_______________________________________________________________________________
Vol. 68, No. 3 March 2025
Chris Danielsen, Editor
Distributed by email, in inkprint, in Braille, and on USB flash drive, by the
National Federation of the Blind
Mark Riccobono, President
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THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND ADVANCES THE LIVES OF ITS MEMBERS AND ALL BLIND PEOPLE IN THE UNITED STATES. WE KNOW 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. OUR COLLECTIVE POWER, DETERMINATION, AND DIVERSITY ACHIEVE THE ASPIRATIONS OF ALL BLIND PEOPLE. THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND—IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR OURSELVES.
ISSN 0006-8829
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Vol. 68, No. 3 March 2025
Convention Bulletin 2025
The 2025 Washington Seminar: New President, New Congress, New Approach
by Chris Danielsen
The Significance of Washington Seminar 2025
by Mark Riccobono
Legislative Agenda of Blind Americans: Priorities for the 119th Congress, First Session
Laws and Funding the Blind Depend On
Websites and Software Applications Accessibility Act
Medical Device Nonvisual Accessibility Act
Blind Americans Return to Work Act
Additional Legislative Concerns of Blind Americans for the 119th Congress
A Report from Washington Seminar by the South Carolina Delegation
by Janice Bright
Leading Disability Organizations: President Trump's Blame of Deadly Plane Crash on Disabled Federal Workers Is Baseless, Irresponsible
The Why and How of Service Animal Self-ID in Rideshare
by Al Elia
Plan for the Future
A Tribute to Tom Stevens: A Leader and a Friend
by Gary Wunder
Making Meta Accessible: Update on Latest Improvements
Building the Future: Shaping Accessible Learning Together
by Kaili Kameoka
Springing Forward Successfully
by LaShawna Fant
Who Says Blind People Can't Get Foul Balls? Three Parks, Three Years, Three Souvenir Balls
by Rose Warner
NFB BELL®: It's Not just for the Kids!
by Karen Anderson
Learning, Leading, and Living the Life I Want
by Cole Carper
Monitor Miniatures
Copyright 2025 by the National Federation of the Blind
The 2025 Convention of the National Federation of the Blind will take place in New Orleans, Louisiana, this summer. Start planning your trip now.
Tuesday, July 8, through Sunday, July 13
The Marriott New Orleans and the Sheraton New Orleans
As our headquarters hotel, the Marriott will host convention breakouts, general sessions, and the banquet. Right across Canal Street, the Sheraton serves as our overflow hotel and will be home to the Exhibit Hall and Independence Market.
If this will be your first convention or if you need a refresher, check out our First Timer’s Guide at https://nfb.org/get-involved/national-convention/first-timers-guide .
The following are important dates to know as you prepare to attend convention.
Reserve your room by calling 888-236-2427 for the Marriott or 855-516-1090 for the Sheraton New Orleans. Ask for the “National Federation of the Blind 2025 Convention” block. Here are important things to know about the rates and booking the room:
The nightly rate for both the Marriott and the Sheraton is $119 for singles and doubles, while triples and quads can be booked for $129 per night. You should also anticipate the combined sales tax and tourism support rate of 16.2 percent and note there is a hotel occupancy fee of $3.00 per night.
At the time you make a reservation, a deposit of the first night’s stay is required for each room reserved. If you use a credit card, the deposit will be charged against your card immediately, just as would be the case with a check. If a reservation is cancelled before Sunday, June 1, 2025, half of the deposit will be returned. Otherwise, refunds will not be made.
Registration for convention will open March 1. Registration will be $25 per person plus $80 per banquet ticket. Register early because prices go up if you register onsite in New Orleans. Registration includes the biggest event of the year, access to the event app, and communications on the latest news and events.
Over 200 sessions and meetings happen during convention. If you are a leader in a division, committee, or group that will meet at convention, please don’t wait to organize. Start planning your agenda, goals, and connections now. Stay tuned for details from the Convention Chair, John Berggren.
Remember that as usual we need door prizes from state affiliates, local chapters, and individuals. Prizes should be small in size but large in value. Cash, of course, is always appropriate and welcome. We ask that prizes of all kinds have a value of at least $25 and not include alcohol. Drawings will occur throughout the convention sessions, and you can anticipate a grand prize of truly impressive proportions to be drawn at the banquet.
Thank you to the hundreds of volunteers who help make national convention a big success. Please consider signing up to be a Convention Ambassador to assist in making the national convention a welcoming and empowering experience for all our attendees or for the Independence Market to serve as a demonstrator, storekeeper, pay-station representative, or line marshal during the days the market is open in the Exhibit Hall.
More details on shifts, schedules, and signups will be available soon. Register early to get access to all volunteer opportunities.
The best collection of exhibits featuring new technology; meetings of our special interest groups, committees, and divisions; the most stimulating and provocative program items of any meeting of the blind in the world; the chance to renew friendships in our Federation family; and the unparalleled opportunity to be where the real action is and where decisions are being made—all of these mean you will not want to miss being a part of the 2025 National Convention. To assure yourself a room in the headquarters hotel at convention rates, make your reservations early. We plan to see you in New Orleans in July.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Chris Danielsen]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Mark Riccobono]
[PHOTO CAPTION: John Paré, Anil Lewis, and Representative Sessions pose for a photo together. Rep. Sessions holds up his plaque.]
[PHOTO CAPTION: The large crowd smiles and cheers during the Great Gathering-In.]
[PHOTO CAPTION: The packed room at the Great Gathering-In gave the speakers a standing ovation.]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Representative Alma Adams (on the left) and NFB of North Carolina President Sharon Weddington]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Senator Chuck Grassley addresses NFB members at the Congressional Reception.]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Representative Gus Bilirakis and NFB of Florida President Camille Tate]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Representative Sanford Bishop and NFB of Georgia President Dorothy Griffin]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Representative Joe Morelle and NFB of New York President Aubrey Bird]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Representative Lateefah Simon and NFB President Mark Riccobono]
[PHOTO CAPTION: President Riccobono, Waymo crew, and John Paré smile together at Congressional Reception.]
by Chris Danielsen
Every two years a reconstituted Congress comes into power and every four years our nation elects a president. Longtime legislative advocates in the National Federation of the Blind know these routine changes always necessitate an adjustment in our legislative priorities and our strategy for seeking their enactment. All of this is not new. But the second administration of President Donald J. Trump came to power promising sweeping changes to government policies, programs, and priorities. As we gathered for our fifty-second Washington Seminar, the new administration had already set a frenetic pace of change, with an unprecedented flurry of executive orders signed and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Service seeking to implement dramatic staff, spending, and infrastructure reductions across many federal agencies. The week before we gathered at the Holiday Inn Washington Capitol National Mall, the White House Office of Management and Budget issued a memorandum ordering what it described as a temporary pause of all government grants. This sparked alarm and confusion across the country, not least in our community, where programs like vocational rehabilitation and Medicaid rely on federal funds. The memorandum implementing the pause was quickly rescinded and the courts have since intervened, but the status of many federal grant programs remains unclear, and the drama of the pre-seminar week did not stop there.
On the night of Wednesday, January 29, a passenger plane collided with a military helicopter at Washington’s Reagan National Airport. The next morning, although an investigation was just commencing and no official conclusions had yet been reached about the cause of the horrific crash, which killed sixty-seven people, President Trump speculated that a disability hiring policy of the Federal Aviation Administration might be to blame. This prompted a rebuke from disability advocates including the National Federation of the Blind that is reprinted later in this issue of the Braille Monitor.
With all of this in mind, President Riccobono and our Advocacy and Policy team felt that a different message to members of the 119th Congress was in order. Blind Americans depend not only upon new legislative initiatives to improve our lives, but on continuity in policies and programs that have served us for years and are critical to the well-being of thousands of blind Americans. It was therefore decided that our efforts this year should focus more on what is currently in place than on what is needed in the future. Discussion of this new approach dominated both of the legislative trainings, one for affiliate presidents or their legislative leads and one for the rest of the Washington Seminar delegations, which took place respectively on the morning and afternoon of Monday, February 3, the first day of the event. In addition to these trainings, this opening Monday also featured the annual midwinter gathering of the National Association of Blind Students and a career fair sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind of the District of Columbia and the National Federation of the Blind Employment Committee.
The traditional and always electrifying opening gathering of the Washington Seminar was gaveled to order precisely at 5 p.m. Monday evening. Federationists packed the Capitol Ballroom, and the overflow crowd listened in over Zoom in the nearby Congressional Ballroom. President Riccobono kicked off the event with opening remarks inspired by the Preamble to the United States Constitution, noting the synergy among its fifty-two words, our fifty-second Washington Seminar, and the fifty-two affiliates of the National Federation of the Blind. His address is reprinted following this article. The room was then treated to a brand-new Federation song, performed by Kayleigh Brendle and Tim Elder, which was received with great enthusiasm. The song drew on our traditional chant of “Who are we? NFB!” for its rousing chorus, which everyone readily joined in shouting and singing. The recorded track should be available soon.
President Riccobono introduced the dignitaries present in the ballroom, including the national officers and members of the NFB Board of Directors and Sachin Pavithran, the executive director of the federal government’s Access Board. He invited Chris Danielsen, a member of the staff communications group and editor of this magazine, to share our communication protocols and an exciting new source of Federation content. Having reminded everyone of the social media hashtag #NFBinDC and urged the sharing of Washington Seminar stories by email to [email protected], Chris then asked audio/visual guru Will Schwatka to play an audio trailer for the newly established National Federation of the Blind Radio Network (NFBRN). Now available on Amazon smart speakers, the Victor Reader Stream, NFB-NEWSLINE®, and various radio streaming platforms, NFBRN presents a twenty-four-hour rolling selection of audio content including Braille Monitor articles, Kernel Book stories, NFB podcasts, classic speeches, and more. NFBRN will also host live events such as the Presidential Release Live and National Convention; indeed, the Great Gathering-In was at that moment being streamed to a worldwide audience.
Following this presentation, President Riccobono announced that it was time for special recognition of a member of Congress who had come to be with us. He recalled that he first met Representative Pete Sessions of Texas’s Seventeenth District at the March for Independence, which was part of our 2008 Convention in Dallas. President Riccobono had the assignment to stay close to the congressman and engage him in conversation about our movement, and he joked that if Federationists were nervous about upcoming conversations in congressional offices, they should try keeping up with an active and engaged man who wanted to hear from all of the blind people he was meeting. In the 118th Congress, Representative Sessions sponsored the Blind Persons Return to Work Act and co-sponsored all our other legislative initiatives. In recognition of this outstanding championing of our cause, President Riccobono presented the congressman with the Distinguished Legislator award. The beautiful wooden plaque bore text in print and Braille reading:
Presented to Representative Pete Sessions for sponsoring the Blind Americans Return to Work Act and for cosponsoring other legislation to advance the lives of blind people.
In the 118th Congress. Your leadership, hard work, and dedication for blind Americans were unparalleled. Together with love, hope, and determination, we transform dreams into reality.
February 3, 2025
Representative Sessions humbly accepted the award and shared a few remarks on his years of advocacy for the blind and others with disabilities, noting that his son Alex has Down syndrome and that another family member has retinitis pigmentosa. He recalled writing to the board chair of Apple when we had concerns about the accessibility of that company’s products and services. The congressman expressed his cautious optimism that, in what he described as a new era in Washington and the nation, the desire of blind Americans to learn, to work, and to propose solutions will create the opportunity for our legislative priorities to be embraced.
He concluded by saying, “And so on behalf of myself, my family, my office, I will tell you this: Please always feel free to tell any member of Congress that Pete Sessions is with us, and we would like to have you too. And if you do that, we can make it.”
Anil Lewis, our executive director for Blindness Initiatives, was the next speaker to be invited to the lectern by President Riccobono. Anil began his remarks as follows:
I am honored to be here. I was contemplating how I would bring this to you this evening considering some of the ways people are feeling in this current climate. I want everybody to just stay focused and stay strong. So I will offer it to you this way. In this space, we come together on one characteristic: blindness. In this space, all the other stuff doesn't matter. We know through our history that it's a collective movement; that one characteristic of blindness makes us powerful.
I love quoting “Power concedes nothing without a demand.”
Well, that's spoken from the perspective of those who are powerless.
We have power. Our perspective is power works with the shared relationship in a way that transforms the world. That's what we're doing, transforming the world.
And we do that through collectively working shoulder to shoulder. But I, as well as you, know it's the heart of the Federation that really gives us our true power. So I say shoulder to shoulder, and you say heart to heart.
Anil cheerfully repeated the “shoulder to shoulder” call throughout his brief remarks, and the audience responded “heart to heart” each time. He described each of the programs he oversees briefly and gave updates where appropriate; for example, he reminded the audience that the next Jacobus tenBroek Law Symposium will take place March 20-21 at the NFB Jernigan Institute, and that the coming months will once again bring NFB BELL® academies and STEM programs. He also recognized the current Teacher of Tomorrow and Kenneth Jernigan Leadership in Service cohorts.
