by Dr. Jacob Freid
Delivered before the NFB annual convention, Los Angeles, July 1976
From the Editor: We often recognize in these pages the Blind Who Lead the Blind. Sometimes we run the rather lengthy article recognizing each member of the board and its officers. At other times we run biographies of those newly elected. But mostly what we read is about who the blind are who lead the blind, not what they must strive to be for all of us. So here is a definition of the characteristics we want in the blind who lead the blind, written by Dr. Jacob Freid and delivered at the 1976 Convention of the National Federation of the Blind in Los Angeles. Anyone wanting to know more about Dr. Freid should do a bit of research; it will be well worth your while. Here is his presentation:
Before this National Federation of the Blind came into being, the dictum from the Gospel according to St. Matthew prevailed: that "if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." This was literally taken to be the "Gospel truth." Several of Kenneth Jernigan's inspired addresses revealed the influence of this canard in the crucial areas of literature and history which have so prejudicially influenced attitudes to the blind into harmful, discriminatory, and bigoted stereotypes through the ages.
But that was B.C.—"Before Chick"—and now A.J.—"After Jernigan"—the miracle of change for the better is taking place in erasing this libel. Certainly in the quarter century since this speaker began to march to the beat of this historic movement, he has witnessed a virtual miracle occur in the betterment of the cause of the blind.
Our leaders and you, our Convention delegates from all fifty states, are the living proof that the blind do lead the blind. We know that each of us has to realize his own potentialities and cope with the special circumstances of our own life. In a more fundamental sense the blind who lead the blind stress the goal each of us is striving to achieve together—that the good of each, the good human life requires liberty, equality, opportunity, and security to engage in what Jefferson wished for each of us—the successful pursuit of happiness.
The blind who lead the blind understand that the happy or good life is essentially the same for all human beings. What is really good for any human being is really good for all other human beings; so if happiness consists in a life enriched by all the things that are really good for a man, happiness is the same for all men and women.
We here are the living testimony to the NFB-achieved miracle that the blind do lead the blind—that we don't need or want an American Foundation for the Blind to lead the blind; that we don't need or want a National Accreditation Council for the Blind to lead the blind; that we do have a National Federation of the Blind and by the blind to lead the blind.
This is where we are in Los Angeles on July 6, 1976, in the day when the blind lead the blind. As Mayor Bradley told us this morning, David Hartman became the first blind person in 104 years to graduate from an American medical school when he received his medical degree from Temple University this June 2. Hartman, who is twenty-six, was blinded by glaucoma when he was eight. He will practice psychiatry and rehabilitative medicine. After compiling straight A records in high school and college, Hartman was rejected by nine medical schools. But the tenth took him, and now he is the first blind person to receive a medical degree.
This is indicative of the new era that is dawning under the able leadership of the blind who lead the blind.
Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, and Albert Einstein were men whose probings into new frontiers changed the attitudes and beliefs of mankind toward the past from which he came, toward himself and toward the space and time in which he and the globe on which he dwelled existed in relation to the vast orbital, nebular universe.
Darwin attacked man's need for ego afflatus out of which he had created God in man's image. Man was not the creation painted in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel masterpiece as coming to life out of the inert clay at the touch of the Almighty's fingertip. Instead, blasphemed Darwin the heretic, he had evoluted through the eons from the primeval slime to an arboreal habitat as a primate—an ape from whom man had descended to earth, learned to stand erect, to walk, and to become humanoid.
Freud stormed the bastions of man's rationality and facade to reveal the hidden terra incognita of the disguised and repressed inner being of his libido, id, and ego which, like the iceberg, was nine-tenths concealed beneath his surface in the subconscious, with its fears and passions and schizoid irrationalities and nightmares.
Einstein shattered the Ptolemaic universe already battered by Copernicus, with his theory establishing the interrelation of mass and energy. He completely revised existing concepts of fundamental universal laws and paved the way for the atomic age. Against skeptics, the Orthodox Church, and entrenched beliefs this trinity of explorers into the uncharted seas of knowledge prevailed with the truth of their brilliant insights put forward with unflagging and courageous perseverance against the storms and diatribes of the outraged defenders of the establishment.
Since these men, our individual sense of frontier has been drawing inward until today the greatest voyages are not the astronauts rocketing to the moon, but those of self-discovery for enlightenment, personal growth, self-understanding, and self-appreciation of the potential regardless of our degree of sight to fulfill one's self through proper training and education and to realize one's hopes and aspirations.
Like these three, our own immortals, Jacobus tenBroek and Kenneth Jernigan were brilliant and iconoclastic searchers for truth whose new insights and revolutionary views concerning the blind person and his world brought counterattacks and ostracism from the paternalistic, patronizing establishment lords of things-as-they-are. Out of their knowledge and keen-honed intellects they preached a doctrine of self-understanding, self-help, self-organization, and self-fulfillment that was a scathing indictment of the benevolent despotism and feudalism that maintained the blind as indentured servants and wards whose obeisance to the status quo was their necessary passport for service. It is no wonder that these blind men who led the blind and who challenged as frauds those who proclaimed themselves the monopolists of the only Sinaitic Revelation, and their NFB movement were an anathema to be exorcised and excommunicated, by the AFB-NAC establishment and their sycophant, the Judas lackey, the American Council of the Blind.
