of nepotism, but, in fact, these have no
legal legs. Neither of the Boones supervises the other, both reporting
directly to Cordova. Cordova says, "I have worked with Christine for more
than thirty years, and I trust her to implement the policies that I believe
will lead to better outcomes for students. I appointed her to serve as the
interim director while we do a nationwide search. Finding a qualified
superintendent is a difficult task, and I cannot think of one blind person
who currently serves in that capacity in the United States." As this
article is being finalized, interviews are currently being conducted to
find a full-time superintendent.
On the subject of rehabilitation services for blind people, there are
many positive accomplishments to report. Cordova hired Doug Boone in
January of 2014 to head the blindness agency, a unit that is strangely
named Visual Services. Boone says that when he was looking for a house and
told people where he would be working, they wanted to know how many
different kinds of glasses the agency provided and what a person had to do
to get services. He says they never once assumed that the agency was set up
to serve blind people, and both he and Cordova are proposing a name change
for the blindness unit. There seems to be good support for changing the
name to Vocational Rehabilitation for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and
the name change is expected to be finalized at the end of 2016.
Boone said that when he came to Visual Services, the definition of
blindness being used by the agency often resulted in ambiguity in who would
be served and the services the agency could provide to them. The agency has
now updated its definition of blindness so that it is less confusing and
unambiguously complies with federal regulations. It clarifies that the
agency serves the legally blind, the visually impaired, those who have a
progressive condition which is certain to lead to blindness, and those who
are functionally blind-people who are photophobic and cannot see during the
day although at certain times and under certain lighting conditions may
have 20/20 vision. He says the agency has also addressed training for its
counselors in the area of low vision. "Sometimes there is this perception
that our state services for the blind discourages the use of vision. If
one's vision is dependable and makes one competitive, that is good, and we
try to make the most of it. But, if it works now, but it won't work at 2:00
o'clock in the afternoon, that's a problem."
One of Boone's concerns has long been that people who are newly
blinded have their first meeting with the agency and after two hours are
left with a mountain of paperwork that they have no idea how to process.
"For many of these people print is no longer an option, but we were leaving
them all of this paperwork and actually contributing to their sense of
defeat about what it means to be blind. Signing up for services to address
blindness is an emotional time, and, when I was a counselor, I often felt
frustrated at that first meeting, knowing that a client could only retain
about 20 percent of what I told him. We have created a much better system,
and it is one that is long overdue."
The agency has developed an information cartridge that is readable
using a National Library Service (NLS) book player. The cartridge includes
a document detailing the rights and responsibilities of applicants,
information about how to contact the Office of Disability Concerns (known
in many states as the Client Assistance Program), a pamphlet on library
services and how to use them, information pamphlets about and from both
consumer organizations, and a list of out-of-state training centers with
whom the state agency contracts. The cartridge also includes information
about the Oklahoma Rehabilitation Council, and this is critical because
agency consumers need to know how to contact those who are responsible for
overseeing the program that gives them service.
"By the time we leave their house, we have delivered them an NLS
machine, and they are signed up for library services and shown how to use
the machine. Not only do we leave them with critical information, but by
signing them up for library services, we once again open to them the wide
world of information and the stories and adventures that literature can
bring."
Boone believes that there must be stronger relationships built
between the staff of his agency and the consumers they serve. To this end
his division is encouraging staff members to attend state conventions of
the National Federation of the Blind and the Oklahoma Council of the Blind.
"We can't serve people well if we don't know them." So that staff are aware
of the broader issues faced by blind people, they are invited to attend
national conventions of the two major organizations in the country. The
agency will pay their expense to attend the convention of the American
Council of the Blind and the National Federation of the Blind. "If you
attend the convention of the National Federation of the Blind one year, you
are obligated to attend the convention of the American Council of the Blind
the next. Likewise, if your first convention that the agency pays for is
the American Council of the Blind, you are obligated to go to the
convention of the National Federation of the Blind the next year. We will
pay for our staff to attend two conventions, and if they choose to continue
going to one or both, we will grant them leave time to do so. Our
division's impartiality has to be above reproach."
Under Boone's leadership the agency has placed increased emphasis on
immersion training in blindness. This can only be received at a residential
rehabilitation center, and no such center for the blind exists in Oklahoma.
The division therefore maintains contracts with six agencies around the
country from which its consumers can choose. Boone feels that residential
training is so important that he has created a contest funded from his
pocket to encourage the division's staff to send clients for training. If a
staff member gets three students to attend intensive rehabilitation
training, Boone will give that staff member a hundred-dollar bill. "I have
put my money into this because I think people need to know that this is
where my heart is and that I am committed to quality training. Money is a
great motivator. I think the effectiveness of the contest can be seen in
the figures. In 2014 we sent twelve people for center training. In 2015
there have been twenty-six people participating in intensive training."
With the passage of the most recent amendments to the vocational
rehabilitation act, known as the Workforce Investment and Opportunity Act,
tremendous emphasis is being placed on providing transition services for
people ages sixteen to twenty-one. For the first time the division
sponsored the Transition Independence Program. This two-week course gave
blind students an experience in which they lived in a dormitory, learned to
travel from the dormitory to the cafeteria, learned to do some light
cooking, received additional training in orientation and mobility services,
went on community trips, received daily instruction in Braille and
assistive technology, and got some technology they could take home as their
own. The program purchased an iPod Touch, and with the assistance of the
National Federation of the Blind of Oklahoma and the Oklahoma Council of
the Blind, iTunes cards were provided so that each student could purchase a
copy of the KNFB Reader and thereby have access to the printed page. The
program concluded with a cookout, giving many of the students their first
opportunity to grill their own hamburger and hot dogs. "Several of our
students had never worked around a fire, and one was deathly afraid of it.
This meant that we had to do lots of preparation with a cold grill so
students could see the layout of everything in a cool, touchable
environment. It was so exciting to see a seventeen-year-old in the program
lighting her first match and starting our fire. I have never seen anyone as
excited as she was, and this is what we are all about."
Visual Services has recently advertised a transition facilitator
position. The person hired will help young people ages fourteen to sixteen
to acquire the skills of blindness and will work with their parents to make
sure that other soft skills are acquired. The person filling this position
will also work with students from ages sixteen to twenty-one, the focus
being on transitioning from high school to college or some other program
oriented to training one for employment. Since parents are key, the agency
is developing a video that shows successful blind people working and
participating in their communities. The agency will also set up periodic
meetings across the state so that parents can meet blind people and have
their questions addressed.
The agency has added an assistive technology coordinator to improve
services to clients and to do outreach to potential employers. The
coordinator doesn't do placement but does try to plow new ground in getting
employers to see that the jobs they have to offer are ones that can be done
by blind people. "Our hope is that when they have job openings, they will
think about blind people to fill them. What we are trying to create is a no-
pressure environment where an employer has a license to ask questions in an
honest way."
Expanding assistive technology services to make sure that the agency
is providing quality instruction and follow-up is important to Boone. The
agency is adding a toll-free number its customers can use when having
problems with technology, be it hardware or software. Division staff can
either talk them through their problem or can connect to their computer to
provide direct assistance. "Training will continue to be in-person, but the
phone can be used to refresh what you already know but have kind of
forgotten," says Boone. The division has always had an assistive technology
lab, but nothing has existed for people in the eastern part of the state.
The agency now has a building in Tulsa and is waiting for furniture. The
building will house a technology lab, but, more importantly, it will allow
all of the staff in Oklahoma City to function under one roof, increasing
the coordination of services that the division provides. In addition to the
training provided by agency staff, the division has contracted with
Langston University to teach keyboarding, JAWS for Windows, and mainstream
applications. "Our intent in working with the university is to increase the
computer literacy of our clients and to get people job-ready," says Boone.
As an added benefit, the university can work with staff members to enhance
their training on the technology that is so important in the workplace.
There is a lot of it out there, and it is no small task to stay current.
In addition to the consolidation taking place in Tulsa, the agency is
working on bringing staff together in Oklahoma City. Library services will
be moving from a mall into a state-owned building. All services provided by
staff in the Oklahoma City area will also be under one roof. This building
will house an access technology lab, a kitchen for training, a washer and
dryer, and administrative offices. "Our goal is to get people in Oklahoma
City to see the library as a central place to go to get services," says
Boone. Given the downturn in Oklahoma's economy as a result of low oil
prices, one significant benefit is that this move will eliminate some
rental fees and will also bring federal dollars to the library because
vocational rehabilitation programs have to pay rent somewhere.
Changes in the business enterprise program are ones Boone sees as
particularly exciting. The agency is upgrading requirements to enter the
program and offering those who think they are interested in food service
the opportunity to have extended visits at business enterprise facilities.
"This business is not for the faint of heart," said Boone. "There is a lot
of standing, a lot of dealing with growly customers, but the business
opportunities represent a significant shot at advancing, and we strongly
support the program." People who decide they want to go into food service
will attend a training center and, while learning or refreshing one's
skills of blindness, the business enterprise program trainee will be taking
a training course offered by the Hadley School for the Blind to learn about
food preparation, running a small business, and other job functions
required to be a successful business person. "Our expectation is that when
they get back to Oklahoma, they will be very close to bidding for and
getting a facility."
With all of the emphasis on employment that is required by the
Rehabilitation Act, some have speculated that it is the intent of the
agency to do away with homemaker services. Boone says this couldn't be
further from the truth and that, when asked to provide comments on the
latest revisions resulting in the Workforce Investment and Opportunity Act,
he wrote unequivocally supporting the retention of the homemaker status.
What he does object to is the practice previously followed in Oklahoma of
automatically placing people fifty-five and over into homemaker status,
noting that the consumer should always be asked what he or she would like
to do, regardless of their age. He notes that a woman who was seventy-nine
years old resumed her work as a tax preparer after she received services
from the agency. Boone believes this is how it should work and that
informed choice doesn't mean that only young people have the right to
exercise control over their lives.
Overall Boone is happy about the progress made so far. He says that
standards and indicators are up, wages are up for people who have received
training and are being placed, and good things are being done as the agency
works diligently to better serve its consumers.
While the controversy surrounding the Oklahoma School for the Blind
is regrettable, it should not overshadow the significant work being done to
help the blind of the state. Neither should it obscure the commitment of
elected officials in Oklahoma to take the high road, offering to the blind
of Oklahoma a chance for the education and training that leads to gainful
employment and a major step toward the full integration of the blind and
the sighted. While the innovators in Oklahoma should be given due credit
for their forward-thinking attitudes and programs, I unashamedly express my
hope that other agencies will follow suit and that what seems spectacular
today will become commonplace throughout the nation. Of course, the chances
that this transformation will occur are directly proportional to how much
we in the National Federation of the Blind press for it, and I hope that
the pages of this magazine can chronicle such changes until they no longer
are newsworthy but are so commonplace that they are simply expected.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Brad Smith]
Brad Smith's Address at the 2015 Accessibility Summit
From the Editor: From November 17 to 19, 2015, representatives from
the National Federation of the Blind participated in an accessibility
Summit sponsored by Microsoft. Present were representatives from the World
Blind Union, the American Council of the Blind, and the Canadian National
Institute for the Blind. The keynote address was delivered by the president
of Microsoft, Brad Smith. The remarks he made were moving, especially
coming from someone of his rank in one of the major technology companies in
the world. Not all that he said can be related here because the technical
groups in which we participate often require the signing of nondisclosure
agreements, but what we can print does represent a significant commitment
by Microsoft.
Here is a brief introduction written by Microsoft's public relations
department, followed by a reconstruction of President Smith's remarks:
On November 17, Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad
Smith kicked off the 2015 Accessibility Summit. In his remarks he provided
an overview of the company's approach to accessibility, outlined steps
Microsoft is taking to improve the accessibility of products and services,
and closed with an assurance that this is and will continue to be a top
priority for Microsoft. In December, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella followed
up on these remarks, citing accessibility as a "top of mind" issue in his
year-end memo distributed to all Microsoft employees.
Below are key excerpts from Brad's remarks at the Accessibility
Summit:
I want to provide an overview of how Microsoft is thinking about
accessibility to you today. We are at an interesting moment in time in our
company, where the height of our ambition to make our products accessible
is exceeded only by our humility about the work yet to be done to
accomplish this. We have high ambition because the world demands that of
us, and we are listening to what you and other organizations have told us
about where we need to improve. But this ambition is also rooted in our
mission as a company. In his twenty months as CEO, Satya Nadella has
developed our new mission statement, which is "To empower every person and
organization on the planet to achieve more." This mission statement speaks
to who works at Microsoft and why they work here. That mission statement
speaks to what we are about as a company-enabling people, through
technology, to lead richer lives. We are there to reach every person in
every country, which helps us think beyond the US. It also speaks to what
technology can do for people of all abilities.
We know that there are many people with many kinds of disabilities.
Nearly every one of us deals with disability in our daily lives, whether it
is our own or a friend, family member, colleague, or a neighbor with a
disability. This helps us appreciate the importance of accessibility in a
concrete way. We also understand that people are defined by what they can
do, and people with disabilities are capable of doing all kinds of things.
Technology can empower people, which is why it is imperative that Microsoft
does a great job of creating technology that empowers all people with
disabilities. That is our ambition. But it must be coupled with humility.
We did a great job at accessibility in the early stages of Microsoft, and
we want to be great again-but we are not there yet. We need to stay humble
to understand the opportunity and seize it.
There are a few core areas that we are focused on to address
accessibility. The first is engineering capability. We are moving quickly
to enhance our engineering capabilities as a company and in the
accessibility space, and our senior leadership team has ensured that our
teams have the appropriate resources to meet our ambitions. It's important
that our words are backed up by this investment-words are cheap, but
technology is expensive and difficult to produce, but we are. Part of this
shift is helped by having an engineer as CEO; leadership really flows from
that office across the company. Second, we are working to provide greater
clarity around our goals through product roadmaps. These roadmaps
articulate our goals, which allow our engineers to go forth and build them
into products. Third, we are also focused on accountability. Even with
engineering capability and goals, if we lack discipline, then we are likely
to miss meeting these goals. That requires us to find a way to measure
success and progress, one that is robust but also not too complicated. The
cross-company accessibility team has created a good measurement system so
we can better monitor and grade ourselves on our progress. We will be
taking stock of our products throughout the development process, including
a review prior to release with accessibility in mind. Fourth, we are taking
steps to evolve our culture, both in our engineering approach through
inclusive design and also in our hiring practices. This "one Microsoft"
approach is breaking down silos and embedding accessibility in every
department of the company.
Finally, we need partners who will keep us honest and humble and also
help us learn. We hope along the way to earn your trust and respect, and we
will do this by backing up our good intentions with actions. Right now we
are trying to catch up to meet the basic needs of people with disabilities
in the marketplace. But we have the opportunity to dream bigger dreams. We
are thinking broadly and creatively about how technology can create new
opportunities to empower people and enrich their lives. The very best ideas
have probably not yet been found-but, working together, I believe we can
move this innovation agenda forward.
From the Editor: The commitments made in the foregoing remarks are
significant, and they expand on remarks made by Microsoft's chief executive
officer Satya Nadella in December of 2015:
As I think about living our mission, top of mind for me heading into
2016 is how we must make Microsoft products accessible to the more than 1
billion people globally of all abilities. This is a shared goal. Universal
design is central to how we realize our mission and will make all our
products better. Along with our Senior Leadership Team, I will continue to
devote my time and passion to this priority.
Specifically, we will do three things: First, be transparent in
sharing our goals and plans to ensure our products are accessible. Second,
be accountable, which means engineering leads will prioritize universal
design in the development of all products and services going forward.
Third, continue to make this part of our work on building a more inclusive
culture, including efforts to expand our existing accessibility hiring and
awareness training initiatives and programs.
From the Editor: As a result of our meeting in January of last year
with Satya Nadella, our work with Microsoft has taken place on several
levels. One of the benefits of contact at the highest levels of Microsoft
is that we can go beyond specific technical problems with their products
and join with them in bringing about systemic change in our nation.
Microsoft's intention to partner with the National Federation of the Blind
in going outside its company to press for significant technological change
is evidenced in the following letter which is signed by Mark Riccobono,
president of the National Federation of the Blind, and Brad Smith,
president and chief legal officer of Microsoft:
SENT VIA EMAIL
January 14, 2016
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear President Obama:
Over five years ago, an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) for
Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regarding website
accessibility was issued by the United States Department of Justice. The
ANPRM reflected your administration's recognition that the internet is an
essential part of American life; among other things, a quality education
and a desirable employment outcome are virtually impossible to achieve
without accessing it.
The issue of equal access to websites is therefore of critical importance
to blind individuals as represented by the National Federation of the
Blind, to technology companies like Microsoft, and other online businesses.
Yet the release date of the NPRM for revising the Title III regulations of
the ADA, originally scheduled for January of 2012, has been extended no
less than five times. Most recently, it was postponed until 2018, eight
years after this regulation process started.
The need for a regulation providing accessibility guidance for public
accommodations doing business on the internet is even more urgent today
than it was five years ago. In 2014, Cisco Systems released the results of
a study of white collar workers from around the world, which found that 57
percent of the Americans surveyed between the ages of eighteen and fifty
look at their smartphone before anything else every morning, and 39 percent
had never made it through a full day of using their smartphone without
accessing a website. Regulations from the Department of Justice (DOJ) are
needed to provide companies with clear and meaningful guidelines so they
can serve their clients and customers with disabilities. Thus, as you said
on July 26, 2010, these rules are "the most important updates to the ADA
since its original enactment." We agree, and urge you to release the NPRM
for Title III of the ADA without further delay.
Sincerely,
Mark A. Riccobono, President
National Federation of the Blind
Brad Smith, President
Microsoft
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Jim Omvig]
A Modern-Day Pioneer in Our Midst:
An Attempt to Say Thank You to a Civil Rights Leader for the Blind
by Gary Wunder
One of my jobs as the state president in Missouri has been to deliver
eulogies for Federationists whose long service and love of the organization
deserve a tribute. I have written them for two past affiliate presidents,
several other leaders of prominence, and many friends. The honor in being
asked to deliver a eulogy is that you may be saying the most important
words that have been or will ever be said about someone's life. The sadness
is that it isn't being said to the person we are honoring. At best one must
take on faith that the remarks will be heard, felt, sensed, or known by the
one being honored, and at worse the comments come too late to matter to
that person.
What a pleasure it is when sometimes we are able to say thank you to
a gem while he or she is still around to appreciate it, correct us when we
don't quite get it right, and tell us just a bit more that we don't quite
know as we write the remarks to share their lives with those who may not
have known them as well as their family and friends. So it is that I have
drawn an ace from the deck and have the honor of putting down some part of
Jim Omvig's life story: an inspiration, a tribute to what can happen when
one works hard, meets the right people, is encouraged, and takes advantage
of the opportunities offered.
Jim was raised in Slater, Iowa, and for a time attended the public
school there. Though he tried hard, much of his effort focused on using
vision he simply didn't have. Eventually he went to the Iowa Braille and
Sight Saving School in Vinton. While competing academically and
athletically was made easier by the lack of emphasis on vision, the school
brought with it other difficulties. Foremost among these was the attitude
held by the school about its blind charges. Those with the most sight were
the most blessed: those called upon for giving the school tours, for
pitching the tents during scouting events, and for looking after "the
totals" (those without any usable vision). The school believed the blind
could be educated, but the fields in which they could participate were
quite limited, and, given this philosophy, the school provided vocational
technical training in the few jobs they believed their graduates could do.
The staff members were good, honest people, but they saw their calling to
be to teach the blind some academic skills, help them compete with other
blind people athletically, and acquaint them early on with the limitations
of blindness. These would not have been the words they used, but certainly
the attitude they conveyed to Jim and his fellow students.