President Riccobono then asked Sandy Halverson to come to the lectern. Sandy and her husband John have long led the effort to staff the office that used to be housed in the Mercury Room, before the hotel removed its name and redesignated as simply room 275. The President joked that in his mind the room’s name will never change, and a member of the audience suggested that we make our own sign for it. Name change or not, the functions of the room remain much the same, although advances in technology, especially the creation of an online Washington Seminar portal, mean that there do not need to be as many volunteers in the room as before. Affiliate presidents or legislative directors use the online portal to report the results of their meetings with members of Congress, specifically to indicate the level of support for each of our legislative issues. The volunteers in room 275, however, still accept verbal reports, add them to the portal, and collect the business cards of congressional staff, because following up directly with these individuals is just as important as with the representatives and senators themselves. Since white canes do occasionally get broken while traveling the halls of Congress, the room can also supply new ones and is also where lost items should be brought so that their frantic owners can hopefully retrieve them. Sandy went over all these logistics with some important notes: the room would be open only during certain hours each day, and only cash could be accepted as payment for a new cane. She also reminded all of us of our pledge to support the programs of the Federation, with our dollars as well as our hearts, and commenced the passing of the traditional buckets for cash donations. Audience members also had the option of taking a card with a QR code that they could scan to take their phone directly to our donation web page, a handy new addition to the process since many of us no longer regularly carry cash.
President Riccobono updated the gathering on an important development following from our Rideshare Rally in October of 2024. Uber has now rolled out a feature where blind people who use guide dogs can voluntarily include that information in their profiles and choose whether they would like for drivers who are matched with them to have that information. If a driver cancels the ride after learning of the rider’s service animal, the app will warn them that cancellation will violate Uber’s policy of accepting service animals and give them a chance to rescind the cancellation. The hope is that this new feature will make it easier for Uber to identify drivers who are refusing rides to guide dog users. The intent is also to make it easier for such riders to make complaints if they are denied service. President Riccobono emphasized that no guide dog user is required to use this new feature, and declining to do so in no way changes Uber’s legal obligation to accept a rider’s service animal. The new policy is described in more detail later in this issue.
President Riccobono then reminded us that the Federation is experiencing tight finances at this time and urged everyone to ask a friend to contribute to our movement. He also reminded members that we are still seeking ideas for the Museum of the Blind People’s Movement, which may be slightly further off in our future than originally planned but is nonetheless still a big, bold dream that we plan to undertake. Ideas can be sent to Alison Tyler at [email protected].
The President then introduced Jonathan Mosen, the new executive director for Accessibility Excellence, for some remarks on the progress that we are making with the big players in the technology industry. Jonathan particularly emphasized that Meta, the company that owns Facebook, has reinstituted a method whereby desktop computer users can access the more accessible mobile interface for the popular social media platform, after causing much consternation in the blind community by deprecating its original basic mobile web page. Jonathan emphasized that the goal is for the full Facebook site to be more accessible so that an alternate access method is not needed but noted that this step represents significant progress for the time being. He also commended the company for rolling out accessibility improvements to its iOS app. Finally, he shared that we are working with Meta to make its Ray-Ban Smart Glasses, which have already taken the blind community by storm, an even more powerful accessibility tool. He advised that all of us can notify the Center for Excellence in Nonvisual Accessibility (CENA) of any challenges we are experiencing with products and platforms, as well as access a self-advocacy toolkit to reach out to companies on our own, by visiting https://nfb.org/cena.
He also reminded everyone that CENA is a source of information as well as a gatherer, mentioning the ongoing availability of the International Braille and Technology Center (IBTC), the free virtual accessibility boutiques and trainings, and the new Access On podcast. He closed with these words: “I can predict something with absolute certainty: blind people will not be passive about our destinies. The blind will shape the products we use, and, as a result, tomorrow will be better than today. I know this. I know this because we are the National Federation of the Blind, and that's what we do.”
Everette Bacon, second vice president of the National Federation of the Blind and chairperson of the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award Committee, was introduced to remind members to nominate individuals and organizations that are a positive force in the lives of blind people. He urged that those wishing to make or support nominations visit https://nfb.org/bolotin, noting that the web application has been improved so that it is easy to toggle between making a nomination or simply supporting an existing nomination with a letter of recommendation.
President Riccobono made a few more administrative announcements, including a reminder of our upcoming national convention and the Access Board town hall that will be a part of it, which he had just confirmed with Sachin Pavithran. He said the following, in part, to introduce our Advocacy and Policy team:
Let me just say that we decided in the last week that we should revise our strategy knowing that this enthusiastic team of great advocates would be on the Hill. It's been said many, many times that the F [in NFB] is Flexible. You know, our priority is not simply to come to Washington, DC, and spout facts and figures. We're looking to get real stuff done, as Congressman Sessions said. We want to get bills passed. And we also want to take advantage of the opportunities with where the leadership and the nation are. And we want to make sure that all of you are well informed about what's happening. In the last couple of weeks, there's been a lot of speculation, especially about meaningful programs for blind people. And we want to make sure that we can identify those members of Congress that are with us and those that are not with us. We know how to count votes, right? And if we can find our friends, we can build up our friends to help us get those votes. And so John Paré and the team are going to talk more about this. They've been doing a tremendous amount of work. I would say it's a small but mighty team. If you have not gotten to know them, you should. But you will know them really well after the next three days. So here is our Executive Director for Advocacy and Policy, John Paré.
John then took the microphone to introduce our revised, flexible approach. He explained that a new fact sheet had been added to the packets that Federationists would give to members of Congress. The double-sided fact sheet listed the laws on which blind Americans depend on one side, referencing their most critical provisions, and seven critical funding streams on the other. The three laws listed, unsurprisingly, were the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The federal funding streams were the $15 billion in special education grants provided under IDEA, the 79 percent of all vocational rehabilitation funds provided under the Rehabilitation Act, Free Matter for the Blind, funding for the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, older blind programs, funding for state protection and advocacy agencies, and Medicaid. John Paré noted that the total number of the years the three civil rights laws have been in effect is 137. With respect to funding, he noted that the amounts are relatively small compared to the total federal budget but have big effects with respect to blind individuals, and urged the audience to emphasize, especially to Republican representatives and senators, that these programs “spend a little and save a lot” because they ultimately reduce the number of blind people who are dependent on SSI, SSDI, Medicaid, and other federal benefits. For example, a few months of vocational rehabilitation training can result in a lifetime of employment. He urged us to focus on this fact sheet and answer all questions about it, even if it meant not getting to our other legislative issues in the time allotted for the appointment with the Congressperson or their staff. John closed with the reputed words of Admiral John Paul Jones: “Surrender? I have not yet begun to fight!” before turning the microphone over to Kyle Walls, who also has a critical role in the logistics behind Washington Seminar.
Kyle focused on the details that needed to be reported through the Washington Seminar portal by affiliate delegations to facilitate follow-up in the coming months. These include who the delegation spoke with in each office and the specific reaction to each issue that was discussed, as well as notation of which issues, if any, were not discussed at all. Kyle also reminded everyone of the Congressional Reception taking place the following evening and the legislative debrief planned for Wednesday evening.
Kyle then gave the microphone back to John, who briefly discussed the first of the three legislative issues that our President and board of directors designated for action this year. This was the Websites and Software Applications Accessibility Act. The fact sheet about it, as well as those about the other two issues follow this article. He urged the assembled advocates to focus heavily on the aspects of the bill that might make it attractive to politicians, primarily Republicans, who wish to support small business, noting that the bill provides for a Technical Assistance Center and increases accountability for third-party web developers that many small businesses hire to build their web and mobile presences. While we should not hide that the bill requires new regulations, John said, we should not always make that the first thing that we mention. He then turned the lectern over to Justin Young to discuss the Medical Device Nonvisual Accessibility Act.
Justin urged members to tell their individual stories of being unable to operate medical devices with visual digital interfaces. He also provided an example story of John from Minnesota, who is unable to use his CPAP machine independently. These machines are used by individuals who have sleep apnea, a common but serious condition in which critical REM sleep is constantly interrupted because the patient’s airway is temporarily blocked and they must wake to get more oxygen. CPAP devices use air pressure to keep the airway open, allowing for better sleep. They also keep statistics on how well the process is working, which the patient is expected to monitor and report to their physician. John can neither independently set up and operate his machine nor adjust its settings if they are accidentally changed when it is moved, making the device unreliable for him and contributing to the long-term health problems that are associated with sleep apnea. There are many more such stories, including the many blind people with diabetes who are struggling with inaccessible devices that are supposed to help them regulate it. Therefore, Justin emphasized that accessible medical devices are critical to living the lives we want, and we must make that clear to members of Congress.
Jesse Shirek was next to the lectern to discuss the Blind Persons Return to Work Act. Jesse was not the first speaker to address the unusual climate in which the Washington Seminar was occurring and the anxiety that it was producing in some of our members, but his remarks were eloquent and provided hope as a reminder of our collective strength. He said in part:
I've been hearing from a lot of members who are experiencing a lot of anxiety coming up this week to the Washington Seminar.
I want to be transparent. For me, last week was a tremendously stressful week. I think it's been a tremendously stressful week for all blind Americans. I woke up on Friday feeling hopeless, feeling scared, worried about my future and the future for my blind wife and the future of our members. The executive orders halting money for programs like vocational rehabilitation, the older blind program, and special education rattled my reality, as did the disparaging comment around the inherent value of blind and disabled employees following the tragic midair collision miles from this hotel. Blind brothers and sisters in the movement, I wondered at the time: Are we powerless? Wondered if everything we hold dear could be stripped away from us. It only took moments for me to think about the fact that the funding freeze was halted. It was halted because we reached out to our governors and legislators and reached out to our senators. We said these policies will harm us. We told the government that, sure, this might save money in the moment, but it will increase the number of us who are no longer in the workforce, increase the number of us relying on benefits, sacrificing our future. This is not the American way. Thankfully, we speak with one voice, we walk in syncopation, and we walk in collective action. This is how we exercise our power. I was taught this lesson at my first Washington Seminar five years ago, in this very room. We just have to follow a simple recipe. We talk about the problem. We tell a story, painting the picture with our words, and make the problem real for our members of Congress. We illustrate our lived experience. And we put forth our solution. I hope again we will succeed because nobody advocates better than the National Federation of the Blind. Nobody prepares their members to fight for change like we do. When we're prepared, nobody will stop us.
Jesse then shared the details of the Blind Persons Return to Work Act. He emphasized how the legislation, if enacted, will improve government efficiency by reducing SSDI and SSI dependence and by eliminating or synthesizing unnecessary and conflicting regulations that separately govern the SSDI and SSI programs. It will do this through a pilot project that will sunset in ten years and therefore not grow government permanently.
After John Paré closed the Advocacy and Policy presentation with a final reminder of the Congressional Reception, President Riccobono introduced Marilyn Green to encourage members to participate in our Pre-Authorized Contribution (PAC) Plan. Staying with the theme of funding our movement, Patti Chang, our director of outreach, was then introduced to encourage members to leave a legacy gift to the National Federation of the Blind through our Dream Makers Circle. Patti also reminded everyone that they can obtain more information about how to fund our movement at https://nfb.org/donate. President Riccobono thanked Marilyn and Patti and then acknowledged a generous contribution from the autonomous vehicle company Waymo. In the past, this partner has sponsored our Congressional Reception, but this year it asked if it might sponsor the entire Washington Seminar, an offer we gladly and gratefully accepted. Noting that Waymo is once again testing its autonomous robo-taxis in DC, President Riccobono speculated that we might be able to take them to the Hill next year.
A few final announcements wrapped up the Great Gathering-In. The first came from the National Association of Blind Students, which promoted its fundraising auction planned for later in the evening that featured some truly impressive items. The second and final announcement concerned which affiliates had won a raffle for an extra box of the Krispy Kreme donuts that the DC affiliate always generously provides for the consumption and follow-on sugar high of Washington Seminar attendees. With the business of the evening concluded, the Great Gathering-In closed with President Riccobono urging, “Let’s go and let the voice of the blind be heard!”
Tuesday evening, February 4, saw a goodly crowd of Federationists in the Kennedy Caucus Room of the Russell Senate Office Building for the Congressional Reception, a tradition at in-person Washington Seminars since 2015. About half an hour before the reception was to begin at 5 p.m., with many already in the room, we learned that the entrances to the Russell Building were being closed due to a suspicious package. Although this sounds ominous, it is not uncommon. Everyone who could quickly communicated to their Federation family members who had not yet arrived that they could get to the reception by entering either the Hart or Dirksen Senate Office Buildings and then using the tunnel system underneath the Capitol complex to get to the basement of Russell. It was thus that, in true Federation fashion, the reception got started on time and with a room packed with blind Americans waiting to hear from some of our representatives and senators.
After folks had a chance to mingle and enjoy food and drink, the presentations started at 5:30 as planned, with President Riccobono introducing Representative Alma Adams of North Carolina. The congresswoman’s district encompasses the city of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. She was delighted to attend her second Congressional Reception and stated that our issues are near and dear to her heart because her sister had low vision, and through her the congresswoman came to know of the many ways in which accessibility still needs to be improved. As a member of the Education and the Workforce Committee, Representative Adams committed to continuing to learn from our advocacy and to work with her colleagues to advance our goals.