The first of this famous Chick-Ken duo who hatched the NFB movement of the blind who lead the blind, Chick tenBroek, became the prophet of a new revelation of the blind as normal individuals who cannot see, but with the right to fulfillment of their talents, aspirations, and personalities. Chick pointed the way to self-discovery, and fought for equality of education, training, and employment opportunity to achieve the potential of which the normal blind man was capable. He realized that only through the instrument of a democratic movement in which the blind led the blind could they storm the imprisoning fortresses that girded the country of the blind so that they could leave the captivity of their feudal serfdoms, and cross the frontier to freedom and the chance to share the American dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Chick is gone but his spirit marches on with us here today. His Joshua is Kenneth Jernigan, and today the struggle still persists on new battlefields. We still have to put on our warpaint and go out to do battle: for a White Cane Law here, for proper vending stand and sheltered workshop conditions there, for the right to teach somewhere else against all attempts to homogenize us, to set standards for us rather than with us and et cetera, et cetera and et cetera, as the King of Siam said to Anna.
Today we are embattled on this field of who justifiably and democratically accredits whom. With the knowledge of how far we have progressed from what we were, with the promise that we can scale the heights though the climb be hard and wearisome and beset by obstacles to be overcome, we shall be alchemists of the present under our peerless blind leader of the blind. Dr. Jernigan, the fighter who has taken the torch from Chick tenBroek's hands, knowing that we are part of the process that is turning the base metal of the pejorative "blind" to the golden image of a man who like all normal men can be a citizen who is master of his soul and his life, and a contributing member to a better life for himself, his community, his nation, and all mankind.
Here and now the blind who lead the blind pledge that the American tricentennial shall see freedom, equality, security, and opportunity for the blind as a goal attained. Here today as we begin this third century of our Nation's existence, the blind who lead the blind declare that a blind person can be an equal citizen in society provided we overcome the critical problem facing the blind in our time—the attitude of the sighted majority who control the passways to equality of training, opportunity, employment, and first-class citizenship in our society. So long as this battle is not won the blind will remain among the most disadvantaged, discriminated-against minority group in our society.
Last year I was privileged to read Dr. Jernigan's keynote address to the first World Conference of the Jewish Blind in Jerusalem, Israel. We also showed our NFB film at that historic meeting. Golda Meir was so impressed by this conference that she asked to see me. I told her that "unlike the Abu Rudeis oil fields, the blind of Israel are a rich natural resource which you don't have to give back to the Arabs."
The blind who lead the blind have made a commitment to a comprehensive program of positive and creative life for the properly educated and trained blind in a democratic society. They know that this great movement offers us an opportunity to serve the blind in a fiduciary capacity to the best of our talents, knowledge, professional training, and experience.
We meet together in a time of ferment, innovation, and experiment on the frontiers of social action, civil rights, public education, and intercommunity relations between the blind and the sighted world in general and personnel directors and business and industrial leaders who command the gateways to employment in particular. Obviously we will experience frustrations, disagreements, and setbacks. But we know from the achievements of the blind under the leadership of the blind that we will continue to make significant contributions to equality, security, and employment opportunities for the blind.
The fact is that it is the blind who lead the blind who developed a program of legislation, social action, and public education. The blind who lead the blind proved through the actions of the NFB that legislation and litigation are sharp tools in the battle against discrimination. Legal action, however, has only an indirect bearing upon the reduction of personal prejudice. It cannot influence thoughts or instill subjective tolerance. The law is intended only to control the overt expression of intolerance in the denial of proper employment, education, public accommodations, and housing opportunities. But outward action as our psychological and sociological findings determine has an eventual effect upon inner habits of thought and feeling: for this reason legislative action has been one of the major moves in reducing, not only public discrimination, but private prejudice as well.
We have made our most progress in this area of legislation which has opened up primarily civil service and teaching opportunities for the properly educated and trained blind.
The other major area on which we are just making inroads is public education. This is necessary to create a positive aura to overcome the latent subconscious prejudice of the majority culture. Proper public education provides a positive framework against which personnel directors and employers are willing to open opportunities. It is in this area which the blind who lead the blind feel is among the most important positive paths for us to follow. A survey made by a committee on public education showed that the incidence of employment for the blind was in direct correlation to the success of the public education programs in these communities. That is why it has become a cliche that if you are blind it is best to be blind in Iowa.
The blind who lead the blind demand equal acceptance and participation in society. They declare that blindness is not essentially a severe handicap; that blind people are normal human beings; that blindness in itself is only a physical lack which can be met and mastered, not an impairment of mental powers or psychological stability. Therefore, all arbitrary barriers and discriminations—legal, economic, and social—based on the false assumption that the blind are somehow different from those with sight must be abolished in favor of equality of opportunity for all who are blind.
In summation we ask what is it that the blind essentially want from society and those in the seats of power. We declare that the blind want the recognition that we have the ability and the right to be equals and partners in determining the agency and government policies that concern us because they control our destiny and the quality and shape of our lives and position in society.
Therefore, the blind who lead the blind want the sighted world to have a respect for life, and the lives of the blind; to have a sense of the rights of the blind; to operate as partners with the blind in all decisions without secrecy and with decency and integrity; to join as equals with the blind and with an equal concern in formulating together the best program and standards possible for the blind.
We declare that we cannot, we will not accept anything less.
Under the blind leaders who do lead the blind the day will come when, following our Joshua, Dr. Jernigan, we will blow our trumpets until the walls of Jericho built against us will crumble into dust. This will be done, and so for the battles won and for those ahead that we will win, I salute you Dr. Kenneth Jernigan and you the delegates of this great assemblage who are the blind who lead the blind as front-line soldiers in the victory ahead in the liberation war for humanity.