After high school Jim lived at home almost eight years. Most of his
days were not so much living as existing, always waiting for that piece of
medical news that would change his life. His mother so wanted him to see
that she went to eye doctors, offering one of her eyes if only they could
give it to Jim so that he might have vision. Since no operation, regardless
of the sacrifice, could give him the vision he would need to be a
productive citizen, he and his family lived from day to day, with Jim doing
what little he could to help with family chores. Occasionally he got work
in a local creamery, where his strength could be used in moving butter and
loading trucks with products bound for the city. This was not the kind of
work that could provide a real income, but any extra money was helpful, and
so too was any reason to get up in the morning. This was not the life he
wanted, but it was the life he had been given, and people from Iowa knew
there was only so much time that could be given over to grief about what
one had lost and wanted back.
Jim lived what he now regards as an isolated life. Though tall and
good looking, he decided early on that it would be irresponsible to get
involved with women. In his mind a man's role was to be the provider, the
leader in his home. He believed that being blind precluded this, so there
was no reason to offer his heart or to ask for the heart of another.
When he was twenty-five, Jim was contacted by the Iowa Commission for
the Blind and invited to go to Des Moines to tour the agency. His sister
Jan was then a student and encouraged him to come. He figured he already
knew much of what there was to know about what blind people could do and
become from his time at the school in Vinton, but he agreed to visit if for
no other reason than for the brief change in daily routine the visit would
afford.
Mr. Omvig remembers his first interview with agency Director Kenneth
Jernigan and the questions that set him on a path he never thought
possible. The first question was whether or not he was blind, and Mr. Omvig
gave what he regarded as a cutesy but accurate answer. "I am hard of
seeing," he said, at which point Mr. Jernigan asked "How many fingers am I
holding up?" and then told Jim unequivocally that he was blind. Jim
remembers that this answer cut deeply and stung bitterly. Mr. Jernigan
asked Jim his age. When Jim said he was twenty-five, Mr. Jernigan said,
"My, my, twenty-five. So a man your age can expect to live for another
fifty years. Jim, what are you going to do for the next fifty years?" As he
considered his answer, he remembers feeling sick at heart. Fifty years was
more a sentence than a promise. Jim's reply was that he didn't know, but
what he feared was that he did and that those years would be spent doing
just what he had done since high school graduation.
But the very asking of the question hinted that there were
possibilities beyond returning to Slater and living out his life as the
dependent son and brother. Kenneth Jernigan suggested that Jim come to the
Orientation and Adjustment Center for training and told him that a man with
some motivation and brains could be a productive citizen. Jim wasn't sure
he believed it, but he could clearly see that the man offering the
opportunity did. What was the risk? Unrealized hopes would hurt, but so
would returning to Slater, where nothing was happening or likely to happen
for a blind man named Omvig.
Although Jim agreed during his visit to come to the center for
training, he still had one hope-that he might regain his vision. Friends
told him about a doctor in South Dakota doing miraculous work, so he took
all of his money, got a friend to drive him, and once again got the sad
news that vision was not in his future.
Jim spent nine months at the center: learning Braille, cane travel,
typing, wood working, and engaging in challenge activities he had
previously thought to be well beyond what blind people could do. Nearing
the end of his training, Jim was asked what he would like to do with his
future-what he might like to do for a living. Full of enthusiasm for what
he was experiencing, he replied that he would like to run a training center
and do what Mr. Jernigan was doing to help the blind.
Mr. Jernigan responded with a question: "Mr. Omvig, do you want to go
into work with the blind and run a center because you think you would truly
love it and be good at it or because you really believe you can't succeed
at anything else and that getting into work with the blind will be easy?"
When Jim said that he didn't know if he could answer the question honestly,
Mr. Jernigan suggested that he consider another career.
What Jim had considered foolish and impossible only a year before was
reshaping his life. Those crazy people from the commission were offering
him the chance to go to college and promised financial support that his
family could never hope to provide. Beyond the financial support, they
convinced Jim that they believed in him, let him observe a few blind people
who were successfully pursuing careers and raising families, and suggested
to him that he could do the same. What he came to understand later was that
he was being given the opportunity to be a modern-day pioneer, to assume a
special place as part of a social experiment to determine if the philosophy
of the National Federation of the Blind was simply a fine-sounding theory
or whether it would prove to be true and could change lives in the way its
proponents proclaimed.
Jim finished his training at the commission, went to college, and was
the first blind person to attend and graduate from the Loyola University of
Chicago's School of Law. He recalls that 144 students entered the school,
and of those only thirty-six were granted law degrees. Having this degree
meant that the man who once had nothing to do and plenty of time to do it
in would find himself busy for the rest of his life, taking his place as a
senior warrior in the civil rights struggle of the blind and eventually
appearing before the justices of the United States Supreme Court to be
granted the right to practice law before that august body.
But, after graduating in 1966 with good grades and a degree from a
prestigious law school, Jim had to arrange and participate in 150
interviews before he landed a job. Even this took some political
intervention from his friend and mentor, Kenneth Jernigan. Mr. Omvig moved
to Washington, DC, and became the first blind employee of the National
Labor Relations Board. Although he was admired and well-liked by his fellow
employees, several did try to convince him that his long hours and
prodigious output raised the bar for them and let it be known that they
were none too happy about this. Jim told them that they were free to work
as much or as little as they liked, but he was there to do more than earn
an income and provide for himself: he was there to convince the world that
blind people could do high-quality work and do it as well as their sighted
coworkers. His fellows saw the logic in this, and it added to their respect
for him. But the secretary who had been assigned to him said, "Mr. Omvig,
you are a damned workaholic, and you're not going to make one out of me."
Given the friction, Mr. Omvig asked for a different secretary and got one,
and his former employee was transferred.
While rewarding, his job in DC primarily involved doing
administrative research and paperwork. But Jim wanted real courtroom
experience and requested a transfer. It was granted, and he moved to New
York to continue his work with the agency. He found the work more
rewarding, but it posed some challenges he had not faced in DC. He had
relied primarily on volunteer readers in his first appointment, but when,
as a field attorney, he began serving as a hearing officer, there were
times when he was presented with written material and required to decide
whether or not it should be admitted into the record. In these cases it is
traditional for the hearing to be recessed while the hearing officer
studies the material. It was not practical for Jim to send the material out
for recording or to expect a volunteer to sit with him throughout his
workday. The solution he arrived at was ideal: he asked that the
stenographer, who was already being paid, act as his reader during the
recess, and in this way he had access to printed documents without
incurring additional cost or inconvenience to himself or his employer.
As he settled into his job, Jim began to be asked by President
Jernigan to visit state affiliates as a national representative. He
appreciated being asked, thrived on being able to serve, and gladly took up
the task. What he found surprised him. At some level he knew that Iowa
represented something tremendously different in rehabilitation than could
be found in the rest of the country, but knowing this wasn't quite the same
as seeing firsthand the denials that blind people were facing when they
sought to become self-sufficient and to exercise some control over their
education and careers.
Jim recalls meeting a woman from New Hampshire who had always wanted
to be a teacher. Having gone blind in her teens, she approached the
rehabilitation agency there and was told by her counselor that her goal was
unrealistic and that certainly he would not approve the college education
that teaching would require. Having read in the Braille Monitor about Judy
Young, a blind teacher in Iowa, the woman in New Hampshire took her case to
the agency director. He agreed with the counselor, telling her that a
college education was unrealistic and that any thought of landing a
teaching job was foolish. When she told him about the article she had read
in the magazine of the National Federation of the Blind, he said that he
knew about that Jernigan guy, a crazy man who was setting blind people up
to fail. He, the agency director, would have none of it, and he suggested
that she continue at the workshop, where she was making twenty-four dollars
a week. In this case, like so many, Jim knew that the answer was not for
everyone to move to Iowa, but to build and strengthen the Federation in
each state and then to bring about the changes that the National Federation
of the Blind and the Iowa Commission for the Blind were proving possible.
Encounters such as these pushed Jim in the direction of trying to answer
the question Mr. Jernigan had posed to him on his graduation from the
orientation center.
Eventually Jim gained enough self-confidence to say to Mr. Jernigan
that he really did want to learn to direct a training center, that he had
convinced himself and others that he could cut it alongside his sighted
colleagues, and that his turning to the blindness field for employment was
not to hide but actively to contribute to what had so changed his life and
the way he would spend the most productive years of it. Jim wanted to be a
part of encouraging blind people to dream and to see those dreams become
reality. Mr. Jernigan agreed, and Jim moved back to Iowa, first to work as
a rehabilitation counselor and later to head the orientation center.
While in training to become a counselor, Jim accompanied coworkers to
learn the ropes. Knowing that his primary job was to observe, Jim
nevertheless wanted to become involved in the sessions so clients would
come to know him. One day he asked a client how long he had been blind. The
newly blinded client was angered and put off. On the drive to their next
appointment, Jim learned from his coworker that coming to understand that
one is blind is often a gradual process and that asking how long the client
had been having trouble with his vision would have been more appropriate.
Coming to understand and admitting that one is blind is crucial to
acceptance and getting on with one's life, but for some people the subject
should be approached with gentleness and understanding. Jim took the advice
as sound and has tried to be mindful that the journey to accepting one's
blindness and a new understanding of what it means to be blind sometimes
takes a firm, direct approach and that sometimes it takes time, patience,
and gentleness.
Although Jim's return to Iowa put the right man in the right place,
the transition was not without difficulty. He had decided that he could be
a provider and that risking to become involved with another was not
precluded by being a blind man. He married Jan, a fellow Iowan, and
together they brought Jamie Omvig into the world in 1966. But their
marriage ended in 1972, and the door that closed led to the opening of one
that would lead James Omvig and Sharon Lewis to find that they were soul
mates. Meeting for a casual drink one evening in the fall of 1973, they
found that their talking kept them for hours. Sharon describes their
courtship and marriage this way: "It may not have been the love story of
the century, but I'm sure it was the love story of the decade." On January
31, 1974, Jim and Sharon Omvig were united in marriage, and since then they
have been inseparable in their faith, love, and work. From the time they
became two hearts beating as one, any mention of Jim could, if not for the
cumbersomeness of the construction, be Jim and Sharon or Sharon and Jim.
The man who once believed that he could never share his heart not
only has enjoyed a wonderful marriage but has composed two songs in honor
of his soulmate. One of them, titled, "She's My Wife," says:
Have you seen her?
She's the loveliness of spring.
Have you seen her?
She's the song that I sing.
With her tender lips and her glowing eyes,
Her smile is a wondrous thing.
And her arms can make a man a king.
You should know her.
She's an angel from above.
With a heart that's filled with love.
Oh, you should know her; she is my life.
She's my lady, she's my lover, she's my wife.
Before leaving the National Labor Relations Board, Jim learned from a
colleague that a decision of the NLRB made in 1960 declared that blind
people did not enjoy the same rights as other workers when it came to
organizing and being represented by a union. He highlighted this unfair
segregation of the blind in a speech delivered at the NFB convention in
1969. Appearing with him were prominent members of the AFL-CIO (American
Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations) who agreed,
after some tough questioning from President Jernigan, to help the blind
change laws forbidding blind people from organizing.
Work started that year to build a Sheltered Shop Division in the NFB
and to find blind people who wanted to be represented by a union. Mr. Omvig
warned that gaining the right to organize and be represented would take a
long time. A request to organize had to be made and rejected, and an appeal
would have to be made to the members of the National Labor Relations Board.
It took more than half a decade, but in 1976 the NLRB reversed itself and
said that blind people, like other workers, did indeed have the right to be
represented by a union if they chose. This delightful news came the day
before Jim was to attend the national convention in Los Angeles, so he
hurriedly constructed and delivered a speech at the convention.
The Federation knew from long years of experience that blind people
were the victims of discrimination in the sale of insurance. Deciding to
test the waters for themselves, Jim and Sharon went to the ticket counter
prior to their trip to the Los Angeles convention, purchased insurance for
Sharon in the amount of $350,000, and then tried to purchase insurance for
Jim. To his surprise, Jim learned that he could purchase insurance, but the
maximum amount he could buy was $20,000. The ticket agent could offer no
reason for the rule, and arguments that Jim did not want to fly the plane
but only ride on it were wasted. Rules were rules.
On his return from Los Angeles Jim contacted the insurance
commissioner for the state of Iowa, Herbert Anderson, and convinced him to
accept a charge of unfair discrimination against the blind using the Iowa
Unfair Trade Practices Act. The commissioner conducted a survey of all
insurance companies doing business in Iowa, and the findings were so
disturbing that he caused regulations to be created prohibiting
discrimination against the blind by any company licensed to do business in
the state. Mr. Anderson then took his findings to the National Association
of Insurance Commissioners, and that organization passed a resolution
condemning such discrimination. Just as it did with the Model White Cane
Law, the national body of the Federation drafted a model insurance
regulation and encouraged its enactment by state insurance regulators. Jim
was extremely helpful in providing guidance to state affiliates and even
testified before state insurance commissions in support of the prohibition.
As Fredric Schroeder observes: "Today, we do not think much about the
ability to purchase life insurance, and that is due in large part to Mr.
Omvig. In the 70s and 80s, many blind people were denied life insurance on
the assumption that blind people were more likely to die as a result of
accidents. Mr. Omvig understood that assumptions about blind people were at
the heart of lost opportunities: lack of access to a good education, lack
of access to employment, lack of access to renting hotel rooms, and lack of
access to buses and trains. In short, Mr. Omvig knew that discrimination
was the major barrier facing blind people, and discrimination in all its
forms had to be opposed."
After nine wonderful years working at the Iowa Commission for the
Blind, Jim accepted a Federation assignment and moved to Baltimore to work
for the Social Security Administration. At the time about 150 blind people
were working for the agency, but they were limited to answering telephones
and fielding questions from the public. James Gashel, the head of the
National Federation of the Blind's Washington office, was instrumental in
convincing officials of the agency that the way to greater employment
opportunities for the blind and avoiding a lawsuit from the Federation lay
in hiring someone who could look at the procedures of the agency and figure
out how to open other employment opportunities. It seemed to President
Jernigan and Mr. Gashel that Jim would be the perfect fit, being a lawyer
and having previous experience in the federal government.
Jim was hired, and in 1981 the glass ceiling preventing blind people
from accepting other positions within the agency was shattered. Nearly
three years of work resulted in the following policy statement being read
by the newly appointed director of the Social Security Administration:
"Today, I wish to announce a clarification of the policy which affects
employment and promotional opportunity for otherwise qualified partially
and totally blind SSA employees. I have determined that there are no
significant factors which make it impossible for blind persons to perform
the full range of the GS 10 claims representative (CR) position. Therefore,
it is SSA policy that otherwise qualified partially or totally blind
individuals may be promoted to the journeyman GS 10 CR position within the
standard CR position description . . . . I am committed not only to
providing equal employment opportunity for blind persons, but also for all
qualified handicapped individuals." This breakthrough was significant not
only for the Social Security Administration but for other agencies in the
federal government that had good, quality jobs blind people were capable of
performing.
In the late 1970s the National Federation of the Blind found that
regulations which had been passed to assist the blind and otherwise
physically disabled in air travel were being used to limit them. Many
Federationists were arrested for insisting on their right to use and keep
with them the canes that provided independent mobility. Some of us were
asked to sit on blankets, the logic being that some handicapped people had
accidents and soiled airline seats. Mr. Omvig was one of those who were
arrested, and he and many others testified at hearings sponsored by the
Federal Aviation Administration. As a result of those hearings blind people
can now travel with their guide dogs and canes; there is no limit as to the
number of blind passengers who can fly on an aircraft; there is no
requirement that we sit on blankets or other items used in dealing with
incontinence. We are prevented from sitting in exit rows, but the
frustration we encounter with airlines today is far less than it was, and
this is due in no small part to the work of Mr. Omvig's talent in writing,
speaking, and developing important relationships with the policymakers of
that era.
After five years working for the Social Security Administration, Mr.
Omvig once again returned to the pursuit of his dream to direct an
orientation and training center. This took him to the state of Alaska in
the fall of 1984. When he arrived, he found himself in charge of an agency
that was housed in a World War II Quonset hut. Bleakness and despair were
in evidence in the blind people seeking services. In January of 1985 Mr.
Omvig went to the governor and the legislature, and the funds to run the
agency were doubled. A new five-unit apartment building was purchased and
remodeled to become a residential training center for blind adults. It
contained sleeping rooms for twelve residents, one staff apartment, and
administrative offices. Putting the building into service as a training
center required asking the city of Anchorage to rezone the property, which
they did. In the spring of 1986 governor Bill Sheffield dedicated the
Alaska Center for Blind Adults. Though the willingness of state officials
to purchase and remodel the center was commendable, they did not provide
funds to furnish the building. To Mr. Omvig and other leaders of the NFB in
Alaska fell the task of going to Lions Clubs with the request that they
help in furnishing the center. Through the work of individual clubs and the
statewide body, the center was furnished and began serving students.
In 1987 Jim found himself troubled with bad health, and by the end of
that year his doctor told him that he had no choice but to stop working. It
would take several years for Jim to be diagnosed with a rare condition
known as porphyria. Jim and Sharon moved to Arizona, and both became active
in the affiliate, assisting significantly and advancing its legislative
agenda for providing better services to blind people. He continued writing
about the value of separate agencies for the blind and what proper training
in those agencies could do, and, as he began to exert better control over
his health, he was asked to visit many states to evaluate their programs
and make recommendations for improvement.
Although one of the goals of the Federation is to see that quality
rehabilitation is available to all blind people regardless of where they
live, the reality is that not all rehabilitation centers are equal, and not
all of them are guided by the positive philosophy of the National
Federation of the Blind. In 1992 amendments to the Rehabilitation Act were
passed and signed into law. One of those amendments introduced the concept
of informed choice into the act, providing in federal law the opportunity
for recipients of rehabilitation services to decide where they would go to
receive service. In theory this would mean that a person living in Montana
could go to a rehabilitation center in Louisiana, or that a person living
in Maryland could go to Colorado or Minnesota. Practically speaking,
however, rights guaranteed in federal law have been slow to be implemented
in the states, and they have strongly favored either rehabilitation centers
that they fund or centers with which they have done business in the past.
Implementing informed choice in practice has often meant finding people who
want to go to a center outside their state, helping them to appeal the
denial of the rehabilitation counselor, and getting and winning a fair
hearing. Mr. Omvig has used his skills as a lawyer and an advocate in
helping to draft these appeals and has traveled extensively to participate
in these hearings.
In all of the assignments he has been given as a Federation member,
none was more difficult than the one that brought him to work to advance
the rights of blind people working in sheltered workshops. President Maurer
and other colleagues in the National Federation of the Blind believed we
needed someone to work from the inside to make changes in the system that
employed thousands of blind people at wages that were far below their
productive capacity. Mr. Omvig was persuaded to apply for and was appointed
by President George W. Bush to the President's Committee for Purchase from
People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled. He was initially appointed in
2003 and was reappointed in 2007. During his tenure Mr. Omvig served on a
number of important subcommittees and task forces and was elected as vice
chairman of the committee.
When accepting his newest Federation assignment, Jim knew that there
was little the National Federation of the Blind and what would come to be
called the AbilityOne Commission had in common. Certainly each group had
little respect for the other. What the organizations knew about one another
they didn't like. The committee viewed the NFB as a group of malcontents
and rabble-rousers who knew nothing about running businesses that employed
the blind. The NFB believed the committee to be composed of self-serving
agency directors who cared less about uplifting the blind people they were
to serve than they did about increasing their own prestige and income. In
the opinion of the Federation, these were people who may have come to do
good but who stayed to do well. Their salaries and their place in the
community came on the backs of hard-working blind people, who got little
from their effort in money, benefits, or their productive work.
When Mr. Omvig began his work with the committee, he followed a
strategy that had evolved from a question Dr. Jernigan had once asked him
and his fellow students: "What is the purpose of a speech?" The answer was
"To get people to love you. If you can't get them to love you, they won't
pay much attention to what you have to say." This became Jim's compass. He
would not go to make war-soldiers on each side knew full well how that
could be done. Instead, he would go as an ambassador, a man in search of
friends, a human face that would go the first few steps in dispelling the
myths about Federationists as unreasonable, militant, and foolish dreamers
who believed in a future the blind could never have because they weren't
capable enough to earn or retain it. Jim would build relationships based on
common traits and would show that this commonality could be used as a
foundation to build trust. On that trust he and his new-found friends could
begin to make change that might one day revolutionize the sheltered
workshop system where thousands of blind people worked and sometimes lived.
