Jim Marks, a leader in the National Federation of the Blind for over thirty years before his election to the National Board of Directors in 2024, likened blind people to grizzly bears when accepting that honor from his Federation family: neither can see too well, he noted, but it does not matter, as both go where they wish to at will.
Those who know Jim understand that he is also as fierce as the grizzlies are reputed to be when it comes to advocating for the rights of blind and disabled people in his home state of Montana and beyond, even as he also presents a warm and gentle demeanor. Raised with the expectation of and commitment to being someone who can be counted on, the “guy who you want at your back,” as he puts it, Jim has repeatedly demonstrated this quality, while also establishing himself as a deep thinker about the rehabilitation field and the organized blind movement.
Jim Marks was born in Long Beach, California, in a naval hospital, as his father was stationed aboard a heavy cruiser, the USS Roanoke. After his father was discharged, the family returned to their ancestral home and ranch in Montana, not far from Helena. Jim was the first of nine children of Donald and Joanne Marks, and consequently grew up with a strong sense of responsibility and leadership that served him well in his family and beyond. He has six brothers and two sisters, making his family “a full basketball team with cheerleaders and substitutes,” he laughs. As the oldest, one of his roles was to “make sure everyone had a fair chance at things.”
At the age of eighteen, he became aware of problems with his eyesight. He remembers a nighttime drive during which one of his sisters commented that he had come precariously close to colliding with some horses crossing the highway, which he had not seen at all. His official diagnosis would not come, however, until the age of twenty-five, when he learned that a recessive form of retinitis pigmentosa was the cause.
A brother and sister also have it. In the meantime, Jim worked for a year after graduation as a cowboy for a cattle and sheep rancher. Although he loves the outdoors, along with its wildlife and activities (he has since volunteered as a hunting safety instructor, among other things), he decided that herding cattle and sheep up and down mountainsides in all weather was not what he wanted for a full-time career.
Jim began his studies at the University of Montana intending to pursue a career in journalism, but his eyesight continued to deteriorate, and he eventually concluded, wrongly he now realizes, that journalism was not a realistic career path. (He has since written for The Missoulian, as well as for the Braille Monitor and other Federation publications.) Instead, he pursued degrees in history, philosophy, and ultimately elementary education. While he was volunteering as a teacher’s aide in order to demonstrate that his blindness did not affect his classroom skills, he learned that the school superintendent had commented to his supervising teacher, “I would like to hire Jim, but he is too expensive.”
Jim understood this to mean that the official thought he would cost the school money to accommodate his blindness, and he responded to this discrimination by filing a grievance with the Montana Human Rights Commission that took five years to resolve. Years later, Jim would help to battle the same official on behalf of a blind student, Cody Greiser, and to chronicle Cody’s story in the Braille Monitor.
With his teaching career derailed, as he saw it, Jim took a job with a center for independent living. He still respects the independent living movement, while contrasting it with our own by noting its tendency to focus on adapting the environment to people with disabilities rather than helping them to acquire skills to make their own adjustments. Individual success, he believes, usually involves blending both approaches.
In 1988, Jim became the director of the Disabled Student Services office at the University of Montana. He reflects that at the time he took the university job, there were perhaps 125 students with disabilities at the institution. He further observes that many offices like the one he ran are primarily intended to protect the school from discrimination lawsuits. Jim was instead determined to make systemic change, and he did so strategically throughout the twenty-one years he held the position.
His secret weapon, he says, was the organization of disabled students that he helped to start. By encouraging the collective action of this group and actively collaborating with it, Jim was able to advance the rights of students with disabilities to the point where the University of Montana is now considered one of the most disability-friendly campuses in the country. Jim had learned the power of collective action and the focus on self-determination and independence from the Federation, and he used it to the advantage of his University of Montana students.
Jim’s outstanding work on behalf of students with disabilities led to his hiring as director of the state’s vocational rehabilitation agency in 2010. He had a mandate from his supervisor under the administration of then-Governor Brian Schweitzer to shake things up at the agency, and he proceeded to do so to the best of his considerable ability. His goal was getting rehabilitation counselors to focus less on how much money they should and shouldn’t spend and more on meeting the needs of their clients. He wrote about his work, and his perspectives on vocational rehabilitation and the power of collaborating with the Federation, in the May 2019 issue of the Braille Monitor.
Jim was able to make significant changes in the Montana VR program, but in 2017 a new, more budget-focused administration came into power, and he was a casualty of this political shift. Although he considered continuing his rehabilitation work in other states, he ultimately decided to stay rooted in Montana to be in the place and near the family he loved and took a job as program director with the Area IV Agency on Aging of the Rocky Mountain Development Council. Although this work is not specifically focused on blindness, Jim finds that Federation philosophy serves him well here, too. “There is a real need for older people to assert their self-determination and humanity,” he observes, and so he works to help his clients do just that.
By the mid to late 1980s, Jim had encountered the National Federation of the Blind and gotten involved in the state affiliate, then known as the Montana Association for the Blind. He did not attend a national convention, however, until 1993. At that time, Recordings for the Blind (now Learning Ally) was testing a new electronic book reader, and Jim was hired to exhibit it. Then as now, the general sessions of the convention did not conflict with exhibit hall hours, so Jim’s natural curiosity and desire to grow in the movement found him in the Montana delegation.
He particularly remembers Dr. Kenneth Jernigan giving his now-classic address “The Nature of Independence.” For Jim, this confirmed that the National Federation of the Blind was where he belonged as a blind man and an advocate. He held various roles in the Montana Association for the Blind over the years, including on its board of directors, and also served on the National Scholarship Committee, as he still does today. In 2012, the affiliate reorganized to become the National Federation of the Blind of Montana, and Jim was elected as its president a few years later.
Jim, who now lives and works in Helena with his wife Kathy, is thrilled with both his old and new roles in the Federation. “There have been a lot of changes over the years,” he observes, “but I am liking the direction a lot. I appreciate the movement’s increasing diversity of people and perspectives. My own goal is to be a reliable partner as we continue to move forward.” Jim also plans to continue working for the foreseeable future, even as he enjoys time with his family, including four adult children and eight grandchildren.
“I am not ready to rest yet,” he says. “I enjoy being able to say that I have made some difference in the world at the end of each day, and so I plan to continue doing it until I can’t.” Jim recognizes that he is perceived as a quiet man, joking that this comes from a cowboy ethos emphasizing that one should “never miss an opportunity to shut up.”
More seriously, he strives to be a person of substance who does not speak unless he has a real contribution to make. The National Federation of the Blind is fortunate that we will continue to benefit from Jim’s quiet strength, thoughtful writing and speech, and tireless determination to improve the lives of blind people.