President Riccobono next introduced Senator John Boozman of Arkansas, a longtime friend of the Federation who, our President announced, had already agreed to sponsor the Access Technology Affordability Act once again in the Senate of the 119th Congress. Although not one of our top three legislative priorities this year, the Federation continues to seek passage of this bill, which would provide a $2,000 refundable tax credit to blind Americans for the purchase of devices like screen readers, Braille displays, and low-vision aids. The senator said in part:
Thank you all. It is great to be with you. And as many of you know, I'm an optometrist. My brother was an ophthalmologist. We practiced together for many, many years and one of the things that I spent a lot of time doing was low vision. So I'm very, very aware of the unique problems that you have as a group, as you try and just do everyday things. So I will help you, any way I can help you. The way that you can help me—and this is really important, listen up for me—the way that you can help me is do just what you're doing: be here. The fact that we've got a room full of people is wonderful. There's no substitute for that. We're working hard to try and get your legislation passed, but that depends on other legislators knowing about it and voting for it. You're the ones that have to help us educate.
President Riccobono introduced another member of the Senate with these words:
This gentleman has a long history with the National Federation of the Blind going back to our president, Kenneth Jernigan, who was a leader in the state of Iowa. This gentleman serves as the senator from the state of Iowa. He has a long history of being a supporter of ours. In the 119th Congress, he serves as president pro tempore. He knows about the true experience of blindness because he has engaged directly with blind constituents and listened to our concerns and perspectives. He most recently was with us at our Great Gathering-In a couple years ago. Really honored to welcome this evening, from the great state of Iowa, Senator Chuck Grassley.
Senator Grassley addressed the gathering with his own fond memories of Dr. Kenneth Jernigan, whom he said he first met sixty-four years ago. He noted that, long before President George W. Bush coined the memorable phrase “the soft bigotry of low expectations,” Dr. Jernigan taught him the importance of high expectations for blind Americans. The senator praised the National Federation of the Blind’s recent work by helping to build consensus around the enabling legislation for the Marrakesh Treaty, which was signed into law by President Donald J. Trump in 2018. Senator Grassley expressed that he was honored by the award the National Federation of the Blind gave him for his work with us on that legislation but noted that accessibility issues persist even with the tremendous progress that the Marrakesh Treaty represented. He said that he looked forward to working with us in the 119th Congress and that, Lord willing, he expected to see many of us again next year. Following these heartfelt remarks, President Riccobono suggested that the National Federation of the Blind will want an interview with the senator as part of our oral history project for the Museum of the Blind People’s Movement.
The next speaker was Congressman Gus Bilirakis, who represents Florida’s Twelfth Congressional District, which includes the greater Tampa Bay area. Like many members of Congress who take particular interest in our agenda, Representative Bilirakis has a personal connection to our community in that he has low vision. He noted that he serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee and chairs its Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Manufacturing. “The subcommittee has jurisdiction over the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,” he said, “and we've been a long advocate for pursuing policies that enable innovative technologies that help individuals with visual impairments or blindness live more independent, fuller, and richer lives.” He recalled our collaboration on the Space Available legislation to allow 100 percent service-disabled veterans, including the blind, to access extra space on military flights.
Representative Bilirakis promised to continue working on the Self-Drive Act, which will prohibit licensing requirements that prevent blind people from owning or operating autonomous vehicles (AVs) and set national standards for AVs that include accessibility. Representative Bilirakis said he had traveled in an AV just that past weekend and knew that he would need to use or own such vehicles in the future. Like many speakers, he thanked the National Federation of the Blind for showing up to tell our stories, since he felt that there was no substitute for our kind of advocacy. He also thanked Waymo for sponsoring the Washington Seminar and for its outstanding work on accessible autonomous vehicles.
Two freshman members of Congress visited us during the reception. The first was Congressman Johnny Olszewski, Jr. “Johnny O,” as he is affectionately known, is in his first term representing Maryland’s Second Congressional District. Prior to that, he served for many years as the executive of Baltimore County, and before that as a delegate in the Maryland General Assembly. He has also been a public-school teacher. Although he was familiar with the National Federation of the Blind, particularly the Maryland affiliate’s Baltimore County Chapter, the reception was the first time he met President Riccobono in person. After our President announced him and they exchanged greetings, the congressman shared his pride that the National Federation of the Blind is headquartered in Baltimore, part of which he represents.
“Since my time in the Maryland General Assembly and later as Baltimore County executive, I have had the great honor to see firsthand the incredible work of the National Federation of the Blind, what it has done and what it continues to do,” he said in part. “And so I know that I'm a newbie here in the halls of Congress, but my pledge is that as a new United States congressman, I'm ready to roll up my sleeves and continue to fight for our shared priorities. At the federal level, that means collaborating with anyone to make life better for all Americans. It means strengthening the Americans with Disabilities Act so that accessibility is guaranteed. It means expanding resources for blind students in our classrooms. It means ensuring that assistive technology and public spaces are truly accessible to all.”
The next speaker in line was Representative Sanford Bishop of Georgia, but before giving him the microphone, President Riccobono, having learned that it was the congressman’s birthday, insisted that we all serenade him. Congressman Bishop thanked us and shared that he first learned of the challenges of low vision through a childhood friend named Marvin. Marvin, he said, was always selected last when the neighborhood children played sports, because he tended to miss balls thrown in his direction. Later, Congressman Bishop’s mother hired Marvin to do yard work and noticed that he did a poor job weeding her flower beds. She asked couldn’t he see the weeds, and he replied that he saw none, so she got permission from his parents to take him to the Bishop family’s optometrist. This single act, the congressman said, changed Marvin’s life trajectory. Once Marvin had proper services to cope with his low vision, his high school grades improved, he went to college on a scholarship and eventually became a respected minister. Congressman Bishop told this story to illustrate how, as Dr. Jernigan observed, it was the stigma of blindness that held back his friend Marvin and holds back so many others. Congressman Bishop then promised that, as he had in the 118th Congress, he would again co-sponsor the Access Technology Affordability Act, the Medical Device Nonvisual Accessibility Act, and the Websites and Software Applications Accessibility Act. He went on to discuss how he and other members of Congress are working to monitor the effects of the sweeping actions being taken by President Trump, noting that the attempt to freeze federal grants had locked up services for the older blind and training for interpreters for the deaf and deafblind. Congressman Bishop emphasized that this was why our efforts to bring our needs to the attention of his colleagues were so crucial. “It is the squeaking wheel that gets the grease and the crying baby that gets the milk,” he observed. He closed in part with the following: “As Dr. Jernigan said, ‘Accomplishments are made of dreams and drudgeries, of hope and hard work. The blind of the nation are now moving toward a destiny, a destiny of full equality and full participation in community life.’ Congress and the federal government must continue to be a reliable partner with the National Federation of the Blind so that people like my friend Marvin Lanham can tap the fullest potential and optimistically face a good future.” It is hard to capture in this brief capsule of his remarks the fervor with which Congressman Bishop delivered them. He spoke with the cadences and passion of a minister like his friend Marvin, and the effect on the room was electric.
Representative Joe Morelle of the Twenty-fifth District of New York, which includes Rochester, and a prior co-sponsor of our website and medical device legislation, clearly felt that electricity. “I feel a little bit like I ought to just say I agree with Sandy Bishop and … sit down,” he said. The good congressman soldiered on, though, and his presentation was substantive. Congressman Morelle serves with Congressman Bishop, whom he called a good friend, on the House Appropriations Committee and is the ranking member of the House Administration Committee, which oversees the Capitol complex. In that latter role, he promised to continue his work to make the Capitol and its institutions welcoming to the blind and to all Americans, mentioning specifically the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress. Regarding NLS, which is housed in the Library of Congress, Congressman Morelle promised to help the service continue to expand its collection of accessible materials and its other activities.
The next member of Congress to speak to the reception attendees was also the second freshman representative. In introducing her, President Riccobono noted that despite her freshman status, she is a friend of the blind, since as far as he knows, she is the first blind woman to be elected to the House of Representatives, where she now serves the Twelfth District of California. This was Congresswoman Lateefah Simon, and she began her remarks by stating how she was deeply moved and overwhelmed to be among so many of “my people,” as she put it. Her remarks focused on how she became aware early that too many spaces, including the Capitol, are not welcoming blind people. She shared that, when she had the honor of addressing the Democratic National Convention at the invitation of Vice President Kamala Harris, the print on the teleprompter was too small for her to read, even though she had flagged this concern and been assured it would be addressed. Congresswoman Simon demonstrated her advocacy early in her new role once she came to Washington. She wanted to make sure that her office would be fully accessible to people with disabilities. Freshman representatives traditionally get their offices assigned through a lottery, having no seniority, but Congresswoman Simon was not going to leave her office space to chance, and she let House Speaker Mike Johnson, whom she noted was not of her party, know that she needed accessible office space. She expected to be rebuffed, but Speaker Johnson called her within the hour of receiving her request and gave her an hour to look at a particular office. If she liked it, he said, it was hers; otherwise she would go to the lottery. She found the space satisfactory and took it. She noted that she still faces other challenges, such as being unable to read the board on which vote tallies are shown, but she will fight for equal access in the Congress and beyond. She mentioned specifically that she would fight for transit justice, including not only public transportation but the advancement of AVs, and would fight to protect the Department of Education and its vocational rehabilitation and special education components. Once again, it is impossible to capture here the fiery tenor of her remarks, but it was abundantly apparent to the audience that Congresswoman Simon is and will be a fierce and fearless champion for the rights of blind and disabled Americans.
The last member of Congress to address the gathering was Representative Glenn “GT” Thompson of Pennsylvania’s Fifteenth Congressional District. He emphasized his support for increased utilization of the AbilityOne program by the Department of Defense and for full funding of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which he lamented has never been fully funded in its fifty years of existence. Congressman Thompson supports legislation to remedy this.
The last speaker of the evening was Michelle Peacock, representing our Washington Seminar sponsor Waymo. She told the gathering that the company’s autonomous robo-taxi service, Waymo One, provides 150,000 rides a week in four major cities. The service will soon officially expand to two more cities and is or will be testing in ten more, including Washington, DC. Peacock attributed this outstanding success in large part to the support of the National Federation of the Blind and thanked us for our legislative advocacy and for helping to develop the service’s accessibility features. She announced that the newest of these include the ability to get turn-by-turn walking directions from the vehicle to the door of the destination, if needed, and a new sound (other than a horn honk) so that blind riders can locate our assigned vehicle. She closed by looking forward to our continued collaboration to get national AV standards passed.
At this writing, Representative Pete Sessions has introduced the Blind Americans Return to Work Act, as promised, with Kweisi Mfume of Maryland’s Seventh Congressional District, the home district of the NFB headquarters, as its lead co-sponsor. According to initial information gathered from members (including at the February 5 legislative debrief that capped the final evening of Washington Seminar), representatives and senators were receptive to our message of protecting what we have. There is, of course, always constant back and forth between the president’s administration and the Congress, so vigilance will continue to be necessary as everyone involved navigates uncharted waters constantly being churned by an unusually active and aggressive executive branch. Nonetheless, the traditional bipartisan support for blind Americans is still in evidence, and we will move forward with hope and determination to see that it bears fruit.
by Mark Riccobono
“We the people,” the first three words of the fifty-two-word preamble to the United States Constitution, establish ownership in the structures and principles of our nation by the people, all the people, who live within our democracy. In operation since 1789, the United States Constitution is the world’s longest surviving written charter of government. It is notable that the laws and systems that have grown out of this charter have not always been informed by “all” of the people, and those systems have often been crafted from low expectations and misunderstanding about the capacity of certain groups of people. We know this to be true because we, the blind of this nation, had limited access to the halls of power during the first 150 years of the development of our democracy. We had not yet organized, we had not raised our collective voice, and the centuries of misunderstanding about us became the basis for action within the three branches of government.
However, in 1940 we, the blind, formed our own constitution and mobilized to influence the systems built upon the fundamental rights established under the United States Constitution. From the beginning of the National Federation of the Blind, we have asserted that our nation’s Constitution incorporates us on terms of equality, and we have joyfully accepted the responsibility of helping to shape our nation. We established our movement on the guiding principles that blind people have an inalienable right to independence, that blind people have equal capacity, and that only blind people themselves can legitimately speak for the blind community. From the beginning, our blind elected representatives have been dispatched to influence leaders in all branches of the government. As we grew our movement, we made an annual commitment to show up to be heard in the first branch of government. We have faithfully fulfilled that commitment year after year through all forms of weather, government shutdowns, and even a worldwide pandemic—we have consistently come to make our voice heard.