But the Omvig strategy was not obvious to some of his Federation
colleagues and disappointed more than a few of his friends. He had gone to
the committee to represent the Federation, so where were his protests? Why
wasn't he using his seat to make changes so long overdue? Because Jim was a
part of the Federation family, some who loved and cared about him and who
cared deeply about rights for shop workers came to him with their concerns.
Although he appreciated the chance to clarify his strategy, to explain his
understanding that most fundamental changes take time, and to show the
incremental changes his participation was having, the idea that he might
not be trusted hurt, and carrying out this work proved to be one of the
hardest assignments he ever undertook. He gave nine years of his life to
traveling, negotiating, and trying to change how those in the system felt
about blind people.
Even with his sadness at having his motives-or at least his strategy-
questioned, Mr. Omvig is proud of the change in workshops he has witnessed
over the past forty years and is proud to count among his friends people
who once thought that he and his fellow Federation members were meatheads-
people who were dead from the neck up. He is proud of the expanded
employment opportunities that have resulted from his service on the
committee, and he is proud to have played some small part in National
Industries for the Blind paying at least the minimum wage in all of its
sheltered shops having AbilityOne contracts and requiring that any agency
doing business with it do likewise. In its most recent move, National
Industries for the Blind has decided that no person affiliated with a
workshop that holds a section 14(C) certificate can hold a position on its
Board of Directors.
Jim has been active in a number of other efforts to help in the
education and rehabilitation of the blind. He has served on the board of
directors of the Professional Development and Research Institute on
Blindness at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, Louisiana. This is the
first institute of its kind to implement the philosophy of the National
Federation of the Blind in teacher-training programs. In addition to
needing better teacher training, Jim and other Federation colleagues
realized that the certifying authority for providing training to the blind
often used vision as a requirement for certification. And so was born the
National Blindness Professional Certification Board (NBPCB), whose purpose
was to develop standards that did not discriminate against the blind and
which also emphasized competence in teaching the skills that were most
likely to lead to an education, a job, and a life equal to those enjoyed by
sighted Americans. He also served proudly on this board and has also been
instrumental in helping to develop the policies and standards of the body.
Increasingly over the last two decades Mr. Omvig has turned his
attention from writing articles to writing books. Freedom for the Blind:
The Secret is Empowerment has won widespread praise in the field of
rehabilitation, and many students credit this book with encouraging them to
go into the field. The Blindness Revolution: Jernigan in His Own Words has
also figured prominently in documenting the challenges and triumphs of what
many have called "the miracle of Iowa," but Mr. Omvig concludes that there
was no miracle there, only the application of good, solid attitudes and the
willingness to believe in blind people.
One of the things Mr. Omvig is most proud about is that his service
extends well beyond organizations of and for the blind. He became the
founding president of the Des Moines East Town Lions Club and was elected
as president of the congregation of the Grant Park Christian Church in Des
Moines. He was vice president of the Catonsville, Maryland, Lions Club and
was a deacon (which came with the job of serving communion) and a member of
the board of trustees of the Christian Temple in the Disciples of Christ
Church in Baltimore. He has also served as the president of the
International Air Crossroads Lions Club in Anchorage, Alaska.
Of all the honors and awards Mr. Omvig has received, none has touched
him more deeply than the Jacobus tenBroek award in 1986. He received this
award for helping gain the right of blind shop workers to unionize, for
leading the effort to eliminate insurance discrimination against the blind,
for helping to end discrimination against blind air travelers, and for his
writings on how to provide quality training to vocational rehabilitation
clients.
No single article can do justice to the life's work of Jim Omvig.
Thankfully there are others who have committed his story to paper and
places where he gives first-hand accounts of what it has been like to be
one of the pioneers in the civil rights movement for the blind. I can think
of no better way to conclude this article than with comments made by two of
Mr. Omvig's finest friends and admirers. Not surprisingly both have given a
significant amount of their energy to the field of rehabilitation, taking
the improvement of it as one of their Federation responsibilities and
assignments. About her friends, the Omvigs, Joanne Wilson says: "Jim and
Sharon worked with a tireless passion to give back to the movement what
they got from the NFB. They worked on systemic problems that would make the
lives of the blind better, but they also spent hours and hours talking with
individuals, both blind and sighted, over dinners in their home, at
conventions, on a plane, in a discussion group, and anywhere they were-
sharing the truth about blindness. They have truly dedicated their lives to
giving back what they learned about blindness so others could have more
enriched lives. Thanks for asking me to be a small part in giving them this
tribute."
And Fred Schroeder says: "When I think of Mr. Omvig, I think of
kindness; I think of a man with tremendous ability and one blessed with the
power of persuasion. Mr. Omvig knows how to lead, knows how to inspire
others to do more than they believe they are capable of doing, and knows
what it means to share the disappointment of exclusion and heartache that
come from society's low expectations. He is not a man to live according to
the assumptions of others; he is not content to build a life just for
himself and his family; he is a man who gives all that he has on behalf of
blind people. He is a role model, a mentor, a leader, and, most of all, a
friend."
----------
Seize the Future
The National Federation of the Blind has special giving opportunities
that will benefit the giver as well as the NFB. Of course the largest
benefit to the donor is the satisfaction of knowing that the gift is
leaving a legacy of opportunity. However, gifts may be structured to
provide more:
. Helping the NFB fulfill its mission
. Realizing income tax savings through a charitable deduction
. Making capital gain tax savings on contributions of appreciated assets
. Eliminating or lowering the federal estate tax in certain situations
. Reducing estate settlement costs
NFB programs are dynamic:
. Making the study of science and math a real possibility for blind
children
. Providing hope and training for seniors losing vision
. Promoting state and local programs to help blind people become first-
class citizens
. Educating the public about blind people's true potential
. Advancing technology helpful to the blind
. Creating a state-of-the-art library on blindness
. Training and inspiring professionals working with the blind
. Providing critical information to parents of blind children
. Mentoring blind job seekers
Your gift makes you a partner in the NFB dream. For further
information or assistance, contact the NFB.
----------
The Blind in the World: From Paternalism to Self-Determination
by Fredric K. Schroeder
From the Editor: In 2016 the General Assembly of the World Blind
Union will meet in the United States of America. This meeting will be
hosted by the National Federation of the Blind and will take place in late
August. So that Federationists and other readers of the Braille Monitor
know about and understand the reason for this meeting, we intend to run
several articles about the World Blind Union, starting here with its
history as featured in chapter seven of the book entitled Building the
Lives We Want, an e-book detailing the first seventy-five years of the
National Federation of the Blind. Here is what Dr. Schroeder wrote:
"Could not blind persons from Asia and Africa speak for the
blind of their countries? . . . Four-fifths of [the estimated blind
population] lived in rural areas, but that need not preclude their
leaders from attending a world conference to discuss, compare, and
counsel. But did they have leaders, I wondered. That was the pivotal
question, and as yet it was one I could not answer."
- Isabelle Grant, 1959[?]
The history of the blind throughout the world is bleak. It has been
characterized by low expectations, paternalism, poverty, and isolation. It
is also the story of human resilience and the unquenchable drive for
freedom. It is the story of marginalized people rejecting the role defined
for them by society and demonstrating their ability, drive, and
determination to live and work as others.
When blind people appear in ancient literature, they are usually
described as beggars, helpless beings who seek alms from passersby. During
the Middle Ages in Western Europe, the church began to provide for the
blind by establishing homes, called hospitals, where the blind and other
indigent people could live. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
local governments in Europe and the United States took over the task of
creating institutions to educate, care for, and employ the blind. Work was
poorly paid and rudimentary, and it was completely controlled by private or
public agencies (see Chapter One).
Early in the twentieth century, blind people in the United States
began to form local and statewide organizations to fight for better working
conditions and opportunities. Seven state organizations formed the nucleus
of the National Federation of the Blind in 1940 (see Chapters Two and
Three).
The service agencies for the blind did not welcome the emergence of
representative organizations of blind people. They regarded blind people to
be as helpless as two-year-old children, incapable of taking charge of
their lives and exploring the extent of their abilities. They viewed the
Federation as little more than a forum for the ungrateful and maladjusted.
The NFB threatened the institutions established to govern blind people's
lives.
The World Council on Welfare of the Blind
In 1949, representatives from blindness agencies throughout the world
gathered in Rome to establish the World Council on the Welfare of the Blind
(WCWB). As its founding president the nascent organization elected Colonel
Edwin Albert Baker. At that time, Colonel Baker was one of the world's best-
known blind leaders, heading the Canadian National Institute for the Blind
(CNIB).
During its early years the WCWB was dominated by powerful service
agencies for the blind: the CNIB, the American Foundation for the Blind
(AFB), and the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) of the United
Kingdom. Agencies for the blind had total control over the organization.
The few existing organizations of blind people were viewed with suspicion
and hostility. Nevertheless, the WCWB claimed to represent not only the
governmental and private agencies, but also blind people themselves.
Despite the agency domination, the NFB felt somewhat hopeful about
the WCWB. The fledgling WCWB was headed by a blind person, Colonel Baker.
Perhaps, under his leadership, the new organization might work to improve
the condition of the blind of the world. In a letter dated July 17, 1952,
NFB President Jacobus tenBroek advised the leadership of the WCWB that on
July 15, 1952, at its national convention in Nashville, Tennessee, the
Federation's membership had voted to join the World Council for the Welfare
of the Blind.[?]
It did not take long before the Federation realized that the WCWB
would not open the way to a progressive future for the blind. It would
simply further paternalism and agency control. From today's perspective,
words such as subjection, domination, and control in regard to agencies for
the blind may seem exaggerated. The quotes below convey the thinking of
those times in all of its chilling reality.
In the mid-1950s a well-known and respected educator of the blind
wrote, "With many persons there was an expectation in the establishment of
the early schools that the blind in general would thereby be rendered
capable of earning their own support, a view that even at the present is
shared in some quarters. It would have been much better if such a hope had
never been entertained or, if it had existed, in a greatly modified
form."[?] At about the same time, the director of a prominent
rehabilitation agency wrote, "After he is once trained and placed, the
average disabled person can fend for himself. In the case of the blind, it
has been found necessary to set up a special state service agency which
will supply them not only rehabilitation training but other services for
the rest of their lives. The agencies keep in constant contact with them as
long as they live. So the blind are unique among the handicapped in that,
no matter how well-adjusted, trained, and placed, they require lifelong
supervision by the agencies."[?] The agencies did not view their role as
one of supporting the move of the blind toward full and equal
participation; the idea of protecting and guiding the blind was
unquestioned and universal. It was assumed that the blind needed care, and
even more important, needed direction, supervision, and control. They had
no hope of integration and certainly no hope of equality.
In the United States, the struggle for self-expression was
contentious and bitter, and its success was by no means assured. (See
"Telling Our Story through Legislation in Washington.") Yet many joined the
struggle, and it was clear that the movement needed to spread across the
world. If the blind of the world were to achieve true independence, the
effort must be led by blind people themselves.
Never a truly representative organization, the WCWB sought to
suppress the voice of the blind on the international stage. In 1962 the
WCWB president used a sleight-of-hand parliamentary maneuver to strip the
National Federation of the Blind of its seat on the Executive Committee.
Then Federation President Perry Sundquist advised the WCWB that its ongoing
attempts to suppress the blind were awakening a growing worldwide sentiment
that a new and truly representative international organization of the blind
was needed. The will of blind people to achieve full integration could not
be extinguished. There was no money to build representative organizations
of the blind throughout the world, and there were few individuals to help;
but the need was great, and the spirit of the blind was unquenchable.
In 1959, Dr. Isabelle Grant, a talented blind teacher from
California, launched a one-woman crusade to expand education and training
for blind people internationally. On a one-year sabbatical from her
teaching position, she visited twenty-three countries to study the
education and rehabilitation of blind children. She understood the
importance of representative organizations of the blind and worked
tirelessly to spread the Federation message of self-determination and hope.
Dr. Grant's views on the education of blind children were nothing
short of revolutionary. At that time, nearly all blind children in the
United States were educated in special schools for the blind. In the United
States and throughout the world, Dr. Grant was an early proponent of
integrated education. If blind children were educated alongside their
sighted peers, she believed that they could learn to compete in an
integrated world.
Dr. Grant's views on education fit well with her interest in
expanding opportunities for the blind worldwide. Poor countries had no
money to build special schools for the blind. Integration (later to be
known as mainstreaming and eventually as full inclusion) offered a cost-
effective way of educating the blind. The resources were meager and the
obstacles overwhelming, but Dr. Grant did what she could to make a
difference. Her example illustrates the power of blind people working
together to change their own condition.
[PHOTO CAPTION: A group of blind Nigerians stands beside a bus. On the side
of the bus is the name Nigerian Association of the Blind.]
An International Voice
The impact of the WCWB was insignificant. From its inception, it had
lacked the will and the structure to represent the interests of blind
people. At the 1964 convention of the National Federation of the Blind in
Phoenix, Arizona, the problem was discussed in detail. As President
Sundquist had predicted, the WCWB's efforts to suppress the voice of the
blind only made the blind more determined to govern their own lives. Later
that summer, in New York, the International Federation of the Blind (IFB)
was born. Dr. tenBroek became its first president, and Dr. Kenneth Jernigan
drafted its constitution.
The IFB had a promising beginning. Organizations of the blind began
to emerge throughout the world, and a convention was planned for 1969 in
Ceylon, now Sri Lanka. But in 1968 Dr. tenBroek died. He had been the
driving force behind the IFB. After his death the IFB languished, along
with many of the hopes and dreams of blind people throughout the world. By
the early 1980s it seemed clear that the IFB would fade away unless it
joined with the WCWB. Once again there would be one international
organization to speak for blind people and for the agencies that served
them.
In 1984 a joint meeting of the IFB and WCWB was held to merge the two
organizations, leading to the creation of the World Blind Union (WBU). The
founding general assembly of the WBU met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in
October 1984. Since then, general assemblies have been held once every four
years: Madrid, 1988; Cairo, 1992; Toronto, 1996; Melbourne, 2000; Cape
Town, 2004; Geneva, 2008; and Bangkok, 2012. The next worldwide general
assembly will take place in 2016 in Orlando, Florida, USA.
[PHOTO CAPTION: During the General Assembly meeting of the World Blind
Union in Cairo in 1992, several NFB leaders and staff go for a camel ride
in the desert. Left to right can be seen Kenneth Jernigan, Mary Ellen
Jernigan, Patricia Miller, Donald Capps, and Betty Capps. Behind Mrs.
Capps, Marc Maurer shares a camel with Pat Maurer.]
The WBU is organized into seven regions: North America/Caribbean,
Africa, Asia, East Asia/Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle
East. Each region has a president and executive committee to coordinate the
work of its member organizations. To ensure the representative nature of
the WBU, the president, both vice presidents, and the secretary general
must all be blind people. The only exception among the executive offices is
the position of treasurer, which on occasion has been filled by a sighted
person.
From the outset, the NFB was an influential force in the WBU. The
Federation's long-term leader, Dr. Kenneth Jernigan, understood that, if
the WBU was to succeed and make a real difference in the lives of the
blind, organizations of the blind must lead the way. Dr. Jernigan became a
powerful political and philosophical force within the WBU. By 1987, he had
become president of the North America/Caribbean Region, a position he held
until the fall of 1997 when ill health forced him to resign. During his
tenure, Dr. Jernigan advanced the foundational principle that the blind
must be the ones to lead the blind. Others can and do help, but it is up to
the blind themselves to determine their own future. Dr. Jernigan understood
that self-determination was not simply a good idea, but a foundational and
enduring truth. The spirit and experience of the NFB has been critical to
the WBU. The NFB's positive and progressive influence continued, even after
Dr. Jernigan no longer held a leadership position.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Marc Maurer and Mary Ellen Jernigan visit the Great Wall of
China during a WBU meeting in Beijing.]
Dr. Marc Maurer, who succeeded Kenneth Jernigan as president of the
NFB, recognized the need for the Federation to remain active in the affairs
of the blind of the world. In his 2004 Presidential Report, Dr. Maurer
said,
The National Federation of the Blind is an active participant in
the World Blind Union. For ten years Dr. Jernigan served as president
of the North America/Caribbean Region, and I have also held that
office. The World Blind Union brings together agencies for the blind
and organizations of the blind. Because within the entities that make
up the organization there are strikingly different approaches to the
subject of blindness, this amalgamation of groups sometimes creates
frustration. However, we learn much about programming for the blind
from throughout the world, and we have an opportunity for interaction
with leaders of the blind in other countries.[?]
The NFB stands as a beacon of hope for the blind of the world, and
the Federation is a living testament to the power of collective action. At
the opening session of the WBU's 2008 Quadrennial General Assembly in
Geneva, Switzerland, NFB President Marc Maurer gave the keynote address,
entitled "Breaking the Mold: The Power of the Unpredictable." He said, in
part,
The beginning of the possession of power is the assertion that
it belongs to us. I want us to have power. Furthermore, in my own
country I face challenges that cannot be solved within the borders of
my own nation. I need the cooperation and the power of others around
the world to bring equality to the blind of the United States, and I
believe that those of us in the United States can help bring equality
to the blind of the world.[?]
Today the WBU is widely recognized as an effective international
advocacy organization. It represents 285 million blind and partially
sighted people in 190 member nations. The WBU has consultancy status as a
nongovernmental organization (NGO) with the United Nations.
The WBU is the international voice of the blind, speaking to national
governments and a wide range of United Nations agencies. It works to
address the human and civil rights of the blind. It brings organizations of
blind people together with service organizations to work on issues
affecting the quality of life for blind people. In its relatively brief
history, it already has made a difference.
The WBU at Work
In 2008 the international Free Matter for the Blind mailing privilege
came up for review by the Universal Postal Union (UPU), an agency of the
United Nations. The WBU launched an effort not only to preserve the Free
Matter privilege, but to broaden its scope. Since Free Mailing was
established in the 1950s, the exemption applied only to "literature for the
blind," covering little more than Braille books. The WBU pushed to expand
the international mailing privilege to include items such as talking
watches, digital audio equipment, and other devices for the blind.
At the October 2012 UPU Congress in Qatar, the WBU succeeded in
pushing through changes that would modernize the international mailing
privilege for the blind. Accordingly, the UPU amended the international
convention that governs the exchange of international mail. Article 7
defines the "Exemption from postal charges" for the blind. The amended
article reads in part, "3.1 Any item for the blind sent to or by an
organization for the blind or sent to or by a blind person shall be exempt
from all postal charges."[?]
In addition, the WBU has worked to secure the rights of blind people
and others with disabilities. The WBU was actively engaged in crafting
language for inclusion in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the first human rights charter of the
twenty-first century. At the time the treaty language was being negotiated,
there was a strong move to keep all references in the treaty general to
persons with disabilities and to refrain from identifying any particular
disability group or services that applied to a specific disability type.
Many delegates objected to any mention of blindness, Braille, or any
service specific to blind people. The WBU pushed hard on these issues and
was successful in getting language included that recognized Braille by
name. Article 2 (Definitions) of the Convention reads,
For the purposes of the present Convention: 'Communication'
includes languages, display of text, Braille, tactile communication,
large print, accessible multimedia, as well as written, audio, plain-
language, human-reader and augmentative and alternative modes, means
and formats of communication, including accessible information and
communication technology.
Through the efforts of the WBU, Braille is also referenced in Article
9, Accessibility; Article 21, Freedom of Expression and Opinion, and Access
to Information; and in Article 24, Education.
The mere mention of Braille may not in and of itself appear to be
significant. Indeed it may be viewed as simply symbolic or hortatory, with
no real meaning or impact. Nevertheless, Article 24 on Education is an
example of the true impact of the work of the WBU. Initially, the delegates
insisted on integration as an absolute principle in the Convention. Yet for
many blind children, schools for the blind remain the best, and in some
cases, the only option for attaining an education. Through the efforts of
the WBU and of deaf and deaf-blind advocates, the language of the
Convention was modified. Language was removed that would have established
an absolute requirement that all children with disabilities be educated in
integrated settings. In its place, the language of the treaty now says that
no child should, by virtue of disability, be excluded from integration.
