Speaker 1:
The following message is brought to you by Mark Riccobono, president, National Federation of the Blind. Live the life you want.
Mark Riccobono: Greetings, fellow Federationists. Today is Tuesday, February 25th, 2025, and this is presidential release number 547 for the month of March, and I'm really excited that earlier in February, at our Great Gathering-In meeting, we announced the launch of the National Federation of the Blind Radio Network, where the Federation is always on.
You can access the NFB Radio Network by using your Amazon device, asking for the Nation's Blind skill. You can also find the NFB Radio Network on your favorite radio station internet application. You can find it on the Victor Reader Stream, HumanWare favorites list on the internet radio side. You can also find other information on our website about the NFB Radio network.
I encourage you to submit your ideas about what you'd like to have there. When we have a live event that will also be offered on NFBRN, we'll interrupt the regular programming there. A good example is the March 6 presidential release live at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, will be on NFBRN as well. So again, on your Amazon device, just ask for Nation's Blind.
I call this to the attention of our chapters. It's a great new resource to dive into Federation content anytime you want. Now on this release, I do have two primary topics I want to talk about, which is our national convention, and some comments on the current political climate as it relates to blind people in this country. But I do have one item that is very hot off the presses.
In fact, just moments ago we got confirmation that the Access Technology Affordability Act was introduced in the House of Representatives. It's H.R.1529. The sponsor for this bill is Representative Mike Kelly from Pennsylvania, and the lead co-sponsor is Representative Mike Thompson from California. Really great to have the Access Technology Affordability Act available again in Congress, to take advantage of any congressional discussions that there might be around tax reform. So please follow up with members of Congress about this important initiative.
Now, let me turn my attention to the national convention. This year, we'll be talking about how we serve as champions for collective action and celebrating the power of blind people in New Orleans, Louisiana, from Tuesday, July 8 through Sunday, July 13, 2025. And let's just talk a little bit about some of the convention details. But before I get to that, let me talk about the convention.
For those of you who might not be familiar with our annual convention, this is our annual meeting of all of our state affiliates. It is the Supreme authority of the movement, and the convention has the final say as it relates to all matters of policy within the Federation. The convention sets policy and direction for the organization. The convention also elects the board of directors, which has responsibility for managing the organization between conventions.
This is also where the bonds of togetherness are forged within our movement, dreams about our tomorrows are sparked. And we share in our wisdom about the true experience of being blind in 2025.
The convention is a place where you can live in and amongst the high expectations that we have for ourselves. I like to say it's the normal space. The rest of the world as we experience. This is not normal day to day. We experience low expectations for blind people. But at the convention, you will experience the high expectations at every turn and it's very empowering. A great shot in the arm. I need you to be there at the convention. I need each and every one of our chapters represented at the convention.
Because the more of us there are, the more voices that we have actively participating in the conversations, the better our direction will be and the stronger our determination will be. If you have not been to our national convention before, please talk to your chapter president, to your affiliate president, to members of the affiliate. Find out what opportunities there might be to get some support as a first timer at the local level and to get some mentors for the experience.
You will not want to miss this year's convention, and I will look forward to meeting you there. Hopefully, you'll take a moment to stop by the presidential suite. And I think we have a great opportunity to break the all-time convention record for attendance, which was set in New Orleans in 1997. It would be great to make that happen here in 2025. We have a lot of work to do in being the champions of collective action, and we need you to come to the convention to help with that.
Now, let me give you a brief overview of the details regarding the conventions, the deets as they say. We will be in New Orleans and our headquarters will be the New Orleans Marriott with the Sheridan's New Orleans, right across the street as our overflow hotel. You can reserve rooms by calling the Marriott at 888-236-2427. You can reserve rooms at the Sheridan by calling 855-516-1090.
When you do that, please ask for the National Federation of the Blind 2025 Convention. You should know that the nightly rate for both hotels, the Marriott and the Sheridan, are the same. 119 dollars a night for singles and doubles and 129 dollars a night for triples and quads. You can get all of the convention details on our convention website. I'll give that to you a little later. So if you missed any of that, you can always get to it on the website.
Registration opens on March 1. So when you hear this, registration will be open and I do encourage you to register early. Registration is 25 dollars. It's really a bargain rate. We have a lot of expenses that go into hosting an outstanding convention. We try to keep the cost as low as possible. 25 dollars per person doesn't even come close to covering our costs and the banquet this year, the banquet of course, is set by the hotel.
The banquet ticket will be 80 dollars. It's going to be a great event, a great culmination to a fantastic convention. You won't want to miss it. Prices do go up at the convention, so please register, buy your banquet tickets by May 31. If you decide to do that at the convention, it will cost you a little more.
Now, you may know of a company or maybe you have your own company that wants to exhibit at the national convention, or maybe you know of potential organizations or companies that would like to sponsor the convention. I want to encourage you to promote our sponsorship and exhibit opportunities to help build the convention. Our exhibit hall is always one of the greatest resources you can find anywhere in terms of blindness products, resources, and opportunities. So please promote that. All of this information that I've given you and more.
Including how you find out about our first timers scholarships, the Kenneth Jernigan Fund, how you can volunteer to help out with the convention, which we do need you to volunteer, al of that is at nfb.org/convention. Please check it out anytime and please register as soon as possible.
I want to take just couple moments on this release also to talk about our very successful month, including our Washington seminar. And despite that success, it has also been a challenging month for us in the National Federation of the Blind in terms of protecting and advancing the rights of blind people in this country. There has been significant conversation and real threats in the last month to the federal government programs that are actively used to advance the lives of blind people.
