Dr. Floyd Matson Dies

Dr. Floyd Matson Dies

Braille Monitor
June 2008
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Dr. Floyd Matson Dies
by Marc Maurer

On April 7, 2008, Dr. Floyd Matson died. He had suffered a stroke in December
of 2006, and his health had deteriorated from that time until his death.
Dr. Matson, Floyd, or Mat (as he was often known) was born in Hawaii on August
31, 1921. During his working life he was most often a professor at the University
of Hawaii and at the University of California at Berkeley. However, he also
served in the army and worked as a reporter for a number of years. Dr. Matson
met Dr. Jacobus tenBroek, the founder and first president of the National Federation
of the Blind, in 1947 or 48. He was a student at the University of California
at Berkeley who served as an assistant to Professor tenBroek. Working with Dr.
tenBroek, Dr. Matson participated in writing Prejudice, War, and the Constitution,
a book that described the internment of the Japanese in camps in the United
States during World War II. In this book Drs. tenBroek and Matson argue that
the internment of the Japanese violates constitutional principles. The Supreme
Court declared that the restriction of freedom of Japanese-born individuals
in the United States was permissible under the Constitution. However, the authors
of Prejudice, War, and the Constitution believed that it could never
have happened except during the time of war and that even during wartime the
actions taken on U.S. soil to restrict freedom of individuals twisted the logic
of constitutional argument. During the 1980s, a reparations bill was passed
by the Congress to give detainees a payment in reparation for restricted freedom
during World War II. Much of the basis for this reparation payment came from
the book written by Dr. tenBroek, Dr. Matson, and Edward Barnhart.
During the 1960s Dr. Matson became for a time the assistant editor of the
Braille Monitor. No matter where he was working, at the University of California
or the University of Hawaii, he continued his work with Dr. tenBroek doing research
and writing about programs and activities of importance to the National Federation
of the Blind. I met Dr. Matson in the fall of 1969. He was then a leader of
our affiliate in Hawaii, and he was doing research regarding social programs
affecting the blind. This research and study complemented his writings in the
humanities that were always a part of his work as a professor at the University
of Hawaii.
Dr. Matson served as a primary leader of the National Federation of the Blind
of Hawaii, and for many years he was the treasurer of our affiliate. In 2005
the National Federation of the Blind of Hawaii honored Dr. Matson as a "treasure
of Hawaii" for all of his outstanding efforts to support the blind in that
state and throughout the nation.
During the 1950s Dr. Matson assisted with the preparation of testimony to be
offered in Congress on the right of the blind to organize. Governmental and
private agencies had been taking reprisals against blind people who joined the
National Federation of the Blind. Officials in these agencies believed that
blind people should not have the effrontery ("the immortal crust")
to demand that they had the right to speak on their own behalf and to organize
for collective action. Sometimes Dr. Matson would speak of the congressional
hearing rooms with the suits from the agencies on one side and the blind with
their canes and dogs on the other. The image of the suits against the canes
focused and guided Dr. Matson's work throughout his lifetime. He always attempted
to bring recognition to the dispossessed--to assist those seeking independence.

Dr. Floyd Matson was a big man but also a very gentle one. He had a great sense
of humor, and he loved to write. His books and articles are filled with references
to historical documents, literary compositions, and theories of society. For
more than thirty years he taught American Studies, which meant that he knew
the literature and the popular culture of our country. One of the methods for
presenting popular culture was the study of American movies and moviemaking.
In the early days, when Dr. Matson was in California, he met John Wayne over
one of the Thanksgiving weekends. In his classes he taught about the impact
of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and Leonardo DiCaprio on American thought.

Dr. Matson wrote more than a dozen books--most of them directed toward the
development of social philosophy and politics. Two of his volumes are Walking
Alone and Marching Together: A History of the Organized Blind Movement in the
United States, 1940-1990 and Blind Justice: Jacobus tenBroek and the
Vision of Equality.
Dr. Matson's witty, self-deprecating, incisive thought is a part of the history,
the literature, and the research of the National Federation of the Blind. The
organized blind movement and prospects for blind people could not have developed
as far as they have without him. He will be a part of the spirit of our movement
and our effort to achieve freedom until all blind people are recognized for
the valuable people we are. Whether they recognize it or not, all blind people
are indebted to Floyd Matson. Those of us who knew and loved him will deeply
miss him.

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