That compromise left the door open for specialized training. Specifically,
Article 24, Section 3c, states:
Ensuring that the education of persons, and in particular
children, who are blind, deaf or deafblind, is delivered in the most
appropriate languages and modes and means of communication for the
individual, and in environments which maximize academic and social
development.[?]
On Thursday, June 27, 2013, a diplomatic conference of the World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) adopted the Marrakech Treaty to
Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who are Blind, Visually
Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled. The Marrakech Treaty includes two
major provisions. First, it calls on nations to produce more books for the
blind; and second, it authorizes nations to share accessible books across
national borders.
For many years United States law has allowed books to be produced in
Braille and other accessible formats without first having to obtain the
permission of the copyright holder. This authority, known as the Chafee
Amendment, has been the law since the late 1990s, and it has worked very
well.
As of 2015, fifty-seven nations around the world have copyright laws
similar to the US Chafee Amendment. The Marrakech Treaty will expand this
authority. As each WIPO member nation ratifies the book treaty for the
blind, it agrees to change its national copyright law to permit books to be
produced in accessible formats without having to seek the prior permission
of the copyright holder. This will greatly increase the production of
accessible works around the world. But that is only the first step in
ending what many have called the "book famine." For the first time, the
Marrakech Treaty allows WIPO member states to share copies of accessible
works across national borders.
At present, the WBU, together with the NFB, is working to address the
danger electric and hybrid electric vehicles pose to all pedestrians, and
in particular to blind people traveling the streets and byways of the
world. The WBU is working with the United Nations Economic Commission for
Europe (UNECE) World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations (WP.29)
to develop international standards to require electric and hybrid electric
vehicles to emit a minimum alert sound. The international effort will build
on the work undertaken in the United States. In 2010, the NFB led an effort
to persuade the United States Congress to adopt legislation mandating a
minimum sound standard for hybrid, electric, and other quiet vehicles. The
US law, known as the Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act, is the first, and
so far, the only national legislation mandating a safe level of sound to be
made by these very quiet cars.
Looking to the Future
The WBU's many successes highlight the critical importance of an
international organization to address the chronic and emerging barriers to
social and economic participation faced by blind people throughout the
world. The WBU works on increasing access to literacy, education, and
employment, all well-known, pervasive, and persistent barriers to full
participation. It is also addressing new challenges brought about by
advancing technology. Most important, the WBU is a vehicle for collective
action.
The continued success of the WBU will depend on the degree to which
it values and retains its representative nature. The service agencies must
never seek to overshadow the rights and aspirations of the blind
themselves. This is not to disparage the agencies for the blind; it is not
to ascribe dire motives, hubris, and ill will. Rather, it is a recognition
that the progress of the blind is a direct outgrowth of the will and
determination of extraordinary blind people, people who faced
discrimination and the damage of low expectations but managed to forge new
frontiers, beyond the established norms of the day.
The WBU is a forum, an organization, a means of advancing the
integration of the blind. It helps to continue the movement of the blind
toward full equality. Progress will come, quickly or slowly, but it will
come because the will and spirit of blind people cannot be forever
suppressed by the misunderstanding of others. The challenge of the WBU is
our individual and collective challenge. If we give of ourselves and
encourage and support one another, we will replace the heartache of
nonparticipation with hope and the realization of our dreams.
The history of the blind is bleak, but our future is bright. We can
work together to shape the future for ourselves. Whenever one of us
succeeds, whenever one of us refuses to accept a life of diminished
opportunity, our collective future is forever changed. Together we can and
will hasten society's recognition of our ability to live and work as
others.
For Further Information
"Withdrawal from International Federation of the Blind." (1984) Braille
Monitor, November. Internet Archive (2010)
Jernigan, Kenneth. (1988) "North American/Caribbean Regional Report,"
Braille Monitor, November.
<https://nfb.org/Images/nfb/Publications/bm/bm88/brlm8811.htm#14>
tenBroek, Jacobus. (1964) "The Parliament of Man: The Federation of the
World." Banquet Speech, National Federation of the Blind National
Convention, Phoenix, AZ. Audio, MP3 format.
<https://nfb.org/Images/nfb/Audio/BanqSpeech/bsp-1964.mp3>
----------
NAC: WHAT PRICE ACCREDITATION
A Report to National Federation of the Blind Members
on COMSTAC and NAC
by Kenneth Jernigan, President
National Federation of the Blind
From the Editor: In the early 1960s the National Accreditation
Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped was formed,
its major purpose being to thwart the legitimate concerns of consumers by
waving the banner of accreditation in defense of agencies providing poor
service to the blind. The battles between NAC and the Federation are
legendary, but to many new Federationists, the reason for NAC's creation
and why we fought its attempts to thwart the will of the organized blind
are the stuff of myth and history, lacking any reality or the need for
action today. The assumption has been that NAC is dead, and the threat is
gone. Would that it were so, but it is not. The state agency for the blind
in Florida requires that any agency for the blind there be accredited by
NAC in order to use state money to provide services to blind Floridians.
The consortium that binds together small service providers for the blind in
the state of Pennsylvania also strongly encourages NAC accreditation. NAC
is actively encouraging guide dog training schools to affiliate with it,
and one prominent school has unfortunately lent its name and quality
services to an accrediting body which is widely frowned upon by involved
and informed blind people.
It seems time that we reeducate ourselves about NAC and prepare once
again to demand that any accreditation be meaningful and that it involve
the voice of the organized blind. Following is a speech delivered by Dr.
Kenneth Jernigan in 1971 when he was the president of the National
Federation of the Blind and a member of the NAC board. This speech has
appeared in the pages of the Braille Monitor at least one other time, that
being in 1991, and here is the way Dr. Jernigan introduced it when he was
serving as the editor of this publication.
Kenneth Jernigan's Headnote: I delivered this address at the 1971
convention of the National Federation of the Blind in Houston. NAC's
president and executive director had come to discuss what NAC was doing and
why. My remarks were meant to set the tone for the debate. In the context
of NAC's current maneuvering I think this 1971 analysis is still pertinent.
Here it is:
When the Commission on Standards and Accreditation on Services for
the Blind (COMSTAC) and its successor organization, the National
Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Impaired
(NAC), came into being during the 1960s, the leaders of the organized blind
movement sounded the alarm. It was pointed out that the American
Association of Workers for the Blind had unsuccessfully tried, during the
1950s, to gain control of the field of work for the blind by instituting
what it called a "seal of good practices." Of the several hundred agencies
and organizations in this country doing work with the blind only twenty or
thirty ever applied for and received this "seal." Several of those which
did were not regarded by the blind as either very effective or very
progressive. As the decade of the '60s approached, the proponents of rigid
agency control apparently decided to change tactics. The American
Foundation for the Blind and certain other leading agency officials adopted
the idea of establishing a so-called "independent" accrediting system for
all groups doing work with the blind. Although individual blind persons who
were agency officials were involved in the establishment and development of
COMSTAC, the blind as a group were not consulted-that is, the
representative organizations of the blind were not given a voice, except
occasionally as a matter of tokenism. Thus, the consumers of the services
were not heard in any meaningful way, and they had no part in developing or
promulgating the standards to govern the agencies established to give them
assistance.
Profiting by the earlier failure of the AAWB [American Association of
Workers for the Blind] "seal of good practices" experiment, the authors of
COMSTAC built more carefully. The American Foundation for the Blind
appointed an "independent" commission-the Commission on Standards and
Accreditation for Services for the Blind (COMSTAC). The full-time staff
consultant for COMSTAC was a staff member of the AFB, on loan to the group,
purely as a means of demonstrating the Foundation's concern with the
improvement of services for the blind. To add respectability, people of
prestige outside of the field of work with the blind were placed on the
commission-public officials, business executives, the dean of the Temple
Law School, etc. These were people of good will and integrity, but they
were not knowledgeable concerning the problems of blindness. Obviously they
took their tone and orientation from the Foundation appointees on COMSTAC.
All of these appointees, it must be borne in mind, were high-ranking
officials doing work with the blind. Not one of them represented the blind
themselves. Not one of them came from a membership organization of blind
persons.
As its work developed, COMSTAC divided into subcommittees, involving
hundreds of people throughout the country, since the subcommittees further
subdivided into smaller groups. Again, the pattern was followed. The
subcommittees, or the subcommittees of the subcommittees, had, in every
instance, at least one of the COMSTAC agency officials as a member, plus
people of prestige and ordinary rank and file agency workers or board
members. In fact, at the sub-subcommittee level a few members of the
organized blind movement were even added.
The American Foundation for the Blind and COMSTAC were later to
proclaim with pride that they had sought and achieved a broad consensus
throughout the field of work with the blind. However, the method of
arriving at that consensus was, to say the least, novel. At Denver in the
summer of 1965, for instance, the AAWB convention was largely taken up with
a discussion of the COMSTAC standards-to gather opinions and achieve
consensus, it was said. Only the discussion leaders had copies of the
standards (there had been a delay in mimeographing), and any touchy point
which was raised was answered either by the statement that it was covered
somewhere else in the COMSTAC standards or that another group was
discussing that matter and it was not properly the concern of the group in
which it had been raised.
Home teachers from throughout the country were present and were
considering the standards affecting their specialty. The overwhelming
majority apparently disagreed with a particular item in the COMSTAC
document and suggested that a vote be taken to determine the sentiments of
the group. They were informed by the discussion leader that a vote
certainly would not be taken but that their views would be reported to
COMSTAC, which had the sole responsibility for deciding such matters.
Throughout the summer and fall of 1965 promises were repeatedly made
that copies of the proposed COMSTAC standards would be made available. They
were forthcoming, hundreds of pages of them-three days prior to the final
conference in New York City, which brought together hundreds of agency
representatives for the announced purpose of arriving at a final consensus.
Dr. Jacobus tenBroek and I attended that conference. Again, the democracy
and fair play with which it was conducted were novel. One had to indicate
in writing ahead of time which particular group discussion he would like to
attend. There was no assurance that his choice would be honored. He might
be assigned to another group. He could not move from group to group at all.
If he had not received a special invitation, he could not attend the
meetings. COMSTAC appointees were stationed at the door to check
credentials, and I personally witnessed the turning away of one agency
director who had been critical of COMSTAC.
It is no wonder that the blind people of the country felt
apprehensive. What type of standards were likely to emerge from a
commission so appointed and so conducted? Not only the blind but also many
of the agencies expressed concern. Many felt that the AFB and federal
rehabilitation officials (unwittingly aided by people of prestige in the
broader community) would impose a system of rigid controls-which would
stifle initiative, foster domination, and take the emphasis off of real
service and place it on bureaucracy, red tape, and professional jargon. It
was further felt that what purported to begin as a voluntary system would
(once firmly established) become mandatory. The AFB and other proponents of
COMSTAC and its successor organization, NAC, vigorously denied these
assertions. COMSTAC and NAC were to be truly independent. Their very
watchword was to be objectivity. They were to be the means of improving
services to blind people throughout the country and the vehicle for
progressive thought and constructive change.
Readers of the Braille Monitor will remember that from 1965 through
1968 a detailed analysis was made of the COMSTAC and NAC reports and
activities. The fact that the Federation has not called attention in recent
months to COMSTAC and NAC should not lead the blind to believe that the
threat has passed or the situation improved. Quite the contrary is the
case.
The question of NAC's independence, for example, is no longer a
matter for serious debate. The Scriptures tell us that "where a man's
treasure is, there will his heart be also." In an official NAC document
entitled "Budget Comparison-1968 and 1969," dated April 15, 1968, the
following items appear.
"Total approved budget calendar year 1968, $154,034; total projected
calendar year 1969, $154,000. Estimated income 1968: grant from American
Foundation for the Blind $70,000; grant from Department of Health,
Education, and Welfare $75,000. Estimated income 1969: grant from American
Foundation for the Blind $70,000; grant from Department of Health,
Education, and Welfare $70,000."
Today (in 1971) the overwhelming majority of NAC's funds still come
from HEW and the American Foundation for the Blind. Many of the NAC
meetings are held at the AFB building in New York, and the executive
director of NAC is a former Foundation staff member, the same one who was
on "loan" to COMSTAC. When the first annual NAC awards were given, in 1970,
it may be of significance that two recipients were named: Mr. Jansen Noyes,
President of the Board of Directors of the American Foundation for the
Blind; and Miss Mary Switzer, the long-time head of rehabilitation in the
federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Even more to the
point may be Miss Switzer's comments upon that occasion as reported in the
NAC minutes of April 24, 1970: "She predicted that difficult times might
lie ahead if agencies accept the idea of standards but do nothing about
them. The expending or withholding of public money can provide the
incentive that is needed."
Thus spoke Miss Switzer, confirming what Federation leaders had
predicted and COMSTAC spokesmen had denied a decade ago. The full meaning
of Miss Switzer's statement was spelled out by Alexander Handel, Executive
Director of NAC, as reported in the NAC minutes of April 25, 1970: "Mr.
Handel reported a new and important step in encouraging accreditation. The
Council of State Administrators has passed a resolution that by July 1,
1974, state rehabilitation agencies will require that agencies from which
they purchase services be accredited." The use of the word "encouraging" in
this context is almost reminiscent of George Orwell's double-think and new-
speak of 1984-only thirteen years away, at that. Perhaps sooner. The
"encouraging" of agencies to seek accreditation from NAC will probably be
called by some by the ugly name of blackmail. The pressure for conformity
and the concentration of power could well be the most serious threat to
good programs for the blind in the decade ahead.
Federationists who attended the 1966 Louisville convention will
remember that a report on COMSTAC and NAC was given at that time. I had
been officially asked to serve on the NAC board. The offer was, of course,
tokenism of the most blatant sort; and the question was whether to accept,
leaving the Federation open to the charge of approving NAC actions, or to
reject, exposing us to the charge of non-cooperation and leaving us with no
means of observing and getting information. Federationists will remember
that it was decided that I should accept the invitation. Thus, I have been
a member of the NAC board since its inception. In the spring of 1970 I was
elected to another three-year term. There are more than thirty NAC board
members, of whom I am one.
While expressing my minority views, I have tried to be personally
congenial and friendly with the NAC board members. Nevertheless, tokenism
remains tokenism. The other members of the board not only seemed
unconcerned with but unaware of the non-representative character of NAC. It
is as if General Motors, Chrysler, Ford, and American Motors should set up
a council and put six or seven officials from each of their companies on
its board and then ask the UAW to contribute a single representative. What
would the unions do in such a situation? What would racial minorities do if
their representative organizations were offered such tokenism in the
establishment and promulgation of standards affecting their lives? I think
we know what they would do. They would take both political and court
action, and they would instigate mass demonstrations. Perhaps the blind
should take a leaf from the same book. We cannot and should not exhibit
endless patience. We cannot and should not forever tolerate the
intolerable. I continue to sit on the NAC board, but I often wonder why. It
does not discuss the real problems which face the blind today or the
methods of solving those problems. In fact, NAC itself may well be more a
part of the problem than the solution. I repeat that tokenism by any other
name is still tokenism. In May of 1969, for instance, I received a document
from NAC entitled "Statement of Understanding Among National Accreditation
Council, National Industries for the Blind and the General Council of
Workshops for the Blind." This document was sent to all NAC board members
with the request that they vote to approve or disapprove it. It contained
six points, of which one and five are particularly pertinent. They are as
follows: "1. By June 30, 1970, all NIB affiliated shops shall have either:
a. applied to NAC for accreditation and submitted a self-study guide (or)
b. applied to the General Council for a Certificate of Affiliation with NIB
and submitted a self-study guide. 5. Certificates of Affiliation with NIB
entitle shops to membership in the General Council and to access through
NIB to: a. Government business allocated by NIB, b. Commercial business
allocated by NIB, c. Consulting services of NIB, d. Any and all other
benefits of NIB affiliation." In other words if a workshop for the blind
wishes any contracts from the federal government, it had better get into
line and "volunteer" for accreditation by NAC. No pressure, of course,
merely a system of "voluntary accreditation!" As you might expect, I voted
no on the NIB agreement. Along with my ballot, I sent the following
comments:
"I do not approve this statement because I do not believe government
contracts and other benefits to workshops should be conditioned upon their
accreditation by NAC. Rather, receipt of government contracts and other
benefits should depend upon the quality of performance of the workshop in
question. Does the shop pay at least a minimum wage? Do its workers have
the rights associated with collective bargaining? What sort of image of
blindness does it present to the public?
"Prior to NAC (in the days of COMSTAC) many of us said that NAC would
become a vehicle for blackmail-dressed out nicely, of course, in
professional jargon. It would appear that the prophecy is beginning to come
true, earlier assurances to the contrary notwithstanding."
As I say, I voted no. What do you suppose the final tally of the
ballots indicated? Twenty-seven yes votes and one no vote. How different
the results might have been if there had been equal representation of the
blind themselves and the agencies! Yes, tokenism is still tokenism.
In order that my position cannot be twisted or misinterpreted I would
like to say that the quarrel is not with the concept of accreditation
itself. Rather, we object to what is being done in the name of
accreditation. Proper accreditation by a properly accredited group is a
constructive thing. What NAC is doing is something else altogether.
There is, of course, not time here to go into the details of all of
the standards originally developed by COMSTAC and now being fostered by
NAC, but a brief sample is sufficient to make the point. Federationists
will remember that the Braille Monitor for February, 1966, carried an
analysis of the COMSTAC standards on physical facilities. That analysis
said in part:
"The standards [on physical facilities] are perhaps notable chiefly
in that they are so vague and minimal as to be equally applicable to office
buildings, nursing homes, or universities by the simple substitution of the
names of these other facilities...."
Perhaps a brief run-down of the standards themselves would serve as
the best and most complete illustration (headings theirs).
1. Overall Suitability-The total facility is constructed to best serve
the needs of the particular agency. It will adequately serve everyone
concerned. It will meet the requirements of its governing body, the
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and the city building
code. The physical facilities will be helpful to the program.
2. Location-The facility is located where it can easily be reached by
staff, clients, and others who need to use it. The facility should be
close to shopping and other community interests. The location is
reasonably safe, with hazards minimized.
3. Grounds-The grounds will be large enough to allow for future
expansion. They will be pleasant ("free of undue nuisances and
hazards,"), with parking areas and roadways. Signs will be posted to
help people locate the proper areas.
4. Activity Area-The layout of the facility will be efficient. The
facility will be designed for the planned activities, will be large
enough and well organized (reception rooms next to entries, work areas
together, etc.). Sufficient maintenance will be provided for.
5. Privacy-People will have as much privacy as individual cases call for.
Confidentiality will be maintained.
6. Health and Safety-The health and safety codes of the community will be
met. Sufficient heat and light will be provided. Sanitary conditions
will be as good as possible. Suitable entries will be provided for
wheelchairs, etc. Safety features will be related to the level of
competence of the occupants, the activities undertaken, and the
equipment used. Adequate first aid facilities are provided.
7. Fire and Disaster Protection-All buildings will be so designed and
equipped as to minimize the danger of fire. The buildings will be
inspected by local authorities and/or independent authorities and
records of inspection kept. Smoking areas are clearly specified.
Proper protection shall be provided the occupants of the facility to
minimize danger should fire or disaster occur. Suitable fire
extinguishers will be provided. Fire alarms will be installed as to be
heard throughout the facility. Fire drills will be held irregularly.
Special provisions will be made for fire warnings to deaf-blind.
8. Maintenance-"The condition of the physical facility gives evidence of
planful and effective maintenance and housekeeping."
9. Remodeling-When remodeling is undertaken, it should be to best suit
the needs of the program.
The preceding is an inclusive summary! One can imagine the breadth of
interpretation that can result from application of these standards. One can
also imagine the range of individual whim and axe-grinding, not to say
blackmail and favoritism, that can enter into the proposed accreditation of
agencies for the blind based on such vague and capricious requirements. The
danger to be anticipated is the possibility of varying application of
standards to friends and foes when "accrediting" agencies....