It is not lost on us that the preamble of the United States Constitution is fifty-two words, our movement has fifty-two state affiliates, and our collective Washington Seminar has been sustained for fifty-two years. In honor of this, we offer our own preamble to our annual gathering in Washington, DC, which goes like this:
"We, the blind of the United States, in order to shape a more perfect union, enhance justice, improve domestic tranquility, contribute to the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, have come to exercise our rights under the Constitution of this nation."
Yes, we come with hope for our tomorrow, we come with solutions to the problems we face, and we come with determination to be part of making our nation better. We know that there are challenges. But, we’re standing strong, we’ll fight it all together. Working every day, we’re gonna make it better. We know we’re not alone. We are the National Federation of the Blind.
As our country quickly approaches its 250th anniversary, we are overdue to make meaningful changes that will allow our nation to take full advantage of the talents that blind people have to offer. We seek a nation where we can participate fully and equally in all forms of digital commerce, education, government, and leisure. We seek a nation that protects our ability to manage our own health, in our own homes, without extra expense, delay, or invasion of our privacy. We seek a nation that supports our independence, incentivizes our advancement in the workplace, and affords us the opportunity to contribute more to the tax base of our nation. We seek a nation that gives us the power to choose and purchase the tools we need to maximize our participation in all aspects of society. We seek a nation that prioritizes nonvisual access in the deployment of future innovations in transportation in order to expand our freedom of movement. We seek a nation that eliminates legalized unequal pay for people with disabilities. We seek a nation that will never go back on its commitment to and enforcement of our rights to live and work on terms of equality in this nation.
We seek this future by bringing our authentic lived experience to the halls of power. We have sacrificed our money, our time, and our energy to make this nation better. In return, we only seek to eliminate the disadvantages placed in our way by the systems that have been established without us. We bring one voice, one heart, and one unwavering commitment to Washington, DC.
This is why the blind will never again be left out of the decision-making in our nation. This is why we will not set aside the progress we have made. This is why we will not allow misunderstanding about us to hold us down any longer. We come together, we raise our voice together, in order that we, the blind, can fulfill our rightful place among “we the people.” This is the significance of the 2025 Washington Seminar of the National Federation of the Blind.
The National Federation of the Blind is a community of members and friends who believe in the hopes and dreams of the nation’s blind.
Every day we work together to advance the lives of all blind people in the United States.
Blind and disabled people experience unnecessary barriers on websites and applications daily even though accessibility is achievable. The Websites and Software Applications Accessibility Act will end website and software application inaccessibility for blind Americans.
Inaccessible digital interfaces prevent blind individuals from independently and safely operating medical devices that are essential to their daily healthcare needs. The Medical Device Nonvisual Accessibility Act will end unequal access to medical devices for blind Americans.
The Social Security Disability Insurance benefits program contains an earnings cliff that hinders blind individuals from achieving the American dream. The Blind Americans Return to Work Act will eliminate the Social Security Disability Insurance earnings cliff by adopting a solution used in other Social Security Administration programs.
Equality and accessibility are achievable.
These priorities will remove obstacles to website access, independent living, and achieving the American dream.
We urge Congress to support our legislative initiatives.
From the Editor: The following is the text of the special double-sided fact sheet that Washington seminarians provided to representatives and senators this year. It was prepared because our President and advocacy and policy staff determined that it might be needed to focus our elected federal legislators on preserving what blind Americans have already fought for and won in the face of pressure by the executive branch to rapidly remake the federal government. Here is the fact sheet:
Section 501 prohibits the federal government from discriminating against people with disabilities in employment and requires reasonable accommodations for federal employees.
Section 503 prohibits federal contractors from discriminating against individuals with disabilities in employment, including requiring reasonable accommodations.
Section 504 prohibits the federal government and federal grantees from discriminating on the basis of disability in providing programs and services.
Section 508 requires federal technology, including websites, software, and technology provided by vendors, to be accessible to the blind.
Title I of the ADA prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities by private and public employers.
Title II of the ADA prohibits state and local governments from discriminating on the basis of disability in their programs and services, including requiring reasonable modifications and requiring their websites and applications to be accessible to the blind. Title II ensures that voting, transportation, justice systems, and government services are accessible to the blind.
Title III of the ADA prohibits disability discrimination by private public accommodations in their goods, services, and information, including reasonable modifications and accessible websites and applications.
The IDEA requires public schools to accommodate students with disabilities and to provide specialized education services when students need them. Braille literacy is essential to blind students and, therefore, they need specialized Braille instruction and Braille equipment. They also need access technology, such as screen reading software, and audio materials, large print materials, and tactile graphics, all of which are considered special education. The IDEA provides for important due process protections that allow parents of students with disabilities to resolve disputes with their schools without resorting to the courts.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act provides federal funding to states to provide required “special education” services for public school students with disabilities. While states provide most special education funding, the federal government provides about $15 billion. This serves some 7.5 million students. Special education services for the blind include Braille instruction, access technologies, and specialized teachers of the blind.
The federal government provides grants to states to provide “vocational rehabilitation” (VR) programs to help people with disabilities become employed. The federal government provides about 79 percent of the funding, with states providing the rest. VR programs serve over 800,000 individuals each year. Without VR services, many blind people would be unable to gain employment, leaving them reliant on public benefits to survive.
The US Postal Service provides free postage for special material used by blind individuals, such as Braille or audio material. Organizations who serve the blind rely on this service to keep costs down, which, due to the size of the materials, would be cost-prohibitive.
NLS provides free Braille and recorded materials to the blind. IMLS is a federal agency that helps libraries and museums. An important part of IMLS funding supports libraries to be accessible to the blind. Without access to library services, blind people would lose access to information, education, and entertainment others take for granted.
Federally funded state-run older blind programs serve blind individuals over age 54 to help them live independently. The programs teach independent living skills so blind people can remain in their homes and communities and avoid placement in expensive nursing homes.
Each state has a federally funded “protection and advocacy” program that represents people with disabilities facing abuse, civil rights violations, denials of benefits, and lack of access to health care, education, employment, housing, transportation, and voting.
Medicaid is a federal grant program to states to cover health care for low-income and disabled individuals. The federal government provides about 70 percent of the funding with states making up the rest. Without Medicaid funding, many blind people would lose access to health care, including treatment for their vision disabilities.
Issue—Blind and disabled people experience unnecessary barriers on websites and applications daily even though accessibility is achievable.
Websites and mobile applications are an essential part of modern living. According to the Pew Research Center, 96 percent of Americans use the internet.1 That means that effectively the entire country is accessing websites and mobile applications, including most Americans with disabilities. According to the American Community Survey, conducted by the United States Census Bureau, there are more than forty-four million Americans who currently have a disability.2 This means that millions of disabled Americans are using websites and software applications.
Uncertainty about how to accomplish website accessibility is plaguing businesses. Most businesses are required by law to make their websites accessible but claim to have no clear-cut definition of what “accessible” actually means. Meanwhile, people with disabilities are forced to cope with inaccessible websites. Businesses yearn for a clear definition of website accessibility to protect themselves from legal action taken by blind and disabled consumers unable to access their websites.
Current law leaves small businesses responsible for inaccessible websites designed by third-party developers. There is no protection in the law for a small business that paid a third-party developer to design and build its website. This leaves small businesses open to litigation that could hinder economic growth and have a chilling effect on others who may want to start their own small business.
The United States is failing to keep up with international accessibility standards.Canada3 and the European Union4 have statutes defining accessibility. The United States has historically been a world leader on disability issues and technological innovation. Being a leader in website accessibility is no different, as the success of tomorrow’s economy will require full participation in competitive markets. The United States is losing out on economic gains as other nations take advantage of this opportunity.
Solution—Websites and Software Applications Accessibility Act will:
Safeguard small businesses and establish a comprehensive statutory definition for “accessibility.” Protect small businesses by holding third-party website developers accountable and by maintaining the current defenses of undue burden and fundamental alteration. A comprehensive and clear-cut definition of “accessibility” will end any confusion regarding the requirements that covered entities and commercial providers need to meet.
Establish a technical assistance center to provide technical assistance to covered entities, commercial providers, and individuals with disabilities. The technical assistance centers will aid in the construction, development, design, alteration, and modification of websites in accordance with the rules. The Attorney General, in coordination with the Commission, the Secretary of Education, and other heads of federal agencies will award a grant program to a qualified technical assistance provider to support the development, establishment, and procurement of accessible websites and applications.
Direct the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to promulgate accessibility regulations. The DOJ and EEOC will have twelve months following the enactment of the legislation to issue a notice of proposed rulemaking regarding website and mobile application accessibility, then an additional twelve months to issue the final rule.
GOAL—END WEBSITE AND SOFTWARE APPLICATION INACCESSIBILITY FOR AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES.
Cosponsor the Websites and Software Applications Accessibility Act.
To cosponsor the Websites and Software Applications Accessibility Act in the Senate, contact:
Stephanie DeLuca, Legislative Assistant for Senator Duckworth (D-IL)
Phone: 202-224-2854 Email: [email protected]
To cosponsor the Websites and Software Applications Accessibility Act in the House, contact:
Quinn Hirsch, Policy Advisor for Representative Steny Hoyer (D-MD-5)
Phone: 202-225-4131 Email: [email protected]
For more information, contact:
Justin Young, Government Affairs Specialist, National Federation of the Blind
Phone: 410-659-9314, extension 2210 Email: [email protected]
1 Pew Research Center. “Internet, Broadband Fact Sheet.” November 13, 2024. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/internet-broadband/
2 United States Census Bureau. “The number of non-institutionalized, male or female, all ages, all races, regardless of ethnicity, with all education levels in the United States reported any disability in 2022.” https://www.disabilitystatistics.org/acs/1
3 Siteimprove. “A complete overview of Canada’s Accessibility Laws.” August 2, 2024. https://www.siteimprove.com/blog/a-complete-overview-of-canadas-accessibility-laws/
4 Level Access. “European Accessibility Act (EAA).” https://www.levelaccess.com/compliance-overview/european-accessibility-act-eaa/#:~:text=The%20European%20Accessibility%20Act%20
(EAA,accessible%20to%20people%20with%20disabilities.
Issue—Inaccessible digital interfaces prevent blind individuals from independently and safely operating medical devices that are essential to their daily health care needs.
Medical devices with a digital interface are becoming more prevalent and less accessible for blind Americans. The rapid proliferation of advanced technology is undeniable. Most new models of medical devices—such as glucose, oxygen, and blood pressure monitors, and CPAP machines—along with the emergence of in-home devices that offer medical care options (such as chemotherapy treatments and dialysis) require consumers to interact with digital displays or other interfaces. This new technology is constantly being developed and deployed without nonvisual accessibility, which creates a modern-day barrier. The inaccessibility of these medical devices is not a mere inconvenience; when accessibility for blind consumers is omitted from the medical technology landscape, the health, safety, and independence of blind Americans are in imminent danger.
According to the Center for Connected Medicine, telehealth currently makes up 20 percent of all medical visits, and more healthcare providers are looking to expand telemedicine services.1 According to the Pew Research Center, rural Americans live an average of 10.5 miles from the nearest hospital,2 and according to the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association, across the United States, 8.3 percent of counties had at least 50 percent of their residents live greater than 10 miles from the closest pharmacy.3 As a result of inaccessibility, blind and low-vision Americans are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to receiving the same virtual health care as our sighted counterparts.
Nonvisual access is achievable, as demonstrated by several mainstream products. Apple has incorporated VoiceOver (a screen reading function) into all of its products, making iPhones, MacBooks and Mac desktops, and iPads fully accessible to blind people right out of the box. Virtually all ATMs manufactured in the United States are accessible, and every polling place is required to have a nonvisually accessible voting machine. Frequently, a simple audio output or tactile feature can make a product accessible at little to no additional cost for manufacturers.
Current disability laws have not been able to keep up with advancements due to the expeditious evolution of medical technology and its incorporation into medical devices. Although the Americans with Disabilities Act and other laws require physical accessibility for people with disabilities (e.g., wheelchair ramps, Braille in public buildings), no laws protect a blind consumer’s right to access medical devices. The National Council on Disability concluded that accessibility standards lag behind the rapid pace of technology, which can interfere with technology access.4 This trend of inaccessibility will continue if accessibility solutions are ignored. Only a fraction of medical device manufacturers have incorporated nonvisual access standards into their product design, while others continue to resist these solutions.
Solution—Medical Device Nonvisual Accessibility Act:
Amends the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to require new applications for Class II and Class III medical devices with a user interface to meet nonvisual access standards. Any devices that do not meet the nonvisual access standards will be considered adulterated by the Food and Drug Administration.
Calls on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to promulgate nonvisual accessibility regulations for Class II and Class III medical devices. The FDA will consult with stakeholders with disabilities and manufacturers and issue a notice of proposed rulemaking no later than twelve months after the date of enactment of the act. The FDA will publish the final rule that includes the nonvisual accessibility requirements no later than twenty-four months after the date of enactment of the act.
Requires manufacturers of Class II and Class III medical devices to make their products nonvisually accessible. Manufacturers who submit a new application to the FDA twelve months following the publication of the final rule must demonstrate compliance with the nonvisual accessibility standard. Manufacturers may file for an exemption for one of two reasons: clear and convincing evidence that making the medical device nonvisually accessible would fundamentally alter the use of the product or proof that modifying the medical device would create an undue hardship for the company.