The constitutionality of longstanding civil rights protections for blind people and others with disabilities, such as the Rehabilitation Act, have been challenged. And blindness itself has been used as a political tool to attack the credibility of a blind witness in Congress. But more generally, the classic misconceptions about blindness and disability have been used in the politics and in media to perpetuate the misunderstanding that has held us back for far too long.
These situations definitely create a lot of anxiety for Federation members, in terms of what the future looks like for us. I want to share that the core values of the Federation remain strongly intact and are an important guidepost to our work going forward. We champion collective action and we know that we are stronger together. By working together through any political situation, through any administration, through any disruption in the nation, we always find the best path for us, collectively as blind people.
Number two, we believe in blind people. We know the truth about blindness and we need to continue to advance that truth, to push back on the low expectations and misconceptions, lack of training and opportunities that do hold us back. We need to have a strong voice against the idea that blindness means lack of capacity, that blindness means we can't contribute on terms of equality to the America we all want to build and experience in the future.
We also recognize that blindness does not discriminate. It touches every segment of America, regardless of really any characteristic you can think of. This is why we have and continue to hold to a strong commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion within the organized blind movement. This is consistent with our core value of fostering inclusion in our community, and it's also consistent with what we've written in our code of conduct in Section Three about this topic. And I just wanted to share the opening of that.
Because I think it's an important reminder for what we try to do. Our code of conduct in Section Three says, "The National Federation of the Blind celebrates and embraces diversity, equity, and inclusion as core values in its mission to achieve equality, opportunity, and security for the blind. We are committed to building and maintaining a nationwide organization with state affiliates and local chapters that is unified in its priorities and programs, and is directed by the membership. "We respect differences of opinion, belief, identities, and other characteristics that demonstrate that blind people are a diverse cross-section of society."
In our code of conduct. Our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion is really about how we treat each other and deciding that we're going to come to this organization with a commitment to treat each other with respect and dignity, even though we may have differences of opinion. I have always maintained and maintained today even stronger than ever, that our movement can continue to be an example for the rest of the nation.
How a diversity of people can come together with different points of view and find ways to come to a consensus about a direction and objectives that meet the needs of all of those people. I encourage us to stay on that path.
I believe that this space that we have created is one of the most dynamic and diverse spaces for real collective action, and I think we should continue to work to keep it that way because we're going to need that strength in numbers, as we face various challenges to the laws and programs that have been essential for us to live the lives we want and to rely on our own abilities and to contribute to society.
So I urge our chapters and leaders to recognize that the current political situation in the country has created a lot of anxiety for people, including many federal employees who are blind, who have been released from their employment.
Our chapters can continue to be a safe space and a place of hope for all blind people, and I would encourage us that that should be our goal, and we should march toward that future together because we know that our organization is truly the place where blind people have a sense of belonging and hope for the future.
Remember that we are not an organization that takes political sides. We are not a partisan organization. However, we are always partisan when it comes to blind people. We always come down on the side of blind people and our collective action as blind people is the most meaningful and important thing we have.
I would argue that it is as important and as meaningful as it has ever been in our history since 1940. I encourage all of us to lean on each other, and also lean into the work that we have to do in the organized blind movement in the months ahead. Now, before I come to the end of this release, I do want to share just a couple of Federation family notes from Maryland. I regret to let you know that Debbie Parker-Johnson passed away unexpectedly on January 31 of this year.
Debbie was active in our Baltimore area chapters. And from Iowa, I regret to share with you the passing of longtime Federation member Dolores Reisinger at age 93. She passed away on February 17. Dolores was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil and she was a teacher in Brazil until 1968, when she was invited by the United States Department of State and the International Federation of the Blind.
And you'll remember that the International Federation of the Blind was started by leaders in the National Federation of the Blind. She was invited to be part of an exchange program that brought her to the United States to visit and observe programs for the blind here in this country.
That experience inspired her. Well, also, the fact that she met her life partner during that time inspired her to immigrate to the United States, which she did in 1969. And she became a teacher here in the United States. In 1976, she became a rehabilitation teacher at the Iowa Department for the Blind. Dolores, probably most notable in the Federation as an active member who was the most enthusiastic I think of anyone else in the country.
A great champion for our Meet the Blind Month. Later, our Blind Equality Achievement Month. She was always out front promoting our message. She definitely will be missed in the state of Iowa and beyond.
Keep these two individuals, and others I may not know about, in your thoughts and prayers. We have a lot ahead of us here in March, and before we know it, the convention will be here. It's hard to believe it's already March. So thank you for your work to build the Federation. Keep the togetherness going.
Please make sure that our chapters are actively talking about the convention and how we can get members to our national convention where we will champion collective action. Before I close this release, I do have for the month of March some customary endings and they go like this. What March flower grows on faces? Well, that would be tulips, of course.
What should you say to a runner in the St. Patrick's Day marathon? Well, you should say, "Irish you luck." And finally, why do people wear shamrocks on St. Patrick's Day? Well, because real rocks are too heavy. Let's go build the National Federation of the Blind.
Speaker 1: The proceeding message was brought to you by Mark Riccobono, president, National Federation of the Blind, 410-659-9314, [email protected]. Follow President Riccobono on Mastodon. Just search for @president @NFB.Social. Let's go build the National Federation of the Blind.