One is tempted to dismiss this entire report of "Standards for
Physical Facilities" with the single word, "Blah!" But more intensive study
indicates otherwise. Tucked away among the platitudes and the generalities
are the age-old misconceptions and stereotypes.
What, for instance, is meant by the requirement that a facility for
the blind be located near to shopping and other community interests, and
that it be in a location reasonably safe, with hazards minimized? The exact
words of the committee are, "Where undue hazards cannot be avoided, proper
measures are instituted to assure the safety of all persons coming to the
agency. (For example, where an agency is on a street with heavy traffic, a
light or crosswalk or other means is available for safe crossing by blind
persons.)"
If this standard is simply meant to express the general pious
platitude that everybody ought to be as safe as possible, then what a
farcical and pathetic waste of time and money to assemble a committee to
spell out what everybody already knows. On the other hand, if the standard
means to imply that the blind are not able to live and compete among the
ordinary hazards of the regular workaday world and that they need more
shelter and care than others, the implications are not only false but they
are insidiously vicious.
Of a similar character is the committee's statement that the grounds
must "provide pleasant and appropriate surroundings, and be free of undue
nuisances and hazards." Surely we do not need a special commission on
standards and accreditation to tell us that people should live in pleasant
surroundings that are free of undue hazards, if this is all that is meant.
If, however, the committee is saying that the blind require surroundings
that are more "pleasant and free from hazards" than the surroundings
required by other people, one cannot help but be unhappily reminded of the
19th century concept that the blind should be entertained and provided with
recreation, that they should be helped in every way possible to "live with
their misfortune."
If this type of analysis seems blunt, one can only reply that this is
no time for nice words and mousy phrases. The people who were formerly the
Commission on Standards, and are now the National Accreditation, hold
themselves out to the public at large as the qualified experts, the people
who have the right to make standards and grant or refuse accreditation to
all and sundry. These are not children indulging in the innocent games of
childhood. They are adults, playing with the lives of hundreds of people.
Federationists should review the Braille Monitor from 1965 through
1968 to study the COMSTAC reports in light of present developments. I have
not tried here to analyze the content of those reports. Mostly it is bad,
and the standards and rules established by COMSTAC and NAC harmful. Let
anyone who doubts this assertion read the COMSTAC reports and the Monitor
analyses. They speak for themselves.
One final matter requires comment. At a recent meeting of the
National Accreditation Council I was telling a new member of the board (a
prominent businessman totally uninformed about the problems faced by the
blind) that I thought most of the actions of NAC were irrelevant. He seemed
surprised and said something to this effect:
"If you think what we are doing here is not relevant, what is
relevant?"
To which I said, "Last fall a blind man in Minneapolis (a person who
had worked for several years as a computer programmer at Honeywell and was
laid off because of the recession) applied to take a civil service
examination for computer programmer with the city of Minneapolis. His
application was rejected, on the grounds of blindness. The National
Federation of the Blind helped him with advice and legal counsel. As a
result, he took the examination, and he now has a job with the city of
Minneapolis as a computer programmer.
"How many of the people who are on the NAC board," I asked, "are even
aware that such an incident occurred? How many of them think it is
important?"
"Or," I went on, "consider another incident. A few weeks ago in Ohio
a blind high school senior (duly elected by her class) was denied the right
to attend the American Legion Girls' State. The story was carried
nationwide by United Press, and the matter is still pending. Do you see any
of these people here today concerned or excited about this case? Do you see
them trying to do anything about it?"
"Well," my companion replied, "your organization seems to be working
on matters like this. Maybe NAC is doing good in other areas."
"The difficulty," I told him, "is that the actions of NAC are helping
to create the kind of problem situations I have been describing to you."
"How?" he asked me.
"NAC," I said, "accredits workshops, for instance. What kind of
standards does it use in determining whether a shop should be approved and
presented to the public as a worthy and progressive institution? NAC is
concerned about whether the workshop has a good accounting system. It is
concerned about good pay and good working conditions for the professional
staff (almost all of them sighted). It is concerned with the physical
facilities and (perhaps) whether there is a psychologist or psychiatrist
available to minister to the blind workers. But what about minimum wages
for those same blind workers, or the right of collective bargaining, or
grievance committees? On such items NAC is silent. It will accredit a
sheltered shop which pays less than fifty cents an hour to its blind
workers. By so doing, it puts its stamp of approval on such practices. It
helps perpetuate the system that has kept the blind in bondage and made
them second-class citizens through the centuries. It helps to slam the door
on the computer programmer in Minneapolis and the high school student in
Ohio. Worst of all, perhaps, it reinforces and helps to continue the myth
that blindness means inferiority, that the blind are unable to compete on
terms of equality in regular industry or the professions, that the blind
should be grateful for what they have and stay in their places. The
workshop example is only that, an example. The same theme is everywhere
present in NAC's action and standards-and, for that matter, in its very
makeup."
As we talked, my businessman companion seemed shocked that there were
sheltered shops paying less than the minimum wage to blind workers. Yet, he
is on the NAC board, lending his name to the accreditation. I pointed out
to him a variety of other ways in which the work of NAC is helping to
promote misconceptions about blindness and add to our problems. I can only
hope that the seeds I planted will bear fruit.
To round out the picture we are considering today, one further item
might be mentioned. The April 25, 1968 minutes of NAC report as follows:
"Over thirty agencies and schools have indicated, in writing, an
interest in applying for accreditation. Official applications have been
received from six agencies. Some of these have already paid the application
fee. The American Council of the Blind is the first membership association
to apply for membership in the National Accreditation Council."
In a letter dated July 11, 1968, from Alexander Handel, Executive
Director of the National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the
Blind and Visually Handicapped, to members of the NAC Board of Directors an
article is discussed which appears in the July, 1968, issue of the Braille
Forum (the official publication of the American Council of the Blind). The
article says in part:
"It should be emphasized, however, that from the first, ACB officers
and members actively consulted with the various committees developing the
standards, and ACB was the only national organization of the blind which
both participated in and financially supported the National Conference on
Standards which led to the formation of the National Accreditation
Council."
I give you this quotation without comment. It speaks for itself. So
do the actions of NAC. I presume all of you have read the exchange of
correspondence concerning the appearance of NAC representatives at this
meeting today. The contempt and condescension inherent in NAC's bland
assumption that it was proper to reject our invitation to appear at this
convention because a debate might occur are clear for all to see. Likewise,
the agreement just concluded between NAC and the American Foundation for
the Blind whereby the Foundation will work with agencies and help prepare
them for accreditation is equally revealing.
In any case the one central point which must be repeatedly hammered
home is the total irrelevance of NAC as it is now constituted and as it is
now performing. What we need today and in the years ahead is not more
detailed standards but a real belief in the competence and innate normality
of blind people, a willingness on the part of agency officials to help
blind people secure meaningful training and competitive employment, a
recognition that the blind are able to participate fully in the mainstream
of American life. We need acceptance and equality, not shelter and care.
When seen in this light, NAC must be viewed as one of our most
serious problems in the decade ahead. The blind of the nation should
thoroughly inform themselves about its activities and should insist upon a
voice in determining the character of programs affecting their lives. We
should insist that state and federal governments not delegate their powers
of setting standards for state agencies to a private group, which is not
responsive to the needs or views of the consumers of the services. It is
true that many of the agencies doing work with the blind need to be
reformed and improved, but NAC is not the entity to do it. We the organized
blind intend (in the best tradition of American democracy) to have
something to say about the scope and direction of the reform and the
improvement. We are not children, nor are we psychological cripples. We are
free citizens, fully capable of participating in the determination of our
own destiny, and we have every right and intention of having something to
say about what is done with our lives.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Doris Willoughby]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Margery Herrington]
[PHOTO CAPTION: A full Braille cell]
Introducing Braille-Begin with a Positive Experience
by Doris Willoughby
From the Editor: Doris Willoughby has provided a number of articles
for the Braille Monitor about the education of both sighted people and
blind people. This topic has also caused her to write several books that
are fixtures in many classrooms in which teachers of blind children toil
daily. In the article below, she and her sister describe examples of
positive introductions to Braille and to blindness:
Ever since I met my husband Curtis, who is blind, and ever since I
started teaching blind children, I have observed that when people are shown
the Braille alphabet, they tend to react by saying, "Wow! That looks hard!"
I wished for a way to illustrate that Braille is no harder to learn
than print. While the whole Braille alphabet may seem daunting, it can be
learned in a measured and organized way.
Now, when I speak to a group about blindness, I like to give out
cards that display just a few symbols that are very different from each
other. Each card only has one symbol on it. Good examples are the letter
"a" (one single dot), the letter "g" (four dots together in a square), and
the letter "l" (three dots aligned vertically). I make sure that
participants rely on their sense of touch when they examine the dots.
My sister, Margery Herrington, who is a volunteer Braille
transcriber, has provided a positive introduction to Braille to many people
through the college anatomy classes she taught. Here is her description:
In the seventeen years I was on the biology faculty at Adams
State University in Alamosa, Colorado, I taught over 2,000 anatomy
students to read the Braille letters "a," "g," and "x" by touch as
part of one of the laboratories for the course. I got many positive
comments such as "This is really cool," and "This is easy; I thought
it would be a lot harder."
At the beginning of the period I gave a short introduction to
Braille and wrote the patterns for "a," "g," and "x" on the
blackboard. The dark dots indicate raised dots.
I gave students three-by-five-inch cards with two rows of
Braille letters that I had made using a slate. The upper row had four
a's, followed by four g's, and four x's, with a space after each
letter. The lower row had a total of ten letters (a's, g's, and x's)
in random order with spaces between the letters. Each Braille letter
had the corresponding print letter written below it.
Students used the top row of letters and their fingers to learn
how the letter patterns felt. They then used touch but not sight to
read the second row, while their laboratory partners checked their
accuracy. After recording the number of right answers (usually ten
out of ten), the students read the second row again, using their
elbows instead of their fingers (remember that this was an anatomy
class) in order to compare the sensitivity of different regions of the
body. Students recorded the number of correct answers for the elbow
(usually zero, one, or two) and then wrote down some possible reasons
why the fingers were easier to use than the elbow. Typical answers
were that the elbow had rougher skin, fewer nerve endings, and a
larger surface area.
Before students could turn in their laboratory reports with
results from all the activities done that day, I had them take an exit
test using a card with four Braille letters on it (for example, agxg,
gaax, or xgax) with spaces between the letters. Students enjoyed
showing that they could read quickly and accurately, and most of them
got the required grade of 100 percent on the first try. A few students
missed a letter and needed to try again on a different version of the
test, but I never had a student who had a difficult time passing.
After a student had read the four letters, I made a comment such as
"One hundred percent! You're an efficient Braille reader." A number
of students also did the optional Braille activity during the
laboratory, writing their names in Braille on cards using a slate and
stylus with minimal guidance.
So there you have my sister, teaching anatomy, and finding yet
another use for Braille. Unfortunately, in contrast to the above examples,
people often "simulate blindness" through an exercise that actually is much
more harmful than helpful. A person is given a challenging task such as
eating an entire meal in complete darkness or navigating a complicated path
while blindfolded without adequate instruction or meaningful practice. This
actually tends to mislead people about blindness and to make attitudes
worse instead of better. Arielle Silverman discusses this problem in detail
in her article in the Journal on Blindness Innovation and Research.*
Exercises that incorporate mastery of blindness skills can be helpful
in showing the way alternative techniques provide effective ways to do
things that are usually done visually. If you have wished you could help
give sighted students a positive introduction to Braille, you might want to
do an activity similar to the ones that my sister and I have used.
*Silverman, Arielle. The perils of playing blind: problems with blindness
simulation and a better way to teach about blindness. Journal on Blindness
Innovation and Research, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2015.
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Kenneth Jernigan at the 1985 national convention]
Blindness: The Pattern of Freedom
by Kenneth Jernigan
From the Editor: Last month the Braille Monitor ran an article by
Prof. JW Smith in which he discussed the importance of the banquet speech
delivered annually to the national convention of the Federation. In that
article he interviewed Dr. Kenneth Jernigan, Dr. Marc Maurer, and the
longtime editor of the Braille Monitor and a former president of the
National Federation of the Blind of Ohio, Barbara Pierce. When each
participant was asked to identify their favorite banquet speech, the one
given in 1985 was mentioned. It seems appropriate here to reprint that
speech, and to enjoy what three people who have closely followed the
literature generated by this organization believed to be one of its major
works. Here is what Dr. Jernigan said to the 1985 convention banquet:
When the playful dawn came down to the sea,
I ruffled its hair with gladness.
I saw the waves and flexed my soul in freedom.
Humanity comes through the optic nerve, And justice lives in the eye.
Not creed or law or politics
But curvature and the nature of light.
The blind man yearns in a land apart,
Slave though richest king.
Not for him the full broad sweep of mind and spirit
Dark the channel, nerve and tissue;
Long eternal through the night.
Day comes down to touch the ocean,
And I stand up to look and live.
Books of science unromantic-freedom's passport to the soul. [ 1. ]
When I first read that poem, I thought how literate, how polished,
how skillfully written-how absolutely gross and totally false. Poetry is
the art of saying so much in so few words that prose will not work as a
means of expression. It does for language what the computer does for
science and what the aerial photograph does for a landscape. On nothing
more than a sheet of paper you can do any calculation which the most up-to-
date computer can do, but if the problem is complex, you will do it more
slowly-so much so that you will never live to finish it. You will not
understand the patterns and relationships-or, for that matter, even know
they exist. They will be buried in minutiae and lost in delay. Likewise,
you can walk the earth and map a continent, but you can never see its
patterns and perspectives. There is too much detail, and it will take too
long to put together.
Poetry (properly used) cuts through verbiage and speaks to the soul.
Like the computer and the aerial photograph, it condenses time and reveals
patterns. But we must not be bamboozled. There is no magic in sophisticated
tools. They are only as good as our understanding. Ancient astronomy
predicted quite accurately the course of the stars and the date of
eclipses, but it was based on the mistaken notion that the earth is flat
and the center of the universe. In the absence of understanding a computer
would not have brought enlightenment. It would only have reinforced the
misconceptions. Aerial photographs are equally subject to
misinterpretation. They give us data but not the wisdom to comprehend it.
Poetry is the same. It does not live in a vacuum but is built on a
frame of accepted values and assumed truths. Therefore, when the poet tells
us that humanity comes through the optic nerve and justice lives in the eye-
when he speaks of freedom as a product of sight-he is not proclaiming new
discoveries but repeating old superstitions: our common heritage-man's
ancient fear of the dark, the equation of sight with light and light with
good. He is doing what the perceptive poet always does. He is resolving
contradictions and distilling (whether true or false) the essence of
cultural consensus. He is going to the core of our inner being and making
us face what we truly believe.
But, of course, an increasing number of us do not believe it. In
fact, it is not a question of belief. As we go about our business from hour
to hour and minute to minute, we know from personal experience that it is
false. Blindness does not mean dehumanization. In our homes and our
offices, in factories and laboratories, on farms and in universities, in
places of recreation and forums of civic accomplishment we live the
refutation of it every day. While it is true that 70 percent of us do not
have jobs and that all of us are routinely treated like children and wards,
it is equally true that 30 percent of us do have jobs and that all of us
are coming to realize that the problem is not blindness but mistaken
attitudes. If even one of us can be a scientist (and many of us are), that
does not prove that if an individual is blind he or she can be a scientist,
but it does prove that blindness will not prevent a person from being a
scientist. In short, it proves that blindness is not the barrier.
Sight is enjoyable; it is useful; it is convenient. But that is all
that it is-enjoyable, useful, and convenient. Except in imagination and
mythology it is not more than that. It does not have mysterious
psychological implications; and it is not the single key to happiness, the
road to knowledge, or the window to the soul. Like the other senses, it is
a channel of communication, a source of pleasure, and a tool nothing less,
nothing more. It is alternative, not exclusive. It is certainly not the
essential component of human freedom. The urge to liberty and the need to
be free are commodities of the spirit, not the senses. They divide
civilization from savagery and human beings from animals.
Liberty has been the focal point of more study and comment than
perhaps any other idea which has ever troubled, motivated, and inspired
mankind. It is the stuff of dreams, not optic nerves and eyeballs. The
effort is always to understand and, by so doing, make life better and more
in tune with ultimate reality-a combination of bread and the prayer book,
food for the body and food for the soul.
Liberty and freedom. Two words, one concept. Always noble, always
imposing-ever the dream, ever the mover of nations. And while we cannot
capture freedom in a rigid cage, we can describe it, seek it, and recognize
its transcendent power.
Harold Laski said: "We acquiesce in the loss of freedom every time we
are silent in the face of injustice."
Daniel Webster said: "God grants liberty only to those who love it,
and are always ready to guard and defend it."
Benjamin Franklin said: "They that give up essential liberty to
obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Samuel Adams said: "If you love wealth better than liberty, the
tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go
home from us in peace."
John Dewey said: "Liberty is not just an idea, an abstract principle.
It is power, effective power to do specific things. There is no such thing
as liberty in general; liberty, so to speak, at large."
Cicero said: "Freedom is participation in power."
Herbert J. Muller said: "Freedom is the condition of being able to
choose and to carry out purpose."
Herbert Spencer said: "No one can be perfectly free until all are
free. No one can be perfectly moral until all are moral."
The nineteenth-century German writer Max Stirner said: "Freedom cannot
be granted. It must be taken."
Walter Lippmann said: "Men cannot be made free by laws unless they
are in fact free because no man can buy and no man can coerce them. That is
why the Englishman's belief that his home is his castle and that the king
cannot enter it, like the American's conviction that he must be able to
look any man in the eye and tell him to go to hell, are the very essence of
the free man's way of life."
So the tapestry of freedom is constantly being woven, and we are part
of the fabric; but there is something beyond. There always is. Each
minority has its separate pattern, its road to freedom, its task to be
done. And for the blind that task is monumental. It is nothing less than
the total redirection of society's effort and perception-for we are not
patients, and (contrary to popular belief) our problem is not lack of
eyesight or inability to perform.
What we need most is not, as the professionals would have it, medical
help or psychological counseling but admission to the main channels of
daily life and citizenship, not custody and care but understanding and
acceptance. Above all, what we need is not more government programs or
private charitable efforts. Instead, we want jobs, opportunity, and full
participation in society. Give us that, and we will do the rest for
ourselves. Give us jobs, equal treatment, and a solid economic base; and we
will do without the counseling, the sheltered workshops, and the social
programs. We will not need them. We have the same medical, vocational,
social, and recreational needs as others; but our blindness does not create
those needs, and it does not magnify or enlarge them. It does not make them
special or different. We are neither more nor less than normal people who
cannot see, and that is how we intend to be treated. We want no strife or
confrontation, but we have learned the power of collective action, and we
will do what we have to do to achieve first-class status. We are simply no
longer willing to be second-class citizens.
When the National Federation of the Blind came into being in 1940,
the means were limited and the numbers few, but the goal was clear. Today
(almost fifty years later-when we have tens of thousands of members and are
the strongest presence in the affairs of the blind) the purpose is
unchanged. It is exactly what it was in 1940. It can be told in a sentence.
We want freedom-jobs, homes, the chance to succeed or fail on our own
merit, access to places of public accommodation, interdependence with our
neighbors, and full participation in society. The words are easy, but the
fact has been long delayed. From the dawn of history blind men and women
have worked and hoped and waited, but only in recent years (only with the
coming of the National Federation of the Blind) has our dream approached
reality. And now the waiting is over. Yes, we have waited-oh, God, how we
have waited!-but never again! No more! In this generation our time has
finally come-for we are determined at long last to live the truth of what
we are, and not what others think we are or try to make us become or
believe. As Cicero said: "Freedom is participation in power." And as Max
Stirner said: "Freedom cannot be granted. It must be taken."
There are four essential elements in the pattern of our freedom. Each
has a different part to play, and each is necessary. They blend to form a
tapestry, which can never be finished without the composite.