GOAL—END UNEQUAL ACCESS TO MEDICAL DEVICES FOR BLIND AMERICANS.
Cosponsor the Medical Device Nonvisual Accessibility Act.
For more information, contact:
Justin Young, Government Affairs Specialist, National Federation of the Blind
Phone: 410-659-9314, extension 2210, Email: [email protected] or visit www.nfb.org
1 See Center for Connected Medicine, Telehealth utilization settles in at 20% or less of medical appointments, available athttps://connectedmed.com/resources/post-pandemic-telehealth-utilization-settles-in-at-20-or-less-of-medical-appointments/
2 See Pew Research Center, How far Americans live from the closest hospital differs by community type, available at https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/12/12/how-far-americans-live-from-the-closest-hospital-differs-by-community-type/
3 See Journal of the American Pharmacists Association, Access to community pharmacies: A nationwide geographic information systems cross-sectional analysis, available at https://www.japha.org/article/S1544-3191(22)00233-3/fulltext
4 See National Council on Disabilities, National Disability Policy Progress Report: Technology that enables access to the full opportunities of citizenship under the Constitution is a right at 19 (October 7, 2016), available at https://ncd.gov/progressreport/2016/progress-report-october-2016
Issue—The Social Security Disability Insurance benefits program contains an earnings cliff that hinders blind individuals from achieving the American dream.
The Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program has a built-in “earnings cliff.”
Title II of the Social Security Act provides that disability benefits paid to blind beneficiaries are eliminated if the beneficiary exceeds a monthly earnings limit.1 This earnings limit, often called the “earnings cliff,” is in effect a penalty imposed on blind Americans when they work. For example, the earnings limit in 2025 for a blind person is $2,700 per month. If a blind individual earns more than that threshold, even by just one dollar, they are engaged in substantial gainful activity (SGA). Under the current law, any individual engaged in SGA is not entitled to any SSDI benefits. This means that if a blind person earns just one dollar over the earnings limit, all benefits are lost.
The earnings cliff incentivizes blind people to choose to remain unemployed or underemployed, despite their desire to work.
In a 2018 survey, National Industries for the Blind (NIB) found that 21 percent of respondents from thirty-four of their non-profit associations had turned down a raise or promotion to retain their SSDI benefits.2 The survey also found that 37 percent of respondents had turned down additional hours or even asked to reduce their hours in order to retain their SSDI benefits.3 Blind Americans who are willing and able to work are intentionally limiting themselves out of fear of losing the entirety of their SSDI benefits and falling off the earnings cliff. For example, according to the Social Security Administration the average SSDI benefit check in 2024 was $1,537, which equates to $18,444 annually. Under this circumstance, a blind person would lose $18,444, just by earning an additional $12 in a calendar year. This is a trade-off no one wants to accept.
The current work incentive in the form of the trial work period is needlessly complicated and counterintuitive.
Under the current SSDI program, if a blind worker wants to try and earn more money, they will likely trigger a nine-month trial work period. These nine months do not have to be consecutive, but instead are any nine months during a rolling sixty-month period in which the worker earned more than a certain amount (for 2025 this amount is $1,160 per month). When all of those nine months are exhausted, the worker is once again subject to the earnings cliff if they cross the SGA threshold. This is supposed to act as an incentive for blind recipients to determine if they are ready to work, but the complexity of the rules and the difference between the trial work period amount and the SGA threshold result in many blind Americans not receiving the benefit the process is intended to provide.
Solution—Blind Americans Return to Work Act will:
Eliminate the earnings cliff by instituting a ten-year demonstration program establishing a gradual two-for-one phase-out of SSDI benefits with earnings over the SGA limit.
For every two dollars a blind worker earns above the SGA threshold, their benefits amount will be reduced by one dollar. This ten-year program will start in 2026 and conclude in 2035, demonstrating that blind Americans can and will achieve their highest earning potential.
Create a genuine work incentive for SSDI recipients.
With a phase-out model, blind workers will always be better off striving to earn as much as possible, which will facilitate the transition of those workers out of the SSDI system as benefits are gradually reduced. With this model, blind Americans will never lose by working. As an added benefit, fewer workers will be earning SSDI benefits and instead be paying into the Social Security Trust Fund, which means a more balanced Trust Fund in time.
Simplify the SSDI system by eliminating the trial work period and grace period, making the rules more compatible with the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program.
Under the proposed system, the SSDI program will become less complicated. With both the SSI and SSDI programs using similar rules, there will be less confusion, and the incentive for blind people to return to work will be consistent and clear.
GOAL—ELIMINATE THE EARNINGS CLIFF BY ADOPTING A SOLUTION USED IN OTHER SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION PROGRAMS.
Cosponsor the Blind Americans Return to Work Act.
For more information, contact:
Jesse Shirek, Government Affairs Specialist, National Federation of the Blind
Phone: 410-659-9314, extension 2348, Email: [email protected] or visit www.nfb.org
1 42 U.S.C. Sec. 423.
2 Commitment to Serve, A presentation given at the 2018 NIB/NAEPB Training Conference and Expo.
3 Ibid.
We support fully autonomous vehicles legislation that will prioritize nonvisual accessibility for blind Americans, who will benefit greatly from this revolutionary technology. Autonomous vehicles have the potential to dramatically improve transportation options for the blind, but only if we are able to access them. This legislation would also include a provision of nondiscrimination on the basis of disability in licensing for fully autonomous vehicles (SAE Level 4 and 5).
The cost of critically needed access technology is out of reach for most blind Americans. The Access Technology Affordability Act will improve the affordability of this technology by creating a $2,000 refundable tax credit for use over a three-year period for the purchase of qualified access technology. This bill would remove a significant barrier to employment and independent living for blind Americans while generating approximately $350 million (based on an analysis by Mathematica) in additional annual tax revenue by getting more blind Americans into the workforce.
Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 permits employers to pay people with disabilities at a rate less than the federal minimum wage. The Transformation to Competitive Integrated Employment Act will end this antiquated and discriminatory practice for all Americans with disabilities by transitioning away from the subminimum wage model and eventually sunsetting Section 14(c).
For more information about Autonomous Vehicles Legislation or the Access Technology Affordability Act contact Jesse Shirek at 410-659-9314, extension 2348, or by email at [email protected].
For more information on the Transformation to Competitive Integrated Employment Act contact Justin Young at 410-659-9314, extension 2210, or by email at [email protected].
by Janice Bright
From the Editor: Janice Bright is the co-chair of the Legislative and Advocacy Committee of the National Federation of the Blind of South Carolina. Her report from the 2025 Washington Seminar is reprinted from the Positive Note, a weekly newsletter sent from affiliate president Marty McKenzie to chapter presidents and other affiliate leaders. Here is Janice’s report:
Happy February, everyone! I’m still buzzing from my recent trip to Washington, DC—a journey that blended high-stakes advocacy with moments of genuine camaraderie and light-hearted fun. As part of the National Federation of the Blind’s (NFB) annual Washington Seminar Week—its fifty-second edition, no less—I had the privilege of joining a stellar delegation from South Carolina to meet with our nation’s lawmakers and champion the rights of the blind/low-vision community.
Traveling from South Carolina to the nation’s capital was an experience in itself. Alongside me was an exceptional team of advocates: Andrew Adams and Shannon Cook from the Columbia Chapter, Linda Dizzley from the Lee County Chapter, Lenora Robertson from the Rock Hill Chapter, and Irving Middleton from the Charleston Chapter. Our group was further strengthened by the presence of five talented, enthusiastic students from the Successful Transitions (ST) program, whose dedication and preparedness were nothing short of impressive. We were also joined by Wallace Stuckey—a former NFB of SC member currently working on Capitol Hill. His insights into the inner workings of Washington proved invaluable.
Once in DC, our delegation dove straight into the heart of advocacy. We had the opportunity to meet in person with several of our state’s congresspeople. For our congresspeople with whom we did not have a set appointment, our delegation did a pop-up at their DC offices, spoke to a staffer, and dropped off an info-packed packet to be delivered to each representative or senator. These appointments were more than just scheduled meetings; they were dynamic exchanges where we passionately discussed the need to safeguard longstanding laws and federal funding sources that support the blind/low-vision community. As rapid-fire executive orders and sweeping actions emerge, our conversation centered on ensuring the crucial legislation our community depends on isn’t removed or weakened by fast-paced political changes.
Our talking points were clear: we need a steadfast “watchdog” in Congress—someone who will remain ever-vigilant on behalf of their constituents. We voiced our concerns about how these rapid governmental actions might inadvertently weaken critical supports and shared insights on three national legislative initiatives that we believe are essential to protecting the interests of the blind/low-vision community.
One of the highlights of our week was witnessing our students step up to the plate. They dove deep into research, prepared themselves with facts, and presented our legislative initiatives alongside seasoned delegation members. Their thoughtful presentations not only underscored the importance of these issues but also showcased the bright future of advocacy within our community. It was truly a proud moment for all of us—a reminder that nurturing the next generation is key to sustaining our mission.
Every member of our South Carolina delegation contributed to the discussions with passion and professionalism. Whether it was sharing personal anecdotes from our lived experiences or offering insights to our legislators, we all stood proudly as representatives of our NFB of SC affiliate. As the meetings unfolded, it was heartening to see our congresspeople warmly receive our points, with many expressing a commitment to act as our "watchdog" for these essential laws and federal funding sources.
Of course, advocacy isn’t all serious business. Between the earnest discussions and intense preparation, there were plenty of moments of levity. We shared laughs, swapped stories about our experiences within the community, and even managed to find time to explore a few of DC’s iconic landmarks. This balance of work and play reminded us that while our mission is weighty, it’s the human connections we build along the way that make the journey truly rewarding.
As I reflect on this incredible week in Washington, DC, I’m filled with gratitude for the opportunity to represent our community and for the unwavering support of my colleagues and the bright young minds in the ST program. Our conversations with Congress have set the stage for continued vigilance and proactive advocacy, and I am confident that our message has made an impact.
In a city where history and policy intersect, our delegation left with a renewed sense of purpose and a promise to keep fighting for the blind/low-vision community. The experience was a delightful mix of professional advocacy, thoughtful dialogue, and the undeniable joy of working together toward a common goal.
Until next time, I’m signing off with a full heart and a hopeful spirit. Happy February! Here’s to making a difference—one conversation at a time!
From the Editor: The following press release was issued on behalf of the National Federation of the Blind and several other organizations of Americans with disabilities. On January 21, 2025, the day after his inauguration, President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order entitled Keeping Americans Safe in Aviation, one of many such orders that purported to end diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs of the federal government. The order asserted that “the prior administration sought to specifically recruit and hire individuals with serious infirmities that could impact the execution of their essential life-saving duties.” It might have gone relatively unnoticed among the blizzard of similar announcements emanating from the Oval Office at the time, but tragic circumstances brought aviation to the forefront of the news on January 29, when a military helicopter and a commercial jet collided in midair at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA). Sadly, no one survived the horrific crash, and sixty-seven souls were lost. At a press conference the next morning, President Trump speculated that the hiring of workers with disabilities by the FAA might have led to the crash. Here is the response of some of America’s leading disability organizations:
For Immediate Release: January 30, 2025
Contact: Jess Davidson, [email protected]; 202-465-5528
WASHINGTON, DC – In remarks today at the White House, President Trump cast potential blame for the tragic and deadly plane crash that occurred last night near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on people with disabilities employed by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Soon after the President’s comments, multiple news agencies reported that the air traffic control tower was understaffed at the time of the crash. Despite these reports, the White House has continued to double down on their baseless claims.
In response, the American Association of People with Disabilities, American Council of the Blind, Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, United Spinal Association, National Federation of the Blind, and other leading disability rights organizations issue the following statement:
The President’s remarks today suggesting the deadly crash of Flight 5342 may have been the fault of public servants with disabilities are irresponsible, disparaging, and wrong. It is extremely inappropriate for the President to use this tragedy as an opportunity to advance his anti-diversity hiring agenda. The focus of the federal government and the entire nation should be on the emergency response, a thorough investigation, and most of all, supporting the families and communities who lost their loved ones in this tragedy.
People with disabilities proudly serve our nation through government service in every federal department and agency. Disabled employees, like non-disabled employees, are hired because they meet the qualifications needed to do the job. The Federal Aviation Administration has rigorous standards for hiring Air Traffic Controllers and all other FAA employees. Diversity hiring initiatives seek to expand the pool of potential qualified talent for a role—they do not supersede the qualifications and skills that the role requires. The implication that people are being hired to do a job for which they are unqualified is an unfounded lie that further reinforces harmful stereotypes against disabled people.
“The President is deliberately spreading falsehoods to demonize the quarter of American adults who live with disabilities rather than directing federal resources towards ensuring such a devastating tragedy never happens again. This is part of a broader coordinated attack on civil rights and equal opportunity across government. These attacks do nothing to keep Americans safe, and actually threaten our ability to ensure safety by building the strongest possible aviation workforce,” said American Association of People with Disabilities President and CEO Maria Town.