The first and most important of these elements is internal. It is
what we believe and become within ourselves. The second is public
education. The third is the law. The fourth is confrontation. Other people
tend to treat and value us as we treat and value ourselves. In matters of
the spirit, before a thing can become reality, we must believe it; and
before we can believe it, we must say we believe it.
We say we are as good as the sighted, able to compete with them on
terms of equality. We say that we deserve all of the privileges and
responsibilities of citizenship and that we are capable of exercising them.
We say that it is respectable to be blind. When the time comes that a
majority of us know for a certainty within ourselves that these things are
true (know it so surely that we act and live it every day and do not even
need to think about it or question it), our battle will largely be won.
Dr. Walter Stromer is a blind professor. He lives in a small town in
Iowa and teaches at the local college. He is thought of by his colleagues
and students as successful, quite successful-and he doubtless shares that
opinion. But do his associates think of him as successful measured by
others on the campus, or only by the standard of what they think a blind
person can do and can be expected to do? Which standard does Dr. Stromer
use? For that matter, does he even know that there are different standards?
Does he perhaps enjoy being thought of as remarkable, unusual, inspiring,
and brave-failing to realize that he has made a bad bargain and that the
eye is not freedom's passport to the soul?
A number of years ago Dr. Stromer appeared on a panel to discuss the
meaning of blindness, and as a result he published a paper entitled "One
Day in the Life of Me." Speaking of his early morning radio listening, he
says: "Fortunately the station I listen to most is near the end of the
dial. Finding stations in the middle of the dial can be a problem unless
you know exactly what program to listen for."
Progressing to the time of departure for work, he says: "Just before
I leave for class I remember I forgot to have my wife record the grades for
the speeches made yesterday. I could do it in Braille, but it would be most
tedious and time-consuming."
In further reference to Braille he says: "Looking for one sheet of
paper in a stack is not bad when you can see; it's maddeningly slow when
you have to run your fingers over the first dots of every sheet to figure
out what it is."
As he leaves the house, he says: "But finally I'm off to school,
after pausing in the door for a minute to try to remember if I've got
everything. Others do that, too, but they can see things lying on the chair
or table, to remind them to take along; with me it has to be a more
conscious mental effort. Which explains of course why I'm so alert, because
I have to use my brain more, which is what keeps it sharp, or wears it to a
frazzle."
His thoughts as he goes from home to campus are in the same vein:
"Walking to school is fairly relaxing," he says. "At least once a week I
try to remember to be grateful for not having to fight the noise and
congestion of the city." What a melodramatic piece of self-pity! Many
people prefer small towns to cities, but I wonder how many of them are able
to work blindness and pathos into it. After all, the city has advantages,
too-and you could probably get blindness into that as well if you put your
mind to it.
And how does Dr. Stromer feel about his teaching? He says: "In a few
minutes I'm in class. After twenty-two years I'm fairly comfortable."
After all of this tension and heavy introspection, it is only natural
that Dr. Stromer feels tense and a little weary. A counteractant might be
in order. "Home to lunch now," he says. "Just a good eight-minute walk,
downhill all the way. A small glass of wine, a short nap, maybe only five
minutes, and then lunch and I'm ready for the afternoon.... I stretch out
for a nap before supper. I wonder if all blind people need those naps as
much as I do. I think I'm fairly relaxed, but I'm sure an average day takes
more nervous energy out of me than it does out of somebody with good
vision, because so many things that sighted people can do without thinking,
I have to do with a good bit of conscious effort."
Stromer is not a phony. He believes it-and his associates believe it.
But it is false to the core. It is what I call "The Stromer Syndrome." His
neighbors think (within the limits, of course, of common sense and what
they believe a blind person can do) that he is wonderful. They make of him
a conversation piece. They tell him, each other, and anybody else who will
listen that he is witty, accomplished, and inspiring. He uses the same
words we use-independence, understanding, realistic approach to blindness,
full participation in society, and all of the rest-but he does not mean
what we mean.
In his daily life and thinking he exemplifies almost every
misconception about the inferiority and helplessness of the blind that I
have ever heard: Blind people have difficulty tuning in radio stations.
Braille is tedious and ineffective. It cannot be scanned. Blind people have
more trouble than others remembering what to take to work. This makes their
minds alert. They meet their problems with humor. They are grateful to live
in a small town to avoid the congestion of cities. After twenty-two years
they are fairly comfortable teaching. They have more tensions than others
and, therefore, require more naps, and a little wine.
Dr. Stromer undoubtedly feels that his attitudes and behavior are a
plus in the struggle of the blind for advancement, but every day his
influence is negative. Society (knowing nothing about blindness) has made
him what he is and taught him its values. Now, he returns the compliment.
He reinforces the misconceptions and teaches society. If his situation were
unique (if the "Stromer Syndrome" were personal to the man), it would
hardly be worth our attention. We would simply turn our heads in pity and
embarrassment and let it go at that. But it is not personal. It is endemic
and generic. It has dogged the heels of every minority that has ever walked
the road to freedom.
How many blacks in the early part of this century tried to straighten
their hair and look white? How many laughed, shuffled their feet, and
played Amos and Andy to fit the mold of the times? Even more to the point,
how many secretly thought the role they were given was just and proper? All
of them some of the time, and some of them all of the time. The incentive
to believe was overwhelming. Every day they were rewarded for conforming
and punished for objecting. Believing, they lived the myth and helped it
come true-and both they and society were diminished accordingly.
As Herbert Spencer said: "No one can be perfectly free until all are
free. No one can be perfectly moral until all are moral." Only when a
majority of the blacks came to realize that no imagined advantage, no
immediate gain, and no avoidance of punishment could take the place of the
privileges and, for that matter, the pains and responsibilities of first-
class status did they begin to experience fulfillment-and, then, the world
changed.
As it was with the blacks, so it is with the blind. We are part of
the general culture, and the pressure to believe and conform is constantly
with us. It all comes together in a single sentence in a letter I recently
received from a man in Ohio. After telling me that he was losing his sight,
he said: "I believe I would rather be dead than blind." Consider the
capacity for enjoyment and productive work and the level of daily activity
of the average member of the National Federation of the Blind, and ask
yourself whether you believe this man's opinion results from dire
predicament or cultural conditioning.
Sometimes, of course, the blind person's acceptance of the stereotype
is not just conditioning but an attempt (whether conscious or otherwise) to
use it for advantage. Phillip Mangold is a blind man who lives in
California. In 1980 he wrote a booklet called: The Pleasure of Eating for
Those Who Are Visually Impaired. We do not have to go beyond the title to
find the problem. There is pleasure in eating, and those who are blind eat;
but to imply that there is a connection is a distortion and a disservice.
It plays upon the notion that the blind are mysteriously different from the
sighted and that we require expert help (presumably from Mr. Mangold) to do
the simplest task. His appeal to the public's fears and misconceptions may
sell his booklet and promote his employment, but (whether he knows it or
not) the price is too high and the bargain bad.
When we consider public education (the second of the four essential
components in our pattern of freedom), we are reminded again that none of
the four stands alone. They overlap and interweave to form a composite.
What the blind believe about themselves, they teach to the public; and what
the public believes conditions the blind. Not only individuals but also
organizations may have negative impact and mistaken attitudes. The American
Council of the Blind is a prime example.
Its state affiliate, the Missouri Council of the Blind, plans to hold
its 1985 convention in St. Joseph. Carolyn Anderson, Secretary-Treasurer of
the local chapter of the Missouri Council of the Blind, talked to the St.
Joseph News-Press about the matter last fall. In an article appearing
October 28, 1984, she says: "We have a commitment from Boy Scouts who are
working on merit badges to serve as volunteer guides when needed by a
delegate. Free transportation from both bus stations to the hotel has been
arranged. And, since there is no day or night for the blind, the hotel is
even providing for food service in case someone decides it's breakfast time
at two in the morning."
If we did not know the philosophy of the American Council of the
Blind, we might be astonished. As it is, we accept this statement as
standard procedure-simply another obstacle to overcome on our road to
freedom. In an article captioned "Blind But Not Dumb" which appeared in the
St. Joseph News-Press of November 20, 1984, Beryl Gordon (our local NFB
president) tried to mitigate the damage. He said:
"Often I am asked, 'Why can't organizations of and for the blind get
together? They are all working toward the same thing, aren't they?'
"This is a very hard question to answer in one short sentence, and
until you see something in the newspaper such as I have recently read you
don't even try.
"A member of the Missouri Council of the Blind was quoted as saying
that since there is no day or night for the blind, the hotel where they
will be holding their 1985 convention will be providing food service in
case one of them would decide it was breakfast time at 2:00 a.m.
"Can you just imagine what life would be like for the blind if all of
us believed something this ignorant? Can you imagine what potential
employers might think when reading something this degrading about blind
persons' intelligence?
"It's no wonder we can't find jobs. It is no wonder public facilities
do not want us to come in. It is no wonder others have the attitude that we
need to be taken care of."
In case you think Ms. Anderson was misquoted by the reporter, listen
to her answer in the News-Press of November 29, 1984. She says: "As usual,
the National Federation of the Blind misinterprets and twists things for
their own purposes. We believe the NFB confronts everything with rudeness,
abruptness and single-mindedness. Such negative reactions make it more
difficult for those of us trying to work in a positive way. We try to deal
with local businesses, officials and the public without considering them to
be our enemies. Focusing our efforts on the good and the positive and
remembering with gratitude the help we get from the sighted in our
community, we have improved our outlook. We try to keep a sense of humor
and look at life's inconveniences with some amount of laughter. Perhaps the
NFB should try this and not be critical of other people and their efforts."
Whatever else may be said, Carolyn Anderson and Beryl Gordon are not
working for the same thing. In one sense, of course, she is right: We could
laugh at ourselves, be grateful for whatever we get, and accept the
stereotype-but the price is too high. Such conduct translates into
exclusion from employment, custodial treatment, and second-class status;
and it also blights the spirit and shrivels the soul-for whatever we live
and believe, that we surely become.
And we are not just dealing with generalities. It is not simply a matter of
being nice or saving feelings. To the extent that we fail to find a way to
educate the public, lack the courage to provide that education even in the
face of hostility, or are unable to understand our true potential, we and
all other blind people suffer. I recently received a letter from the
sighted mother of an adopted blind child expressing appreciation for our
literature and encouragement: "My daughter Shelly," she said, "is now
eleven years old. She is fully integrated in a local school and has learned
to read and write Braille.
"Six years ago, when we adopted her, she was a 'potential unknown,'
high-risk adoption case. We took her out of a small institution, where she
had lived all of her life. She had spent most of her time confined to a
large hospital sized crib, with no stimulation and little human contact.
She was in diapers and ate only pureed baby food, which had to be fed to
her. In the past six years this same child has become bilingual, is in her
third year of piano lessons, skates, swims, rides a double bike, reads and
writes, and is no longer a 'potential unknown' but rather a child of great
potential."
So writes this sighted mother, and her words give us perspective. It
is not pleasant to disagree with others and take public stands, but
sometimes the alternative is worse. We do not regard our neighbors as
enemies, but this does not mean that we are willing to submit to diapers
and pureed baby food. It does not mean that we are willing to accept
slavery-even if the slavery is gently offered, kindly meant, and well
intentioned. As John Dewey said: "Liberty is not just an idea, an abstract
principle. It is power, effective power to do specific things." And as
Benjamin Franklin said: "They that give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." We want no
strife or confrontation, but we are not willing to give up essential
liberty to obtain a little temporary safety. We have learned the power of
collective action, and we will do what we have to do. We are simply no
longer willing to be second-class citizens.
The need for public education is everywhere apparent. The fact is
typified by an article appearing in the Omaha World-Herald of December 5,
1984. Headlined "Donations Pay for Glasses for Needy During the Year," the
article says: "Detecting and solving vision problems are important in the
proper development of children, said Dr. Matilda Mclntire, director of
community pediatrics at Creighton University. That is why the cooperative
effort of the World-Herald Good Fellows and Creighton is valuable to the
community, she said. 'We feel very strongly that a child cannot learn if he
cannot see.'" To which we reply, thousands of us grew up as blind children
and have achieved a moderate degree of literacy and success. If Dr.
Mclntire is right, I wonder how we did it.
Early this year I received a letter from one P. F. Membrey, who
described himself as the director of CAPEX, a product consulting and export
firm from London, England. He said, concerning a new Braillewriter which he
wished to sell: "Following its recent introduction to the United Kingdom
market, CAPEX have been appointed sole distribution agents for this unique
product. Accordingly, we are now able to supply the Braillewriter to those
institutions or individuals who work with or have care of blind or
partially sighted people."
Mr. Membrey, Carolyn Anderson, and Dr. Stromer would probably say we
are nitpicking, but people usually say what they mean even if they do not
mean to say what they say. The orientation which (whether inadvertently or
not) leads to talk of selling a product to "institutions or individuals who
have care of blind or partially sighted people" is destructive and
damaging. We must observe it, reject it, and attack it-not only for public
enlightenment but for our own self-respect. As Harold Laski said: "We
acquiesce in the loss of freedom every time we are silent in the face of
injustice." We want no strife or confrontation, but we are simply no longer
willing to be second-class citizens.
The need for public education about blindness is repeatedly
demonstrated. Emotional newspaper articles appear telling about sighted
people who blindfold themselves to know what it is like to be blind; the
National Geographic talks about an inchworm "groping along slowly,
reminiscent of a blind man with a cane," [2.] and in a descriptive brochure
Ewing Mays (the founder of Mays Mission for the Handicapped) says: "Every
day there are handicapped people here training handicapped people ... one
amputee working with another amputee, one deaf person training another deaf
person, and even a blind person guiding another blind person." The
operative word, of course, is "even." Why "even?"
In that one word is summed up the prejudice of centuries-a way of
life and a system we are determined to change.
And we are changing the system. We are heightening our own self-
awareness and conducting extensive campaigns of public education-but this
is not enough. We must deal with the legal system and the law. Again, let
us consider the blacks. Before they could begin to achieve equality, they
had to build an image within themselves. That was the first and most
important thing. Then, they had to educate the public, for they could not
exist in a vacuum or live what the culture would not accept. But they also
had to do something else. As long as the law made it impossible for them to
buy or rent certain property, required them to attend segregated schools,
made them ride in the back of the bus, and even said they must use separate
water fountains and bathrooms, all of the self-belief and public education
in the world would not be sufficient. They had to change the laws and the
interpretation of the laws, and they did change them.
Our situation is parallel. We must fight in the courts and fight in
the Congress. Judges order children to be taken from blind parents on the
ground that the blind cannot raise them; airline officials tell us we
cannot occupy exit row seating and that we must sit on blankets for fear we
cannot control our bladders; insurance companies deny us coverage;
amusement parks refuse to let us ride; health clubs decline to let us in;
and employers routinely discriminate. Unless we can move toward equal
treatment under the law, self-belief and public education will not be
sufficient and cannot be sustained. And, of course, we are making headway.
Through court action we have repeatedly restored children to their blind
parents. We have persuaded Congress and the state legislatures to expand
opportunities and remove discrimination-and we currently have at least a
dozen lawsuits under way.
Let anyone who believes we can live with the law as it is presently
written consider the following section of the Tennessee Code: "Section 22-1-
102. Incompetent persons.-Persons convicted of certain infamous offenses
specially designated in this code, persons of unsound mind, persons not in
the full possession of their senses of hearing and seeing, and habitual
drunkards are incompetent to act as jurors."
That section of the Code is the law in Tennessee at this very moment.
John Robb, a blind Tennessean, served on a jury in Nashville last year, but
he did it on sufferance and at the whim of the judge. The Tennessee jury
law is not only degrading-it is false in its premises. Today we are
striking down such laws in state after state, and an increasing number of
us are proving their absurdity by serving on juries. I did it myself last
year.
As we make progress in reforming the law and getting new
interpretations by the courts, we strengthen our self-belief and educate
the public. Self-belief, public education, and the law-these three elements
intertwine and overlap. But something else is required-the fourth element,
confrontation.
What minority has ever gone from second-class status to first-class
citizenship without it? What minority could? As we come to feel that we
deserve equality, we increasingly resist coercion. But it goes beyond that.
Unless we are willing to be absolutely docile and totally self-effacing,
confrontation is inevitable.
In this connection our experience with the airlines is instructive.
They deal with us in an arbitrary, capricious, and custodial manner. If we
are willing to be humiliated publicly and handled like children, airline
personnel will generally treat us fairly well. Otherwise, we are likely to
be subjected to anything from a tongue lashing to a trip off the plane with
the police.
A few months ago a blind woman in the state of Washington was plopped down
on a blanket in an airplane seat, told by airline personnel that she must
sit there, and loudly and publicly informed by the flight attendant that,
as the attendant put it, it was not because she might "wet" her "pants" but
so that in case of emergency she could be quickly lifted onto the
evacuation slide. Explaining that she was quite mobile and unwilling to
endure such treatment, the blind woman vocally refused to sit on the
blanket and pushed it onto the floor. Later she brought a legal action
against the airline and was given monetary damages and an apology. But if
she had meekly followed orders, the lawsuit would never have been filed.
She would have been humiliated and "put down," and her self-esteem and the
public image would have suffered accordingly. But in objecting she created
hostility and might have been arrested. If we intend to stand up for our
rights at all, we can simply not avoid a certain amount of confrontation.
Mike Uribes is one of our members in Fresno, California. Not long ago
his chapter president had occasion to write the following letter to a
Fresno business establishment:
"On December 19, Mr. Michael Uribes, a blind Fresno resident, while
shopping in your mall, was approached by one of your security employees,
Mr. Tim Levinson. Mr. Levinson asked Mr. Uribes if he needed any
assistance. Mr. Uribes responded that he did not. However, Mr. Levinson
proceeded to follow Mr. Uribes through the mall and a couple of times even
put his hand on Mr. Uribes' arm. Again, Mr. Uribes stated that he really
did not need any assistance and thanked Mr. Levinson for his offer. Mr.
Levinson walked away indignantly saying, 'Those damned blind people! They
sure are arrogant.'
"If Mr. Uribes had been a sighted person, this incident would not
have happened.
"Mr. Uribes has lived in Fresno all of his life and has been shopping
without aid in your mall for at least twelve years. He travels
independently.
"Mr. Uribes is a member of the National Federation of the Blind of
Fresno, which is affiliated with a state and national organization of the
same name. Blind persons have the same rights and responsibilities as the
sighted and wish to be treated as first-class citizens."
In writing that letter our Fresno president undoubtedly created
hostility, but what was she to do? For that matter, what was Mike Uribes to
do? He could have avoided confrontation by meekly doing as he was told and
allowing himself to be led around the store at Mr. Levinson's whim. By
taking Mr. Uribes' arm when he was asked not to do so, Mr. Levinson
committed a battery and violated the law; but public sentiment being what
it is, he was probably never in danger of being prosecuted. However, what
if Mr. Uribes had responded in kind? What if he had showed as much bad
temper as Mr. Levinson did? Can we always be sure that the blind person
will be cool, polite, level-headed, long-suffering, and patient-even if the
sighted person is not? In fact, is that what we want?
As Walter Lippman said: "Men cannot be made free by laws unless they
are in fact free because no man can buy and no man can coerce them. That is
why the Englishman's belief that his home is his castle and that the king
cannot enter it, like the American 's conviction that he must be able to
look any man in the eye and tell him to go to hell, are the very essence of
the free man's way of life."
Is that sort of thing all right (in fact, praiseworthy) for the
sighted but not all right for the blind? And what does Lippman mean when he
says that no man can coerce you if you are truly free? Does he mean that it
is all right for the sighted to resist coercion-even if it means looking
somebody in the eye and telling him to go to hell-even if it means using
necessary force-but that it is not all right for the blind? Is Lippman's
pronouncement meant only for everybody else-or does it include us, too? Can
blind people hope to be free Americans? We gave our answer to that question
almost fifty years ago. We formed the National Federation of the Blind-and
it is still here, stronger and more active today than ever before in its
history.
It is not only the "Stromer Syndrome" which is arrayed against us. It
is also the "be grateful and do as I tell you, or I'll call you militant"
syndrome. Let those who oppose our march to freedom call us what they
please and say what they like. We will not grovel; we will not pretend that
right is wrong; and we will not turn back from the course we have set. No,
we do not want strife and confrontation-and yes, we prefer peace and
reason. But we know the power of collective action, and we will do what we
have to do. We are simply no longer willing to be second-class citizens.
Self-belief, public education, the law, and confrontation-these are
the elements in the pattern of our freedom, and each is necessary. They
overlap and interweave, and if any one of them is omitted, all of the rest
become meaningless and impossible. Because of the work of the National
Federation of the Blind, we who are blind have it better today than ever
before in our history, and the hostility we face is not a cause for
dejection but an omen of victory; for until a minority is close to its
goal, confrontation is neither achievable nor useful. Earlier it is
impossible, and later it is unnecessary.
The beginning strands of the pattern of freedom are always woven by
slaves, and we have known slavery. Some of us still endure it, and none of
us has totally escaped it. A few of us are so immersed in it that we even
say we like it and do not know another way exists. But the National
Federation of the Blind is abroad in the land, and the blind are learning
new ways. We hear the statements of freedom, and they call to our souls and
quicken our dreams:
"If," said Samuel Adams, "you love wealth better than liberty, the
tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go
home from us in peace."
"They that give up essential liberty," said Benjamin Franklin, "to
obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
"Freedom," said Max Stirner, "cannot be granted. It must be taken."
We hear, and we understand. We know what we must do, and we have
counted the cost. We fight not only for ourselves but also for those who
went before us, for Dr. tenBroek and the other founders of our movement-and
for those who come after, the blind of the next generation, the children
and the children to be. And we will not fail. The stakes are too high and
the alternative too terrible. Tomorrow is bright with promise.
We go to meet it with gladness: And we take with us all that we have-
our hopes and our dreams, our will to work and our knowledge of
deprivation, our faith and our purpose, and our heritage of slavery. And
this also we take-our trust in ourselves, our love for each other, and our
belief in the ultimate goodness of people. My brothers and my sisters, the
future is ours! Come, join me-and we will march together to freedom!
Notes
1. This poem was copied from a wall in New York City in 1985.
2. National Geographic, August, 1983, page 222.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Anna Kresmer]
How the First Self-Advocacy Organization of the Blind Met the Challenge
of Social Security, 1940-1950
by Anna Kresmer
From the Editor: There are many blessings for which we in the
National Federation of the Blind are thankful, and one of them is the
caliber of the staff who come to work with us and who decide to become a
part of us. Anna Kresmer is just such a person, working to share with all
of us the treasures that are to be found in the Jacobus tenBroek Memorial
Library. In this article she discusses one of the reasons we formed the
National Federation of the Blind and our first effort to confront head-on a
new federal bureaucracy that threatened to erode our hard-won gains for a
secure income and the opportunity to go beyond government assistance.
Here's what she says:
For seventy-five years, the National Federation of the Blind has
strived to achieve first-class citizenship for all blind Americans through
collective action and self-advocacy. Over the years, the Federation's focus
and energy have shifted to address the most pressing problems of the day,
from the right to organize in the 1950s, to the fight against NAC in the
1970s, to the ongoing mission to make the internet and technology
accessible. Some long-standing challenges have proven to be stubborn and
the battles rage on, such as the mission to end subminimum wage, while
other challenges have been met and relegated (at least for the time being)
to the annals of history. Each of these issues, and the many others not
mentioned here, have confirmed the continuing need for an organization like
the NFB, but one issue in particular is directly responsible for the
formation of the Federation in 1940.
In the first few decades of the twentieth century, aid to the blind
was primarily treated as a local or state-level concern. Organizations
formed to meet that concern were mainly charities ran by sighted people,
sheltered workshops, social clubs, schools for the blind, and the
occasional state-run pension plan. The populations they served were
generally limited by geography and could, therefore, reasonably be
addressed by organizations of the blind of similar size and scope, like the
Pennsylvania Federation of the Blind or the Central Committee of the Blind
of Illinois.
But all that changed in 1935 with the passing of the first Social
Security Act (SSA). Its aim was to protect segments of the population at
risk of poverty including the unemployed, senior citizens, needy families
with children, and the blind. It is unsurprising that blind people were
included in this landmark legislation, since they were seen by society as
generally uneducable, unemployable, and in need of custodians. This view is
clear even in the words of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who remarked on
the third anniversary of the SSA's passing in 1938 that now, "...forty
thousand blind people are assured of peace and security among familiar
voices."[?]
The Social Security Act of 1935 was the first federal legislation to
address the poverty faced by most blind people. Before the SSA, aid to the
blind was spotty, unregulated, and varied wildly from state to state. Some
states did not even have a pension program, while others set their rates so
low that blind pensioners could not afford to feed themselves. The SSA
sought to impose standards in welfare and to share the burden of supporting
the "needy blind" by supplementing state funds with federal contributions.
On the surface it sounded like a wonderful idea to the politicians
who voted for it and to the sighted agencies that lobbied for it, and the
bill was enacted on August 14, 1935. However, not everybody was so
thrilled.
From the start blind Americans found problems with Title X, the
portion of the law which handled aid to the blind, and with the way that it
was administered. The problems mainly stemmed from the concentrated
decision-making power placed in the hands of the appointed Social Security
Board, who set aid rates low and eligibility criteria high. States were
required to adopt these standards if they wanted to receive the federal
contributions, which meant that some state programs actually improved.
However, in other states where larger organizations of the blind had
already worked hard to get better benefits, the Federal regulations
threatened to roll back their hard-won gains.
Perhaps the biggest objection, though, was that the original bill was
passed largely without input from the people it was meant to help.
Representatives from seven different organizations for the blind came to
testify before the House Ways and Means and the Senate Finance Committees,
including the American Association of Workers for the Blind, the National
Society for the Prevention of Blindness, and several state commissions and
agencies for the blind.[?] The only actual blind person to testify before
Congress concerning the proposed bill was Robert Irwin, representing the
American Foundation for the Blind and advocating for a smaller pension
program than was eventually passed into law. So why were these custodial
national and state organizations of sighted workers for the blind the only
voices heard in Washington in 1935? The answer is simple: There was no
national organization of the blind which could address Congress on behalf
of all blind Americans.
The National Federation of the Blind was founded in 1940 by Dr.
Jacobus tenBroek and blind representatives from seven state associations of
the blind. It was the first national organization created by blind people
and led by all blind officers with a primarily blind membership. Their goal
was to promote the economic and social welfare of the blind by securing
access to three basic rights: security, equality, and opportunity. However,
looking at the speech given by Dr. tenBroek at the founding meeting, there
can be little doubt that the NFB's founding focused on the first of these
rights-security-and that their first mission was to lobby the federal
government on Social Security.
In his speech at the founding meeting, Dr. tenBroek called to the
blind of the nation, saying:
There are many goals upon which we can unite: the ultimate
establishment of a national pension which will eliminate the
diversities of treatment of the blind among the states and insure an
adequate support to all; the correction of the vices that have crept
into the administration of the Social Security Act by seeking its
amendment in Congress... governmental recognition of the fact that the
blind are not to be classified as paupers and that they have needs
peculiar to and arising out of their blindness... adequate methods for
restraining the influence and defining the place of the social worker
in the administration of aid laws... legislative and administrative
encouragement of the blind who are striving to render themselves self-
supporting... [and] governmental recognition of our inalienable right
to receive public assistance and still retain our economic, social,
and political independence...
In 1997, Dr. Kenneth Jernigan succinctly explained why the
Federation's initial focus rested squarely on security, specifically on the
need for government aid, saying that, "When the National Federation of the
Blind came into being almost six decades ago, our problem was simple. It
was to find enough food to keep body and soul together-not for all of us,
of course, but for many. If you are hungry, it is hard to think about
anything else. And the blind were hungry."[?]
To satisfy this hunger, the NFB immediately began its campaign to
turn Social Security into a program that truly benefited all blind people.
As early as 1941, they began sending representatives to urge Congress to
amend the act. They submitted memoranda and testimony to the House Ways and
Means Committee and repeatedly called on their growing membership to write
to Congress in support of their legislative proposals. Also during this
time, the NFB attempted (not always successfully) to create legislative
proposals in collaboration with other blindness-related organizations and
lobbied the labor unions to support their cause.
Initially, all this hard work seemed to result in not much of
anything. Aside from a pair of federal $5-a-month-increases to aid benefits
passed in 1946 and 1948, the SSA saw little change regarding aid for the
blind throughout the 1940s.[?]
All this changed on August 28, 1950, when President Truman signed the
Social Security Amendments of 1950 into law. This was the first major
overhaul to SSA that affected blind people receiving aid. The changes seem
basic today, but they clarified much of the vague language in the wording
of the act. Beyond the usual increase in aid rates, the act now stipulated
that aid applications had to be processed by state agencies within a
reasonable amount of time, fair hearings had to be provided when claims
were denied or not acted upon quickly, and aid had to be furnished promptly
to all eligible individuals.[?]
Undeniably though, the greatest change for blind people realized by
the 1950 amendments was that state aid programs were now required to exempt
up to $50 a month in earned income when calculating aid payments. According
to an NFB legislative bulletin, dated May 6, 1950 (when the provision was
initially passed by the Senate):
These changes represent a forward step of the utmost importance.
They firmly establish the principle of exempt earnings as a mandatory
requirement on all of the States. They thus completely reverse the
policy of the Federal Security Agency by which blind recipients of
relief suffer a deduction of one dollar in their public assistance for
every dollar earned by them. By accepting the principles of exempt
earnings and making it a mandatory requirement on the States, the
Senate Committee is reorienting the whole system of public assistance
away from pauperism and permanent dependence and towards
rehabilitation and opportunity.[?]
The 1950 amendments are arguably the first, although by no means the
last, major victory in the NFB's campaign to amend Social Security. Over
the years, the Social Security Act would be amended many more times and
other laws affecting the livelihood of the blind would be proposed, passed,
and amended. But as the urgent threat of poverty receded and more blind
people joined the employment rolls, the Federation began to shift its focus
to the other two rights that it had championed since its inception:
equality and opportunity.
[1] Grant, Isabelle. Crooked Paths Made Straight.
[2] tenBroek, Jacobus to Alfred Allen. (1952) Letter, July 17. Jacobus
tenBroek Personal Pape Grant, Isabelle. Crooked Paths Made Straight.
[3] tenBroek, Jacobus to Alfred Allen. (1952) Letter, July 17. Jacobus
tenBroek Personal Papers, Jacobus tenBroek Library, National Federation of
the Blind Jernigan Institute, Baltimore, MD.
[4] tenBroek, Jacobus. (1956) "Within the Grace of God." Speech, National
Federation of the Blind National Convention, San Francisco, CA, July 1.
<https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/convent/tb1956.htm>
[5] Ibid.
[6] Maurer, Marc. (2004) "Presidential Report 2004." National Federation of
the Blind National Convention, Atlanta, GA, July
2.<https://nfb.org/Images/nfb/publications/convent/presrep04.htm>
[7] Maurer, Marc. (2008) "Breaking the Mold: The Power of the
Unpredictable." Braille Monitor, November.
<https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm08/bm0810/bm081003.htm>
[8] World Blind Union. (2012) "Universal Postal Union Rules Updates
Regarding Free Post for the Blind." News release, October.
<http://www.worldblindunion.org/English/news/Pages/Universal-Postal-Union-
Rules-Updates-Regarding-Free-Post-for-the-Blind.aspx>
[9] United Nations. (2006) Article 24, Convention on the Rights of Persons
with Disabilities.
<http://www.un.org/disabilities/convention/conventionfull.shtml>
[i] Franklin D. Roosevelt, "A Social Security Program Must Include All
Those Who Need Its Protection" (radio address on the third anniversary of
the Social Security Act, August 15, 1938),
https://www.ssa.gov/history/fdrstmts.html#radio.
[ii] "Reports & Studies: Senate Hearings on 1935 Bill,"
https://www.ssa.gov/history/reports/35senate.html.
[iii] Kenneth Jernigan, "The Day After Civil Rights" (banquet speech,
National Federation of the Blind 1997 National Convention, New Orleans,
Louisiana, July 4, 1997),
https://nfb.org/Images/nfb/Publications/convent/banque97.htm.
[iv] "Achievements of the National Federation of the Blind," June 20, 1950,
Jacobus tenBroek Personal Papers, Jacobus tenBroek Library.
[v] Wilbur J. Cohen & Robert J. Myers, "Social Security Act Amendments of
1950: A Summary and Legislative History," The Social Security Bulletin
(October 1950), https://www.ssa.gov/history/1950amend.html.
[vi] "Legislative bulletin: H.R. 6000-Senate Finance Committee," May 6,
1950, Jacobus tenBroek Personal Papers, Jacobus tenBroek Library.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Three members of Elaine's Girl Scout troop at a meeting.
>From left to right: Missy Wunder, Grace Warn, and Dacia Luck (now Cole).]
Making Diversity Work
by Elaine Warn
From the Editor: In these pages we feature a number of articles
written by blind people giving their perspectives on the world, what it is
like to be misunderstood, the difficulties in getting an education, and the
barrier that one must overcome fully to be a part of his or her community.
Rarely do we get the perspective of someone who can tell us their
experience when first meeting a blind person and who can demonstrate that
the same common sense approach works in getting information about blindness
as it does when trying to learn something about any group different from
our own.
Elaine Warn is the mother of Grace Warn, a woman who assists me in
getting a draft of each month's publication to our proofers. She was the
Girl Scout leader who needed information about teaching blind people when a
young Dacia Cole, now the recording secretary for the National Federation
of the Blind of Missouri, wanted to be a part of her Girl Scout troop. Here
is what Elaine says:
Once upon a time I worked with girls in a youth organization. At our
largest, there were twenty-nine in the troop. To say that we were a diverse
group is an understatement. Over time our membership included girls from
different ethnicities and religions, a variety of family settings, a wide
spectrum of economic situations, and a number of different countries.
Several girls spoke very limited English. There were girls who had asthma,
two who had seizures, one with a severe skin condition, one with Down
syndrome, and one who was blind.
What I learned early on was that I was not alone and that there was a
wealth of information out there to help me when I had questions. First and
foremost, sit down with yourself, and get an idea what questions/concerns
you have. The internet can help with this process, but be aware of the
limitations and that not all websites are created equal. While searching
for information on religions, I found that I could learn much about the
history of a religion and much in general about a faith, however, none of
it told me exactly what the specific family in my troop believed/practiced.
In fact, when I met with the father of a girl from Saudi Arabia, I came
with a large stack of information-books and pamphlets with post-its marking
things that needed clarification. It took some time, but when we were done,
I had a clear idea of what his sect practiced.
I found that the school was also a wealth of helpful information as
long as I asked questions that weren't specific to my girl. Example: I
could ask for suggestions for working with a blind student for activities.
I couldn't ask how the school did activities with Dacia. I was given
contact information for someone who worked for the state of Missouri who
gave me some wonderful suggestions that made things easier.
Obviously, you need to talk with the parents; sometimes that can mean
having two separate conversations if the parents are divorced and not
speaking to each other. Parents should have a lot of the answers and
suggestions. For Dacia I needed to know about mobility. She used a cane,
however, I was clueless as to whether we should offer an arm, elbow, hand-
which arm-and whether it is better to assist from the right or left.
Alternatively, is it better not to touch and just talk a lot.
The troop did crafts and camping. I needed to know her skill level
using scissors, knives, etc. All of the girls packed their clothes in large
zippy bags with one day's outfit in each bag. It made getting dressed quick
and kept their clothes dry should it rain. For my blind girl this was
perfect; her parents just needed to affix a Braille label so she could find
the right bag. All of the activities and adventures we did were possible
with the right planning and information, and she wasn't even the most
dangerous one with a flaming marshmallow when it came to making s'mores.
It all comes down to knowledge and taking a moment to think. You have
to sit down and figure out what you don't know or when what you do know
will need altering to work for everyone. From there, it's a question of
deciding what questions you need to ask, who you need to ask, and finding
answers. With those answers you can make adjustments to activities so they
will be accessible and enjoyable to everyone. Whether the adjustment is
tracing the lines on a paper with a crayon so that Dacia can feel them to
cut the craft out herself, changing the menu of a troop campout because
it's over Lent and one girl can't eat meat, or buying all-beef hotdogs so
that your Muslim girl can enjoy them too; or knowing exactly which parent
is picking up from the meeting this week according to the custody
agreement. The answer may not be immediately apparent, but with a little
thought and open communication between everyone involved, you can make it
happen.
----------
The Kenneth Jernigan Convention Scholarship Fund
by Allen Harris
From the Editor: Allen Harris is the chairman of the Kenneth Jernigan
Fund Committee and was one of the people who came up with the idea of
honoring our former president and longtime leader by establishing a program
to promote attendance at the national convention, where so much inspiration
and learning occur. Here is Allen's announcement about the 2016 Kenneth
Jernigan Convention Scholarship Fund Program:
Have you always wanted to attend an NFB annual convention but have
not done so because of the lack of funds? The Kenneth Jernigan Convention
Scholarship Fund invites you to make an application for a scholarship
grant. Perhaps this July you too can be in the Rosen Shingle Creek Hotel in
Orlando, Florida, enjoying the many pleasures and learning opportunities at
the largest and most important yearly convention of blind people in the
world.
The three biggest ticket items you need to cover when attending an
NFB national convention are the roundtrip transportation, the hotel room
for a week, and the food (which tends to be higher priced than at home). We
attempt to award additional funds to families, but, whether a family or an
individual is granted a scholarship, this fund can only help; it won't pay
all the costs. Last year most of the sixty grants were in the range of $400
to $500 per individual.
We recommend that you find an NFB member as your personal convention
mentor, someone who has been to many national conventions and is able to
share money-saving tips with you and tips on navigating the extensive
agenda in the big hotel. Your mentor will help you get the most out of the
amazing experience that is convention week.
Who is eligible?
Active NFB members, blind or sighted, who have not yet attended an
NFB national convention because of lack of funding are eligible to apply.
How do I apply for funding assistance?
1. You write a letter giving your contact information, and your local
NFB information, your specific amount requested, and then explain why this
is a good investment for the NFB. The points to cover are listed below.
2. You contact your state president in person or by phone to request
his or her help in obtaining funding. Be sure to tell the president when to
expect your request letter by email, and mention the deadline.
3. You (or a friend) send your letter by email to your state
president. He or she must add a president's recommendation and then email
both letters directly to the Kenneth Jernigan Convention Scholarship Fund
Committee. Your president must forward the two letters no later than April
15, 2016.
Your letter to Chairperson Allen Harris must cover these points:
.Your full name, and all your telephone numbers and label them-cell phone,
home, office, other person (if any).
.Your mailing address and, if you have one, your email address.
.Your state affiliate and state president; your chapter and chapter
president, if you attend a chapter.
.Your personal convention mentor, and provide that person's phone number.
.Your specific request:
Explain how much money you need from this fund to make this trip
possible for you. We suggest you consult with other members to make a rough
budget for yourself.
The body of your letter should answer these questions:
How do you currently participate in the Federation? Why do you want
to attend a national convention? What would you receive; what can you share
or give? You can include in your letter to the committee any special
circumstances you hope they will take into consideration.
When will I be notified that I am a winner?
If you are chosen to receive this scholarship, you will receive a
letter with convention details that should answer most of your questions.
The committee makes every effort to notify scholarship winners by May 15,
but you must do several things before that to be prepared to attend if you
are chosen:
1. Make your own hotel reservation. If something prevents you from
attending, you can cancel the reservation. (Yes, you may arrange for
roommates of your own to reduce the cost.)
2. Register online for the entire convention, including the banquet,
by May 31.
3. Find someone in your chapter or affiliate who has been to many
conventions and can answer your questions as a friend and advisor.
4. If you do not hear from the committee by May 15, then you did not
win a grant this year.
How will I receive my convention scholarship?