Scott Thornhill, the Executive Director of the American Council of the Blind stated, “The tragic accident that occurred last night near Reagan Washington National Airport is one we all are deeply saddened about. This is not a time for political posturing or speculation. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who devastatingly lost their lives. We strongly denounce any insinuation that hiring individuals with disabilities had any part in this horrific event.”
“One of the biggest factors keeping people with disabilities out of the workforce is baseless stigma around our ability to do our jobs. Despite ample data showing the capability and productivity of disabled workers, disclosing a disability still makes job applicants 26 percent less likely to even get a preliminary interview. Programs like the one President Trump attacked have been part of the federal government’s work to eliminate that stigma. It is deeply disappointing to see our government now deciding instead to make it worse,” said Colin Killick, the Executive Director of Autistic Self Advocacy Network.
“The President’s harmful speculation unfairly targets disabled workers and reinforces dangerous and baseless stereotypes,” added Nicole Bohn, Executive Director of the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund. “Disability is not a liability, and these narratives only serve to fuel discrimination, exclusion, and stigma—particularly for disabled BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and People of Color] workers who already face compounded barriers in employment. Right now, the focus must be on supporting the families and communities affected by this tragedy and ensuring a fact-based investigation—not on scapegoating disabled people who belong in every workplace, including aviation and public safety.”
“The cause of the terrible plane crash at DCA last night remains unknown,” said Marlene Sallo, Executive Director of the National Disability Rights Network. “Now is the time to thoroughly investigate what caused this accident and support the families who lost loved ones. It is not the time to blame or further stigmatize people with disabilities.”
Mark Riccobono, President of the National Federation of the Blind, stated, “Blind Americans share in our nation’s mourning for the lives lost in last night’s tragic accident. We are shocked that the President of the United States would reinforce unfounded misconceptions of disability by codifying them in the Keeping Americans Safe in Aviation executive order. We know that people with disabilities are among the best and brightest. We also know that our focus today and in the days to come should be on the lives lost, not the misunderstanding of the lives of people with disabilities.”
The National Organization of Nurses with Disabilities (NOND), said, “NOND dramatically and strongly disagrees with the statement made by the federal administration that people with disabilities create unsafe conditions for others. The government’s statement is appalling, dehumanizing, and blatantly discriminatory. NOND supports DEI which is crucial to promoting the full inclusion of marginalized populations including people with disabilities. Research indicates that with age the incidence of disability and chronic health conditions increases. Disability is not about those of us who are disabled now; it is about our society at large.”
“Blaming people with disabilities for the deadly crash at DCA is both misleading and deeply misguided. Individuals with disabilities are hired under already stringent standards due to existing biases, and when we secure employment, it is because we have clearly demonstrated our ability to perform the job with excellence,” said United Spinal Association President & CEO Vincenzo Piscopo. “As a person with a disability myself, I can say without hesitation that I have proudly and consistently contributed value in every role I have held. To suggest otherwise is not only unfounded but also undermines the contributions of millions of disabled professionals who excel in their fields every day.”
This statement is provided on behalf of the following organizations:
American Association of People with Disabilities
American Council of the Blind
Autistic Self Advocacy Network
Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network
Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund
National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery
National Disability Rights Network
National Federation of the Blind
National Organization of Nurses with Disabilities
Not Dead Yet
by Al Elia
From the Editor: Al Elia is an attorney and board member of the National Association of Guide Dog Users (NAGDU), a division of the National Federation of the Blind. At the NAGDU board’s request, he has been working with the advocacy and policy team on transportation concerns of guide dog users since his election to the board in 2021. He serves as the NFB representative on the Air Carrier Access Act Advisory Committee, and served as the NFB’s representative on a rideshare Service Animal Working Group in 2022 and 2023. Here is what he has to say about the recently announced programs for service animal users to self-identify on rideshare platforms:
Federation family, many of you may have heard that rideshare companies are offering, or intend to offer, a means of voluntarily identifying yourself as a service animal user on their platforms. You may be wondering how riders can use this “Self-ID” feature, what happens when riders opt to use it, and why the companies went down this path. This article will hopefully answer those questions.
Taking the last first, the rideshare companies are offering a Self-ID feature because of the advocacy of the National Federation of the Blind. As you know, our organization has been advocating, negotiating, and litigating with rideshare companies over the discriminatory denials of transportation to guide dog users for more than ten years. Long ago, we reached settlements with both Uber and Lyft to ensure that their policies explicitly required drivers to transport service animals in accordance with federal and state laws; that they educated drivers on that policy and the requirement to transport us with our service animals; and that they implemented procedures for reporting, investigating, and disciplining drivers who deny us rides because of our service animals.
Unfortunately, after many years under those settlements, our experience riding with our service animals did not meaningfully improve. Since that was unacceptable, we continued our advocacy, demanding better driver education on the laws and policies requiring them to transport service animals and demanding that rideshare companies treat complaints about service animal denials with the same seriousness as complaints about assault. The companies agreed, but we still saw no meaningful reduction in service animal denials. Anecdotal evidence from members, such as drivers telling us that they didn’t care about policies and would just drive for the other company if removed from one rideshare platform, also suggested that driver education would never solve the denial problem. A different solution was needed.
Meanwhile, we riders were growing tired of shouldering the burden of establishing evidence of and reporting each and every knowing denial to the rideshare companies. Many members told us they had stopped reporting denials altogether because reporting took so much time and didn’t seem to result in fewer denials. Many of us started messaging drivers to tell them we had a service animal, effectively self-identifying as service animal users, in order to have the denial occur earlier in the pickup and reduce the time we had to wait for a ride that would take us. Those messages also ensured that the rideshare companies had written evidence to link denials to our service animals in their investigations so they could remove the denying drivers from their platforms. We suggested that the rideshare companies could make our lives easier by sending a similar message for us, by subsequently reminding drivers that policies and laws required them to transport service animals if those drivers attempted to cancel our rides after receiving the message, and by automatically reporting and investigating drivers who continue to cancel anyway. In order for that to work, the companies would need riders to tell them ahead of time that they use a service animal. That was the origin of Self-ID.
As many of you know, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations permit rideshare companies and drivers to ask two questions of a person using a service animal: Do you require use of a service animal because of a disability, and what service is your service animal trained to perform? The regulations indicate that those questions should not be asked if the answers are readily apparent, like when it’s a guide dog guiding a blind person, but in reality many people do not recognize blind people and guide dogs. As previously mentioned, the National Federation of the Blind demanded more and better training of drivers to hopefully increase our recognition. However, we are not confident that any amount of training will solve the general problem that blindness and guide-dog use are apparently not obvious, as many of us know from being frequently told that we “don’t look blind.” In effect, Self-ID offers an option for riders to answer questions in advance that the rideshare companies and their drivers are already permitted to ask service animal users whenever we use their services.
The ADA regulations also permit rideshare companies to offer a program that is specific to riders with disabilities, such as Self-ID. However, those regulations also prohibit the companies from requiring riders with disabilities to use that program rather than the programs provided for the general public and also prohibit them from discriminating against riders with disabilities who choose not to use such a program. In short, riders have the right not to identify themselves as service animal users before pickup and must not suffer different treatment if they enjoy that right. That is why the National Federation of the Blind insisted that use of Self-ID must be voluntary, that rideshare companies treat all service animal denial reports and investigations with the same urgency, and that they continue to educate drivers on the policies and laws requiring them to transport service animal users whether they choose to use Self-ID or not. The rideshare companies understood and agreed.
While Self-ID was an NFB proposal, we did not advocate for it in a vacuum. We worked with other service animal advocacy and training organizations, as well as our members, to ensure that community concerns were addressed. When rideshare companies suggested or piloted Self-ID features that could negatively impact our rights, or offered us little apparent benefit, we pushed back both privately and publicly and again worked with members and other organizations to amplify our message.
As to how the Self-ID programs work, only Uber has released its program to the public. This article will not discuss Lyft’s program because it is still in a limited pilot and is subject to change.
Uber’s Self-ID features are keyed to the rider card that appears on drivers’ screens as they are approaching a rider’s pickup location. Self-ID riders can choose whether or not their use of a service animal appears on that card along with a reminder that drivers must transport service animals. In either case, if a driver attempts to cancel the ride after that card appears, they will be interrupted by a popup reminding them that Uber policy and the law require them to transport service animals, and that they may be removed from the Uber platform if they cancel the ride. If a driver cancels the ride anyway, the rider is paired with a new driver and receives both an app notification and an email with the following message: “Hi, We noticed that your driver canceled your ride with your service animal. We would like to better understand what happened to offer you additional support. Would you like us to investigate further?” If the rider taps the notification or emailed link, they can reply as desired and provide any additional details in a support message. If the rider replies that they want Uber to investigate, Uber will investigate the denial in the same manner and with the same urgency as if the rider had reported a service animal denial using the phone hotline or Uber’s denial-reporting form. Uber will continue to take reports of denials through those phone and web/app reporting mechanisms for riders who prefer to use them, including riders who do not use Self-ID.
The National Federation of the Blind proposed Self-ID because we believe that it will benefit guide dog and other service animal users. As explained above, it reduces the cognitive and temporal burden of messaging drivers and reporting denials. As a result, denials are more likely to be reported, are more likely to be supported by evidence that the driver knew a dog was a service animal and are more likely to result in driver deactivations. This not only benefits Self-ID users but also benefits other service animal users by reducing the number of denying drivers and by conveying to drivers generally that Uber is serious about eliminating discrimination.
Self-ID will also help quantify service animal denials. In the past, rideshare companies were not able to compare the cancellation rate for service animal users to the cancellation rate for others because they did not know how many times service animal users were transported without being denied. By having this data, rideshare companies may be able to identify specific locales or populations suffering disproportionate denials, and test the effectiveness of different solutions.
The National Federation of the Blind will monitor the rollout of Self-ID and our members’ impressions of the feature. We will continue advocating for improvements both to Self-ID and to rideshare experiences generally for guide dog users. We have already identified areas for improvement, such as an option to identify our use of a service animal immediately after a driver accepts a ride, and changes to simplify the process for telling Uber to begin an investigation. We are also providing feedback to Lyft to ensure that its Self-ID feature offers the maximum benefit to guide dog users.
If you want to use Uber’s Self-ID feature, Uber has the following information on its website:
Uber’s Self-ID feature allows riders to notify drivers in-app when a service animal may be present during a trip. Riders can choose when to disclose to the driver that they are traveling with a service animal:
No disclosure: Drivers won’t see any service animal indication in the rider’s profile.
Disclosure at pickup: Drivers will be notified upon arrival at the pickup location.
To access the eligibility form, go to Account > Settings > Accessibility in your app profile settings.“What if I was never blind? In April 2013 I received a diagnosis of Stargardt Disease. I often felt adrift, uncertain of how to chart a course towards a fulfilling life. At that time, I was employed at McDonald's and had temporarily paused my undergraduate studies. If I hadn't received that diagnosis, my life might have followed a completely different trajectory. I would have continued working at McDonald's, feeling stuck and uncertain about my future, but without the guidance and support that I found through the National Federation of the Blind, I might have struggled to navigate the challenges of vision loss. Instead, that diagnosis became a turning point for me by forcing me to confront my circumstances and seek out resources and communities that could help me thrive despite my blindness. The NFB helped me realize that my vision loss didn't have to define me or limit my aspirations. By believing in my abilities, by entrusting me with leadership positions, and through intensive mentorship, the Federation changed my life. My community helped me excel beyond where I would be if I were sighted.
Mentorship is what has brought me to this point in life thus far. Without my mentors I am not sure where I would be right now. I just hope I can pay it forward someday.” - Dustin
Blind children and adults are making powerful strides to live the lives we want every day across the United States, but we need to continue helping blind people like Dustin. For more than eighty years, the National Federation of the Blind has worked to transform the dreams of hundreds of thousands of blind people into reality. With support from individuals like you, we can continue to provide powerful programs and critical resources now and for decades to come. We hope you will plan to be a part of our enduring movement by including the National Federation of the Blind in your charitable giving and in your estate planning. It is easier than you think.
With your help, the NFB will continue to:
Below are just a few of the many tax-deductible ways you can show your support of the National Federation of the Blind.
By visiting the menu, choosing Donate, and selecting the National Federation of the Blind, you commit to giving to the National Federation of the Blind with each ride.
We accept donated vehicles, including cars, trucks, boats, motorcycles, or recreational vehicles. Just call 855-659-9314 toll-free, and a representative can make arrangements to pick up your donation. We can also answer any questions you have.
General donations help support the ongoing programs of the NFB and the work to help blind people live the lives they want. You can call 410-659-9314, extension 2430, to give by phone. Give online with a credit card or through the mail with check or money order. Visit our online contribution page at: https://nfb.org/donate.
Through the Pre-Authorized Contribution (PAC) program, supporters sustain the efforts of the National Federation of the Blind by making recurring monthly donations by direct withdrawal of funds from a checking account or a charge to a credit card. To enroll, call 877-NFB-2PAC, or fill out our PAC Donation Form https://www.nfb.org/pac.
The National Federation of the Blind legacy society, our Dream Makers Circle, honors and recognizes the generosity and imagination of members and special friends who have chosen to leave a legacy through a will or other planned giving option. You can join the Dream Makers Circle in a myriad of ways.
You can specify that a percentage or a fixed sum of your assets or property goes to the National Federation of the Blind in your will, trust, pension, IRA, life insurance policy, brokerage account, or other accounts.
You can name the National Federation of the Blind as the beneficiary on a Payable on Death (POD) account through your bank. You can turn any checking or savings account into a POD account. This is one of the simplest ways to leave a legacy. The account is totally in your control during your lifetime and you can change the beneficiary or percentage at any time with ease.
If you do decide to create or revise your will, consider the National Federation of the Blind as a partial beneficiary.
Visit our Planned Giving webpage (https://www.nfb.org/get-involved/ways-give/planned-giving) or call 410-659-9314, extension 2422, for more information.
Just imagine what we will do this year and, with your help, what can be accomplished for years to come. Together with love, hope, determination, and your support, we will continue to transform dreams into reality.
by Gary Wunder
From the Editor: I hardly need to introduce Gary Wunder to Monitor readers, except perhaps to provide the context that among many other things he is a longtime leader in the NFB of Missouri. Here he pays loving tribute to another longtime leader of that affiliate:
Tom Stevens died on Saturday, January 18, 2025, at the age of ninety-two. He was a Federationist since the mid-1970s. When I moved from Columbia to Warrensburg to finish my degree, I got Tom to come to his first meeting. At that meeting or the one just after, he was elected as our Columbia Chapter president.
Tom was not unaccustomed to being a part of leadership, having been a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army. He was, however, surprised to be elected, but he learned a lot about the organization quickly and was not at all passive. He led by example and set a pace that would challenge any of us. He soon came to be a part of the State Board of Directors. At his first board meeting, he heard the body talk about closing down its longtime newsletter, the Blind Missourian, and he immediately volunteered to edit it. When he was told the problem wasn't just the editing but that there was no funding, he said, "Well, if I'm going to have something to edit, I guess I'll just have to fund it too.” This was one of the many out-of-pocket sacrifices he made because the affiliate simply had little in the way of money to address our tremendous desire to be active and to have programs.
Tom became the state president in 1977 and served one term, which lasted until 1979. During his tenure, Missouri saw the passage of the Model White Cane Law, the Fraudulent Portrayal of Blindness Act, and a regulation from Missouri's insurance commissioner making it illegal to charge people more for insurance based on blindness alone. When we sometimes decry the length of time to get a bill passed, we should keep in mind that our White Cane bill passed on its eighth introduction.
For all of our work, Tom concluded that we were virtually invisible to the executive leadership of the state. He reasoned that if our governor was going to give a state-of-the-state report, we should do a state-of-the-state on the affairs of the blind, and we did. Whether the governor read that report or not I do not know, but I know that both times that we produced it, he acknowledged its receipt with appreciation and made sure we got invited to some of his press conferences.
For several years, Tom was the director of the Missouri Bureau for the Blind, which is now called Rehabilitation Services for the Blind. To my knowledge he was the first blind person ever to head the agency, and only one agency head since has been blind. During his tenure, the employment of blind people in the agency went up, and those who acted as though they were royalty and blind people subservient subjects were removed. This was no small accomplishment in state government.
After his service at the Bureau, Tom was very involved in what we used to call the Associates Program to raise funds for our national treasury. This meant asking for donations and making people associate members of our organization. It also meant creating a newsletter called The Associate Raiser to encourage recruitment. The newsletter was available in print and on tape. Again, it was financed by Tom and was typed and put on tape by his incredible wife and Federationist, Helen. One of the things that made Tom very sad was that he concluded blind people were reluctant to ask others who were not blind to make donations. He could never figure out whether this was a reaction to being thought of as blind beggars or whether we simply did not spend enough time on the mechanics of fundraising, though all of us knew we needed the money for our programs. These issues remain with us today.
Tom has been active in almost everything we have done. He has actively supported the work we have pursued in our state capitol and in Washington, DC. He did this long before we could afford to send anyone to what we then called the March on Jefferson City and the March on Washington. The harsh truth was that there was not enough funding in our treasury to carry on programs unless people who were elected to positions were willing to make significant financial contributions. Today, calling across the state or country is part of a flat monthly bill, but when Tom was in elective office, calling long-distance was expensive. There was no email, so sharing an important document meant typing it, taking it to a store that made copies, collating, folding, and putting the document into an envelope which then needed to be addressed, stamped, and often delivered to a postal box. Since Tom believed that lack of communication too often translated into the perception that we were doing nothing, communicate he did, again at significant cost in time and his own money.
When the National Federation of the Blind helped in the development of the Kurzweil Reading Machine and we decided that Columbia, Missouri, was the right place to have one, Tom hired a man who had a track record as a fundraiser. Since there was little to no funding in the treasury, Tom not only accepted the responsibility for hiring him but also for paying him. Initially our thought was that we would get back the money we paid when donations started to flow in. It was our good fortune that the buzz we created about the machine was so successful that the Ellis Library Alumni Fund purchased one, and the library agreed to house it. Grateful doesn’t begin to cover the emotion we felt, but what about the month the fundraiser spent and the costs for his hotel, meals, travel, and other expenses? We had no money to reimburse our generous Federationist, but Tom’s laughing response was, “Oh well, that’s the way it goes sometimes. We have our reading machine.”
No tribute to Tom would be complete without acknowledging the significant work of his wife Helen. For a long time Helen has been very active, though at first her visible activity was fairly limited by the raising of their children and making sure that Tom had the time and energy to be actively involved. She drove countless hours. She acted not only as Tom’s reader, but she read many other things on tape that Tom sent to us. His financial sacrifices were also her sacrifices, and to both we offer our undying gratitude.
From the Editor: The following originally appeared on the Voice of the Nation’s Blind, the blog of the National Federation of the Blind, on January 24, 2025. We believe that it contains news many Facebook users will be glad to know. Here is the post:
The National Federation of the Blind recognizes that accessible technology is crucial for blind individuals to live the lives we want. Accessibility barriers are preventable and unacceptable, hindering our full participation in society.
Therefore, we actively collaborate with technology companies to enhance the accessibility of their products. Our contributions have significantly improved, and will continue to improve, the tools used by blind people. In October 2024, we initiated discussions with Meta regarding accessibility regressions on Facebook. The most critical concern was the deprecation of the MBasic Facebook site.
Although this version was originally designed for mobile devices with limited capabilities, its simple, text-based layout made it a viable alternative to the increasingly inaccessible Facebook desktop site for blind screen reader users.
The MBasic site was discontinued for security reasons, and it seems Meta may not have fully understood the extent to which blind users depended on it. We are committed to collaborating with Meta to ensure the main Facebook site becomes fully accessible to screen reader users. We are encouraged by Meta’s willingness to work towards this goal.
However, there is an urgent need to restore Facebook accessibility for those who access the platform solely through desktop or laptop computers. The absence of accessible options, particularly during the holiday season, has been frustrating and isolating for many.
Thanks to the advocacy efforts of the National Federation of the Blind, Meta has introduced a URL that forces the current mobile Facebook experience to work on modern desktop/laptop browsers. Effective immediately, you can visit this URL: https://www.facebook.com/?force_mobile=1.
We recommend bookmarking this URL in your browser for a simpler, text-based Facebook experience. While we appreciate Meta's response to our advocacy and the introduction of this workaround, we offer the following caveats:
If you have any feedback on the functionality of this work-around, please send it to Jonathan Mosen, the NFB’s executive director for Accessibility Excellence, [email protected].
Members have also provided us with feedback about regressions in Facebook for iOS. The most impactful bug related to difficulty composing posts because what users typed in the composer was not being seen by VoiceOver. We have assisted Meta to identify this issue, and we know Facebook users will be pleased that a fix is rolling out for this.
Finally in this round of fixes, Facebook has already rolled out an efficiency improvement to the timeline. Facebook made a change in the last year which meant that a user’s profile picture was seen as its own element by VoiceOver. This meant that each post required two swipes when navigating. This has now been restored to the previous, more efficient behavior.
There is more to do, and we would have preferred that the deprecation of the MBasic site had not resulted in such prolonged inconvenience for many blind people. Nevertheless, Meta has been receptive to our concerns and worked with us in good faith. Our partnership with Meta is stronger as a result, and we are continuing to dialog with them on a range of issues, including improvements to the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.
If you have concerns you wish to report about any technology you are using, we encourage you to make your own constructive approaches with the assistance of our Self-advocacy Toolkit (https://nfb.org/programs-services/center-excellence-nonvisual-accessibility/self-advocacy-toolkit-and-tracking-form).
You can also alert us to issues you are having, by completing our Inaccessibility Tracker form (https://nfb.org/programs-services/center-excellence-nonvisual-access/inaccessibility-tracker-form).
We look forward to ongoing dialog with Meta that makes further needed accessibility improvements.by Kaili Kameoka
From the Editor: Kaili Kameoka is a member of the Honolulu Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind of Hawaii and the founder of Adaptive Learning for the Blind. In the true spirit of Federationism, she seeks to work with other blind people to solve the challenges they face in pursuing STEAM careers. Here is her story and her request to our readers:
From the moment I first picked up a video game controller, I was captivated—not just by the gameplay but by the intricate systems behind it. I found myself wondering: how are these games created? That question sparked a curiosity that ultimately led me to coding. At the age of fifteen, I began teaching myself how to build simple websites using online documentation. However, I quickly realized that wading through dense technical manuals was both time-consuming and tedious. Then I discovered YouTube tutorials, where coding projects were brought to life in a way that was far more engaging.
Yet, as a blind individual, navigating these resources presented significant challenges. Many tutorials depended heavily on visual cues, making it difficult to follow what was happening onscreen. Despite these obstacles, I was determined to succeed. Through persistence and problem-solving, I gradually mastered the basics of coding.
This commitment to learning followed me through my academic journey, where I pursued an associate’s degree in computer science and later a bachelor’s degree in creative media. Many of my creative media courses relied heavily on video instruction, and professors often supplemented their lessons with tutorials from YouTube. These resources, while valuable for sighted students, often left me facing the same challenges I encountered in high school. Tutorials that were meant to be quick guides frequently took me hours to process, as I worked to interpret every click, drag, or typed instruction. These experiences taught me to think critically and adapt, strengthening the skills I would later use in my career.
When I joined the National Federation of the Blind of Hawaii, I had the privilege of attending a seminar at the NFB Jernigan Institute, where I was trained to manage the NFB’s unified affiliate website system. This initiative aims to create a consistent and accessible web presence for state affiliates. Most of the attendees were not professional developers but individuals nominated by their state affiliates to represent them in this important work.
The training was led by Rachel Olivero, whose expertise and dedication left a profound impact on me. Rachel, who was blind, was not only teaching us how to use the system but had played a key role in its development. She demonstrated that blind individuals could lead in technology. Her example affirmed my belief that the skills I was learning could empower not only me, but our entire community.
This realization has shaped my vision for Adaptive Learning for the Blind. While certain tasks in creative media, such as graphic design, may present unique challenges for blind individuals, many other skills in technology and creative media are well within our reach. Whether it is software engineering, IT, cybersecurity, or social media content planning, the opportunities are vast. Even in creative media, roles such as scriptwriting, project planning, and strategic development are highly accessible with the right tools and training.
Adaptive Learning for the Blind is my response to these opportunities. My goal is to create accessible online courses that empower blind individuals to thrive in technology and creative media. These courses will be designed to address the specific needs of blind learners, making subjects such as software engineering, IT, video production, and game design not only accessible but engaging and inclusive.
However, this effort is not something I can accomplish alone. To ensure these courses truly meet the needs of our community, I need your input. What topics are you passionate about? What skills do you wish to develop? What tools and methods work best for you? Your feedback is essential to creating resources that reflect the aspirations and diverse needs of blind individuals everywhere.
I invite you to complete my survey and share your thoughts. The survey link is:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfBYhNex-Qk68U_SqdHoa-nw591PMm8Gs2EssGbeR55woxllQ/viewform. Together, we can build a future where blind individuals not only participate in technology and creative media but lead in these fields. Let us demonstrate, as Rachel did, that there are no limits to what we can achieve when we have the right opportunities and support.
by LaShawna Fant
From the Editor: Dr. Fant, our Mississippi affiliate president, has contributed to these pages several times, usually to introduce us to someone that we should come to know. In this brief article, she reflects on how the promise of renewal that comes in spring can help us to renew our hearts, reorganize our minds, and recommit to our movement. Here are her thoughts:
Spring is a season that hatches and hops forward in the last part of March. During this season, people spring-clean by decluttering and organizing items in their homes and spaces. Without fail, many time zones move their clocks forward, which provides more time to enjoy the sunlight in the evening. Hedgehogs and chipmunks even emerge and play after hibernating through the winter. Some flowers sprout, like honeysuckle, lavender, gardenias, and yellow daffodils, displaying their floral patterns across Earth ’s landscape. Buzzing bees become active and attracted to the sweet nectar found in flowers. The cheerful chirps of birds resound as they return and sing. During this season, as life awakens and leaps towards warmer weather, it is fruitful for us to view various areas of our lives to ensure we are springing forward successfully. I hope you find it helpful to examine the list of areas below to escort you in blossoming in the next three quarters of this year:
Determination is defined as firmness of purpose. In our movement, determination is instrumental in staying grounded and maintaining focus.