At convention you will be given a debit card or credit card loaded
with the amount of your award. The times and locations to pick up your card
will be listed in the letter we send you. The committee is not able to
provide funds before the convention, so work with your chapter and state
affiliate to assist you by obtaining an agreement to advance funds if you
win a scholarship and to pay your treasury back after you receive your
debit or credit card.
What if I have more questions? For additional information email the
chairman, Allen Harris, at <kjscholarships at nfb.org> or call his Baltimore,
Maryland, office at (410) 659-9314, extension 2415.
Above all, please use this opportunity to attend your first
convention on the national level and join several thousand active
Federationists in the most important meeting of the blind in the world. We
hope to see you in Orlando.
----------
Recipes
Over the course of the past year, because of various projects
relating to the seventy-fifth anniversary of the National Federation of the
Blind, we at the Monitor found ourselves looking back in the archives at
old issues for various reasons. As we looked for other articles, we noticed
that there were quite a number of delicious-looking recipes hiding in the
past. So, instead of waiting for someone to write in and request that we
reprint a specific recipe, we decided to showcase a few of the recipes that
we felt deserved another look.
Spinach Dip
by John Halverson
This recipe first appeared in the October 1998 Monitor with this
introduction: Dr. John Halverson is the president of the Public Employees
Division and a longtime leader in the NFB. He is the Regional Manager,
Office for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
Region VII, located in Kansas City, Missouri.
Ingredients:
1 pound mild Mexican Velveeta cheese with jalapeño peppers
1 large jar picante sauce, medium
1 10-ounce package frozen chopped spinach
1 4-ounce can green chilies
Method: In a large bowl microwave spinach and break into small pieces
with a fork. Add picante sauce and chilies (including liquid) and microwave
for two minutes more. Cube the cheese, add to mixture, and return to
microwave for four minutes or until cheese is completely melted. Mix
thoroughly and serve with blue corn chips. To increase the heat, substitute
hotter picante sauce or hotter cheese.
----------
Island Fruits with Cottage Cheese Honey Lime Dip
by Nani Fife
This recipe first appeared in the March 2001 Monitor and was offered
by the NFB of Hawaii president, Nani Fife.
Ingredients:
1 platter of fresh fruit (sliced melon, strawberries, pineapple, etc.)
4 cups low-fat cottage cheese
1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
1/4 cup honey
1 cup orange juice
1/2 cup blackberries
1/2 cup blueberries
1/2 cup raspberries
Method: Beginning with the cottage cheese, combine all dip ingredients in a
blender until smooth. This fruit platter is an ideal dessert for a party
buffet.
----------
Spaghetti Pizza(
by Debraghetti Pizza?
by Debra Smith
This recipe first appeared in the June 1993 Monitor and was submitted
by Debra, an active member of the Black Hawk Chapter of the National
Federation of the Blind of Iowa.
Ingredients:
15 ounces uncooked spaghetti noodles?
2 eggs?
1/2 cup skim milk?
10 1/2 ounces mozzarella cheese?
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder?
4 ounces ground beef?
2 15-ounce containers Weight Watchers spaghetti sauce
Method: Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Cook spaghetti according to
label directions and drain. Beat eggs. Add milk and four ounces of cheese.
Add spaghetti. Spread on jelly roll or pizza pan covered with cooking
spray. Form an edge. Bake fifteen minutes. Remove from oven and reduce heat
to 350 degrees. Spread sauce on crust. Sprinkle surface with garlic powder.
Top with ground meat and remaining cheese. Bake thirty minutes. Serves ten.
----------
No-Fuss Chicken?
by Betty Capps
This recipe first appeared in the April 1996 Monitor. Betty Capps was
the first lady of the National Federation of the Blind of South Carolina at
the time, and the recipe ran with this introduction: This recipe could
hardly be simpler to prepare. The chicken gets a wonderful tangy taste, and
no one will know you used convenient ingredients like a bottle of salad
dressing and onion soup mix unless you tell them.?
Ingredients:
1 16-ounce bottle Russian or Catalina salad dressing
2/3 cup apricot preserves
2 envelopes dry onion soup mix
16 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves?
Method: In a bowl combine dressing, preserves, and soup mix. Place
chicken in two ungreased eleven-by-seven-by-two-inch baking pans, top with
dressing mixture. Cover and bake for twenty minutes at 350 degrees. Baste,
and bake uncovered twenty minutes longer or until chicken juices run clear.
Yields sixteen servings.?
----------
Wild Rice Casserole
by Corinne Whitesell
This recipe first appeared in the February 1992 Monitor. Corinne
Whitesell was the treasurer of the National Federation of the Blind of
Alaska at the time, and she had this to say about the casserole: This
recipe is a favorite in the North and goes well with wild game. For the
folks in the lower forty-eight, chicken or turkey can substitute for wild
game.
Ingredients:?
1 cup wild rice?
1 stick butter ?
1/2 cup slivered almonds?
1 pound fresh mushrooms?
1 bunch green onions?
3 cups chicken broth
Method: Chop the green onions and mushrooms and sauté together.
Combine with the rest of the ingredients and bake for 1-1/2 hours at 350
degrees in an oven-proof casserole dish. Fluff rice with a fork before
serving.
----------
Run For the Roses Pie
by Mary Heaven
This recipe first appeared in the April/May 1985 Monitor, and
included this introduction to the recipe and the person who submitted it:
Mary Heaven is one of the leaders of the NFB of Kentucky. Since we are
holding the national convention in Louisville this summer, her recipe seems
particularly appropriate. She writes: "Dear Monitor readers: Here is a
recipe to start you thinking about your trip to the Derby City for our
national convention this year. The recipe has many variations in name and
content and is often served at festivities during derby week."
Ingredients:
1 cup chocolate chips
3 eggs slightly beaten
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine (melted)
1/2 cup flour
1 cup walnuts coarsely broken
1 tablespoon vanilla
9" unbaked pie shell
Method: Mix flour and sugar; add eggs and butter; fold in nuts,
chocolate chips, and vanilla; pour into shell and bake at 350 degrees for
thirty minutes. Best served warm with whipped cream.
----------
Strawberry Rhubarb Pie?
by Betty Bowman
This recipe appeared in the May 1990 Monitor in a collection of
strawberry-themed recipes. Betty had this to say about her recipe: While we
were collecting these recipes, I promised several people that a strawberry
rhubarb pie would be included. Someone even promised to send me a favorite
recipe for one, but, of course, I have forgotten who that kind soul was,
and no recipe appeared. I do not make this pie because my husband does not
care for rhubarb, but I love it. This is my mother's version, and I can
attest to its excellence. As a child I considered that the risk of
encountering snakes was well worth the anxiety when strawberry rhubarb pie
was the reward.
Ingredients: ?
pastry for a 9-inch double crust pie?
2 cups of washed, hulled, and sliced strawberries?
2 cups of sliced rhubarb stalks?
1-1/3 cups sugar?
6 tablespoons flour?
1/2 teaspoon grated orange peel?
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1-1/3 tablespoons butter or margarine
Method: In a large bowl combine sugar, flour, cinnamon, and orange
peel. Stir well to spread the flour through the sugar. Add the fruit and
stir to coat rhubarb and strawberries with the dry ingredients. Line a 9-
inch pie plate with rolled pastry and fill with the fruit. Dot the top with
butter or margarine. Then roll the top crust and slash the center several
times so that the steam can escape. Carefully lay the crust across the top
of the pie and seal the edges. Bake for forty to fifty minutes at 425
degrees.
----------
Monitor Miniatures
News from the Federation Family
Writers' Division 2016 Writing Contest:
The 2016 writing contest has gotten under way. Sponsored by the
Writers' Division of the National Federation of the Blind, it is a contest
for writers of all ages of youth and adults, with the youth contest being
done to promote literacy in Braille. There are two new things to be aware
of for this year: one, members of the Writers' Division will have
discounted entry fees; and two, there is a new category in the youth
contest.
This new category is called Federation History. Entries can be written
in any form or genre, but must pertain to the history of the National
Federation of the Blind. The best of this category will have the chance to
present their piece at the National Convention in Orlando this July to the
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children. In the youth contest,
there are still the traditional categories of poetry and fiction, all of
which are broken down by grade level.
In the adult contest, there are four categories: poetry, fiction,
nonfiction, and stories for youth. Be sure to read through the guidelines
for all specifics. These can be found at
<http://writers.nfb.org/ContestPage.html>. And remember, the contest closes
on April 1st so that the results can be announced at the July business
meeting in Orlando. If you have any further questions, contact Eve Sanchez,
president of the Writers' Division at <thirdeyeonlyinaz at gmail.com>.
Now go put on your thinking caps and limber up your fingers to start
writing the words you want. We cannot wait to read them all.
Circle City Chapter Celebrates Twelfth Annual Angel Child Gifting and
Service Award Banquet:
On December 5, 2015, The Circle City Chapter of the National
Federation of the Blind of Indiana celebrated its twelfth annual Angel
Child Gifting and Service Award Banquet. This program assists qualified
families coping with blindness to overcome some of the holiday obstacles
and also honors members in the community with twenty-five years or more of
service while raising the expectations of blind citizens.
This year's honorees were Mr. William (Bill) Powell, director of
assistive technology of Bosma Enterprises; Mrs. Brenda Jinks, orientation
and mobility instructor; and Miss Nancy Ford Winters, social worker/Social
Security advocate. Each recipient has thirty-five years of service and
continues to strive in their specified careers.
This year's keynote speaker was Mr. James Michaels, vice president of
programs, Bosma Enterprises, and his speech was "Keys To Success and
Happiness."
Free Braille Books Available:
Great news! Every blind or visually-impaired child (ages zero to
twenty-one) in the US and Canada may now get three free books from
Seedlings Braille Books for Children! Seedlings has expanded its Book Angel
Program for 2016. The program was originally called "Anna's Book Angel
Project" in memory of our Director's nineteen-year-old daughter who was
killed by a drunk driver in 2001. Each year, every blind child registered
received one free book in Anna's name, but thanks to Seedlings' generous
donors, that number is now three! Just register your child or student by
going to <http://www.seedlings.org/bkangel2009.php>.
For more information about the program, or about Seedlings Braille
Books for Children in general, check out our website at
<www.seedlings.org>, or follow us on Facebook and Twitter
(@SeedlingsBrlBks).
KNFB Reader App Wins Golden Apple:
Since its launch in 2012, the AppleVis Golden Apple Awards have
afforded blind and low vision users an opportunity to recognize and
acknowledge the hard work and dedication which developers have put into
making great and accessible iOS and OS X applications during the given
year.
To be shortlisted for this year's Golden Apple Awards, apps must:
. Be fully accessible to blind and low vision users.
. Have been launched or significantly updated during 2015.
. Be from a developer with a demonstrated and long-term commitment to
full accessibility.
. Demonstrate excellence in design, functionality, and operation.
Candidates for Developer of the Year must:
. Have a long-standing, exemplary commitment to making their apps fully
accessible to blind and low vision users.
. Be receptive and responsive to the needs of blind and low vision users
in a timely manner.
. Have delivered significant new features or updates to their app(s)
during 2015, particularly updates which directly benefit blind and low
vision users.
The 2015 AppleVis Golden Apples consist of awards in five categories:
. Best iOS App
. Best iOS Game
. Best Assistive iOS App
. Best Mac App
. Developer of the Year
For the Best iOS App of 2015, the AppleVis community chose Workflow:
Powerful Automation Made Simple <https://itunes.apple.com/app/workflow-
powerful-automation/id915249334?ign-mpt=uo%3D8>. Perhaps not surprising as
Workflow has already won an Apple Design Award this year for its VoiceOver
support and been rated an App Store Best of 2015. 1Password - Password
Manager and Secure Wallet
<https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/1password/id568903335?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D8>
took second place, and Overcast: Podcast Player
<https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/overcast-podcast-
player/id888422857?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D8> came third.
In the closest ever vote in the history of these Awards, Dice World -
Dice with Friends! <https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dice-world-farkle-yatzy-
balut/id553269986?mt=8> took the Golden Apple for Best iOS Game of 2015. A
Blind Legend <https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/a-blind-
legend/id973483154?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D8> followed as a very close second,
and Blindfold Bowling <https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blindfold-
bowling/id1038994263?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D8> was just a handful of votes
further back in third place.
In a landslide vote, the AppleVis community voted KNFBReader
<https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/knfbreader/id849732663?mt=8&ign-
mpt=uo%3D8> Best Assistive iOS App of 2015. BlindSquare
<https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blindsquare/id500557255?mt=8&ign-
mpt=uo%3D8> took second place, and Be My Eyes - helping blind see
<https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/be-my-eyes-helping-blind-
see/id905177575?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D8> placed third.
Audio Hijack <http://rogueamoeba.com/> was voted as the best Mac app
of 2015 by a wide margin. 1Password - Password Manager and Secure Wallet
came in second, and LaunchBar
<https://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/index.html> placed third.
Kid Friendly Software (Creator of the 'Blindfold' series of iOS audio
games; <https://stemmiami.wordpress.com/>) was voted as the Developer of
the Year, with MIPsoft (Creator of BlindSquare; <http://blindsquare.com/>)
and DeskConnect, Inc. (Creator of Workflow - Powerful Automation Made
Simple; <https://workflow.is/>) rounding out the top three.
Robert Vick Wins Another Award:
Lifetime-member of the NFB of New Mexico Robert Vick won the US
Food's Food Fanatic Hero Award for the menu in his restaurant, Vick's
Vittles Country Kitchen, but also for his generosity and employment of
disabled people. Earlier this year, Robert also won the New Mexico
Restaurant Association's Restauranteur of the Year award, during the
organization's Hospitality Industry Awards September 14, 2015.
The NFB of New Mexico's Albuquerque Chapter meets each month at
Vick's Vittles Country Kitchen for our local chapter meeting. Many of those
nights, Robert is on hand greeting his guests as well as chapter members to
his place of business. The chapter has been meeting at Vick's free of
charge for the past several years.
The year 2015 has been full of ups and downs for Robert. We in the
Albuquerque Chapter thank Robert for his generosity and congratulate him on
his latest honor.
In Brief
Notices and information in this section may be of interest to Monitor
readers. We are not responsible for the accuracy of the information; we
have edited only for space and clarity.
Three New Courses on Unified English Braille:
The Hadley School for the Blind's UEB Braille classes have been the
most popular of any of our course offerings since our inception ninety-five
years ago. We are pleased to announce two new Braille courses:
UEB Braille Literacy 3: Uncontracted Braille available February 29,
2016:
Increase your ability to read and write Braille by learning
uncontracted Braille in which every word is written out letter for letter
(often called grade one Braille). The course covers the Braille alphabet,
numbers, punctuation, and some special signs. Directions for using the
Braillewriter as well as the slate and stylus are included.
Prerequisite: "Braille Literacy 1: Tactile Readiness" and "Braille
Literacy 2: Learning the Braille Alphabet," or the ability to read all
letters of the Braille alphabet by touch.
Course ID: EBR-923, Media: DTB [digital talking book] with UEB
workbook; Lessons: nine.
This tuition-free course is designed for Hadley students who are
blind only-not for sighted family members in our Family program or for
sighted blindness professionals in our HSPS program.
UEB Contracted Braille available March 31, 2016:
The Braille code used for most written material is contracted
Braille. Being able to read and write in contracted Unified English Braille
(UEB) will enable you to assist your family member or client who is blind.
After attaining this goal, you may decide to advance your Braille skills by
enrolling in a professional transcriber course or other advanced Braille
and Braille teaching courses.
Prerequisite: Completion of Hadley's "Introduction to Braille" within
six months prior to enrollment in "Contracted Braille" and with a grade of
B or higher OR adequate competency as determined by Hadley's "Uncontracted
Braille Assessment."
Course ID: CBR-213, CBR-223, Media: OL [online] or P [print];
Lessons: twenty-five
This course is designed for sighted students in either our Family or
HSPS (blindness professionals) programs.
An Uncontracted Braille Assessment is also available on March 31,
2016. Here is some information about it:
Have you learned uncontracted Braille in another setting, or has it
been over six months since you completed Hadley's "Introduction to Braille"
or "Introduction to Braille, UEB Edition" course? Enrollment in "Contracted
Braille, UEB Edition" requires a certain level of proficiency with
uncontracted Braille. This short assessment measures your ability to read
and emboss letters, numbers, and a variety of punctuation marks in
uncontracted Braille. The results determine which Braille course is
appropriate for you.
Assessment: UBA-010, Media: LP [large print] or OL [online]; Lessons:
1
This assessment is designed for sighted students in either our Family
or our HSPS (blindness professionals) programs.
Prospective and current students should call Toll Free: 800-323-4238
to ensure course availability-enrollment dates are subject to change.
Norwegian Cruise Lines Demonstrates Continued Commitment to Accessibility:
Norwegian Cruise Lines recently christened a new ship, Escape. The
christening was a special two-day event, open only to those agents and
press personally invited to attend. Because of all the work Cheryl and
Nelson Echevarria have done with Norwegian Cruise Lines, they were part of
the select crowd at this event. It wasn't all champagne and Pitbull
concerts, though. Cheryl got the chance to speak to Cathy Vazquez, access
manager of Norwegian Cruise Lines and Mr. Andrew Garnett, president and CEO
of Special Needs Group. There were three specific topics that Cheryl
addressed with Ms. Vazquez and Mr. Garnett: the Norwegian Cruise Lines app,
the KNFB reader, and the introduction of Braille onboard Norwegian Cruise
Lines ships.
The Norwegian Cruise Lines iConcierge app is free to download on
Apple or Google Play Store, but unless you are booked on the cruise line,
you do not have access to it at all. The app is to help you make dining
reservations, spa reservations, and find out about activities going on
across the ship. Some of it worked, and some did not. Ms. Vazquez took
notes on the problem areas of the app to pass on to the appropriate people.
The KNFB Reader app for Android had just come out the week before,
and Cheryl took the opportunity to demonstrate how the app could be used to
read a print menu. Both Ms. Vazquez and Mr. Garnett were impressed and
interested in how the app would make cruising easy and accessible for their
customers.
The final bit of business they discussed was about Braille. Currently
Norwegian Cruise Lines is offering Braille menus produced through Special
Needs Group. The company also handles guide dog relief boxes, wheelchair
and scooter rental, and many other services and products. But Ms. Vazquez
told Cheryl that Norwegian Cruise Lines is testing and learning to use
Braille embossers so that, when they have a customer who reads Braille, all
of their printed materials can be offered in Braille for the customer's
convenience. The ultimate goal is to have the Braille materials ready and
waiting for the customer in their cabin upon arrival.
New State Resource Handbooks Available:
I have created ten screen reader-friendly Resource Handbooks
containing resources pertaining to the blind and visually impaired, for use
by consumers and professionals. This handbook is for the residents of those
states and includes the many organizations for the blind and visually
impaired covering areas such as employment, housing, transportation, and
more. Currently available are handbooks for Alabama, Alaska, Arizona,
California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, New York, Ohio, and Texas.
The handbook includes contact information on the local, regional, and
national level.
For more information on pricing and formats please contact Insightful
Publications by email at <insightfulpub at gmail.com>, by phone at (808) 747-
1006, or visit our website at <http://www.in-sightful.com/orderpage.html>.
UEB Course Offering for People Who Want to Read Braille Visually:
Want to read Braille visually? This introductory course provides the
tools for those interested in learning to read and write Braille, so they
can communicate with family members who use Braille. It presents the
fundamentals of the Braille code, including the letters of the alphabet,
numbers, and punctuation. The goal is to enable you to read and write
uncontracted Unified English Braille (UEB). The course includes nine
lessons and is available in print and online. A slate and stylus is mailed
to the student. Interactive programs that simulate the Braillewriter and
the slate and stylus are included in the online course only. These programs
are for practice purposes and cannot be used to produce Braille.
For more information contact Sheryl Bass, Hadley School for the Blind
by writing to <Sheryl at hadley.edu> or by calling (847) 784-2751.
----------
NFB Pledge
I pledge to participate actively in the efforts of the National
Federation of the Blind to achieve equality, opportunity, and security for
the blind; to support the policies and programs of the Federation; and to
abide by its constitution.
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