Integrity encompasses being upright in character and actions. Outfitting ourselves with integrity aids in always doing what is right no matter who is watching us.
Dedication is planted in our commitment to a task or purpose. Some link the words zeal, single-mindedness, and wholeheartedness to this trait. When considering the transformative work that our organization is achieving, it is highly supportive to remain dedicated to our mission.
The term organization can be neatly placed in compartments labeled for planning, preparing, arranging, putting in order, and sorting through. These systematic actions will assist us in strolling into this season with tidy ambitions and goals.
Love is expressed by delighting in and having affection for something. Possessing a love for our membership, the work we are doing to assist blind people, and enjoying and having a strong fondness for our cause provides light to the path of many.
Hope is an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes. This desire is critical in helping us keep our heads high while looking forward to more equitable and brighter opportunities for blind individuals.
The word together entails us being in close association and united in goals. As we spring forward successfully, it is profitable to remain of one accord as we traverse into our local neighborhoods and advance the lives of our members and all blind people in the United States.by Rose Warner
From the Editor: As this issue of the Braille Monitor goes to press, pitchers and catchers are preparing to report for spring training. Although it seems like the last one only just ended, a new baseball season is upon us, and this prospect fills many of us with nothing less than joy. One of these joyful fans is Rose Warner, who is well on her way to visiting every major league ballpark in our great nation and has one of the best kinds of baseball souvenirs from three of them. Some wrongly believe that, for blind people, baseball cannot be an interesting pastime, and the idea of any of us going after foul balls that fly into the stands may strike some as ridiculous or even dangerous. But armed with our radio headsets, monoculars, and other aids, many of us do enjoy the game, and we are working to educate Major League Baseball and other sports leagues on how they can make the experience even more accessible, and thus more magical, for us. And there’s no reason we shouldn’t be willing to take the same risks, for the potential of receiving the same rewards, as other fans. Here’s Rose’s story of snagging souvenir balls without so much as a scratch:
My husband Kyle and I are on a quest to visit all thirty MLB ballparks. During our quest, we have received a few free souvenirs along the way.
Back on August 21, 2015, before we officially began our quest, we visited Kyle’s family in Denver, Colorado. While there, we attended a Rockies night game at Coors Field. Kyle’s parents treated us to nice seats in the front row of the upper deck along the first base line. Very early in the game, Yoenis Céspedes, a New York Mets outfielder, came up to bat with the bases loaded. He took the count deep, and before I knew it I heard the crack of the bat. Although I didn’t see it, the ball was coming our way. It was going straight for the people sitting behind me, who at that very moment were returning from the concession stand double-fisting beverages. They had no chance. They missed the ball, and it ended up bouncing on the rail in front of me and right under the seat next to me. I got it! After the excitement, we looked up and the bases were empty. Had the inning ended? No. Céspedes had hit a grand slam. We didn’t even notice!
My next “foul ball” didn’t come until August 12, 2023, when Kyle and I went to see our Baltimore Orioles play in Seattle, making T-Mobile Park our twenty-fourth ballpark. We splurged on nice seats, a few rows behind the visiting Os’ dugout. It happened to be a sold-out game that night, and there were not many Os fans at all. By using my monocular, I noticed that after the end of the inning, the first base coach for the Os had the ball. I stood up and tried to make eye contact to express interest in the ball. To my surprise, he threw it to the empty seat right next to me! It was mine.
On Sept. 25, 2024, I attended a Washington Nationals game against the Kansas City Royals with some of my coworkers. One happened to use a walker, so we had accessible seats behind home plate—prime foul ball territory. One of my sighted colleagues said to me and my blind colleague, “If I say duck, I mean it!” In the fourth inning or so, I went to get a hot dog. When I came back, my coworker said, “Hey Rose, can I borrow your cane?” I thought that was a pretty odd request, but trusting my colleague, I said, “Sure!” She was hanging out behind our seats with two big guys. The next thing I know, they have my cane sticking straight up in the air poking around an inaccessible area above our heads that has gates so that pigeons and other birds can’t get in there. Lo and behold, with the assistance of my cane, a baseball that had been fouled off earlier came out! My coworker insisted it was hers, and she promptly gave it to me! The perfect souvenir to an otherwise forgettable Nationals loss, 0-3.
As of writing this article, Kyle and I have made it to twenty-eight ballparks. Just Atlanta and San Diego remain. We hope to finish this year. Who knows what souvenirs may be in our future!by Karen Anderson
From the Editor: Karen Anderson is Education Programs Coordinator on our national staff, so she knows a thing or two about the impact of our BELL Academies and our other education programs. In this article, she talks about an aspect of that impact that she feels is not considered often enough. Here is what she says:
As a kid, I knew summer as a time to be, well, a little bit lazy. I could sleep in, play outside in the sprinkler or on my swing set, and eat peanut butter sandwiches for lunch in my clubhouse above our back yard. As a college student, I understood summers to be a time for taking a break between semesters, or, if I was really motivated, for taking an accelerated class to get ahead and maybe graduate that much sooner. Instead I, and so many other Federationists, chose a different path, and volunteered for summer youth programs including our NFB BELL® Academy.
When we think about NFB BELL, we often think about the incredible impact it has on blind kids and their families. This will be the eighteenth summer that BELLs will be ringing across the country, and every year we have families tell us how much growth they see in their child over the two weeks of the program. What is less talked about is the effect that NFB BELL has had on the blind mentors who volunteer.
One NFB BELL volunteer told me that she didn’t know if she could really be a teacher. She enjoyed being with young kids, but she wasn’t entirely confident in her own skills to teach or to safely and effectively monitor kids nonvisually. Because of time she spent in one of our NFB BELL Academies, working with other confident blind adults, she learned how to monitor where kids were and what they were doing not only at the usual NFB BELL location but also on field trips out in the community. This newfound confidence led her to work with blind students as a paraprofessional.
Another one of our mentors talked about the joy she has found in helping students and families break down misconceptions about Braille. As someone who was considered low-vision in school, she didn’t have the opportunity to learn Braille when she was young, and, when she did learn Braille in high school, she was told that Braille would always be slow and difficult for her. Working with young students on learning the code has motivated her to practice her own Braille skills. She has had Braille races with BELL students, and she celebrates when they beat her even as it encourages her to work just a little harder herself.
There is also a huge amount of power in the fact that NFB BELL is a program led by blind people. I have the pleasure of traveling to different NFB BELL Academies across the country, and it is truly a pleasure to watch our blind coordinators and mentors taking the lead, even when well-meaning sighted people may want to step in and manage things. Blind leaders are in the kitchen, cooking meals for students and volunteers. They are cleaning up after various activities, because kids can sometimes be just a little bit messy. They are creating and leading lessons, and sometimes making mistakes in front of students, which helps the NFB BELL participants understand that making mistakes is okay. Of course, the blind students see the blind mentors in charge and start exploring more themselves, but our blind mentors also get a boost of confidence from taking the responsibility and seeing the impact their leadership has on others around them.
Finally, people volunteer for NFB BELL because it’s fun! Our volunteers have opportunities to experience things that they might not have gotten to do when they were kids themselves. One NFB BELL Academy last year had a fire truck, police car, and ambulance come visit their academy so kids could check out each vehicle. By encouraging students to explore, volunteers got to experience each of the exhibits themselves. NFB BELL Academies have gone to zoos, science museums, farms, ice cream shops, and to explore ships. All of these experiences were led by blind adults who had as much fun as the students.
All of the NFB BELL volunteers I have worked with over the years have said that they spend their time at BELL because they want to make sure the next generation of blind kids has more opportunities than they had. They take time off work, or travel to a different city or even a different state, because they see the change NFB BELL makes for students. What they don’t expect, and what isn’t talked about, is the change that happens in the mentors. At the end of two weeks our blind mentors are walking just a little more confidently themselves and celebrating at the BELL graduation as hard as any of the families because they see the way they have raised expectations for the next generation. In my opinion, that’s worth trading a lazy summer for any day.by Cole Carper
From the Editor: If you are one of the hundreds of blind students composing your essay to complete your National Federation of the Blind scholarship application, the following might help you to know what kinds of experiences the Scholarship Committee would like to hear about. Its author, Cole Carper, is a successful scholarship applicant. Other readers may find this young man’s story edifying as well, since he shares how he has excelled in areas often thought to be unavailable to blind people, particularly athletic pursuits. Here is Cole Carper’s story as told on his scholarship application and originally published as part of the December 2024 Imagineering Our Future email newsletter sent to members and supporters:
While most people think of being blind as some kind of tragedy, I don’t always see it that way. My name is Cole Carper, and I have been legally blind since birth. I attended Arkansas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired until third grade, when I transferred to public school. After I learned basic skills, my parents felt it was best that I attend a traditional school that represented the real world. I now know this was the right move for me.
I’ve always been involved in activities that interest me, such as mountain biking, snow and waterskiing, competitive swimming, cross-country, and track. I’ve found that people, if allowed, will limit me more than my blindness justifies. Pushing the limit is often met with surprise or questions about how I can do these activities. Sighted people will handicap me if I let them.
Early on, my family worked hard to find a sport in which my sister, also blind, and I could compete and excel with sighted peers. After discovering that ball sports were not my strong suit, I tried martial arts and eventually found my home in the pool.
I started swimming in sixth grade. Then, swimming a single lap of the pool seemed a daunting task. From that point on, I started swimming almost daily to improve my ability. Through hard work and diligent practice, I have qualified for the state championship meet in all four years of high school. I am now best at the fifty-yard freestyle and the five-hundred-yard freestyle, the shortest and longest races in my high school league. I swim because I enjoy the competition but also because it allows me to educate people about the abilities of blind individuals. People are surprised to see the blind guy touch the wall before those who can see it.
This year I have grown my leadership skills as captain of my high school swimming team. While the team has been relatively small in the past, it has doubled in size through my constant recruiting efforts. As captain, I also worked to ensure students did not miss their races, helped coordinate transportation, and worked with inexperienced swimmers on technique. I believe my abilities as a blind swimmer and leader motivated my teammates.
I have been a committed member of my church youth group since sixth grade. This program has allowed me to serve on many mission trips: two to Kentucky, one to Guatemala, and many around Arkansas. On these trips, I learned how to use drills and other power tools to build and repair houses, roofs, and wheelchair ramps. In Guatemala, our team built an entire house from the concrete foundation to the electrical wiring. In Harlan, Kentucky, my group installed a tin roof for a family in need. I was able to work on the roof safely, which somewhat concerned my mom upon my return. For some tasks, like hammering and measuring, I had to adapt the standard method, and they took me slightly longer to complete—but complete them I did.
I have been on the church youth group leadership team for five years and am currently the president. The team’s purpose is to plan events, fundraisers, and volunteer opportunities for students. As president, I’ve collected information from members for trip planning and decision-making. I’ve also created announcements for events and recruited students for service projects.
These interactions with sighted people have helped me educate others about what it means to be legally blind. People are constantly surprised that I can cook, do handiwork, and even do my schoolwork without assistance. Their surprise is surprising to me because these skills, or adaptations, have always seemed natural to me.
Through my activities and experiences, I’ve learned the importance of self-advocacy and independence. My vision to become a successful aerospace engineer is not limited by my limited vision. I know that I have to work hard and be well-educated to achieve this goal, which is why I am submitting this scholarship application.
Thank you for considering my application for this award.
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.
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The Blind Birder Bird-a-Thon is a twenty-four-hour birding event designed for participation by birders who are legally blind. This inaugural event encourages participants to identify as many bird species as possible by sound (or sight as able), celebrating accessibility and the joy of birding.
Who: Any legally blind individual in the United States of any age and any level of experience is welcome to participate.
When: Sunday, May 18, 2025
From 12:01 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. (local time)
Where: Anywhere you bird! Participants can bird solo, with a team, or alongside a sighted assistant. Backyard birding, traveling teams, an outing on a trail, and more are all welcome!
Why: To foster community, increase participation in birding for people who are legally blind, and embrace birding by ear—a skill that often makes legally blind birders exceptionally adept.
No experience necessary! Whether you're an experienced birder or new to birding, this event is for you.
Highlights:
How to Join:
Registration is free! Visit our website at https://www.birdability.org/blind-birder-birdathon to sign up and receive updates. More details, including the registration link, will be available soon.
For questions, contact Martha Steele at [email protected].
Save the date and get ready to tune into nature this spring!
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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