Welcoming the Blind of the World to the United States of America

Welcoming the Blind of the World to the United States of America

Braille MonitorNovember 2016

(back) (contents) (next)

Welcoming the Blind of the World to the United States of America
by Mark Riccobono
Opening Remarks to the Ninth General Assembly
World Blind Union
Orlando, Florida
August 19, 2016
Delegates, observers, and friends of the World Blind Union, on behalf of the tens of thousands of members of the National Federation of the Blind I welcome you to the United States of America. America is a country that values freedom, independence, opportunity, determination, and democracy. Born out of revolution, our country constantly strives to have a more perfect union, including individuals with diverse characteristics, backgrounds, and beliefs. Through the value of freedom of speech, we empower our citizens to vigorously debate the governing principles of our land and to breakdown barriers to equality of opportunity and participation. The American dream has come to be the term used to describe the value that in our country all people can achieve their individual aspirations with the freedom and opportunities provided in our local communities and supported by equal protection under the law. Yet even in this great nation some classes of people continue to struggle for equal access to those ideals two hundred and forty years after our democracy was established. Although the blind have been one of the groups denied the complete rights and opportunities offered under our democracy, during the past seventy-six years significant progress has been made toward equality in society through our vehicle for collective action—the National Federation of the Blind.

A brilliant young blind scholar of the United States Constitution was the rallying point for organizing the blind of America on a nationwide basis in 1940. Dr. Jacobus tenBroek was the founding President of the National Federation of the Blind and served as its primary leader until his death in 1968. At the birth of our organization he shared these words that are still the foundation of our organization and which apply also to the World Blind Union: “Collectively, we are the masters of our own future and the successful guardian of our own common interests. Let one speak in the name of many who are prepared to act in his support, let the democratically elected blind representatives of the blind act as spokesman for all, let the machinery be created to unify the action and concentrate the energies of the blind…”

The Federation has always valued formal and informal opportunities to collaborate with other blind people around the world. In 1952 the National Federation of the Blind National Convention voted to join the World Council on the Welfare of the Blind (WCWB), but Dr. tenBroek quickly came to realize that the WCWB would not be a progressive world forum for action by the blind. The Federation continued to seek meaningful international connections to the blind through the work of pioneering blind leaders like Isabel Grant, who traveled the world to share the Federation philosophy and learn about the progress of blind people in other countries.

In 1964 we formed the International Federation of the Blind (IFB) as an authentic international forum for blind people. Dr. tenBroek became the IFB’s first president, and its constitution was drafted by Dr. Kenneth Jernigan, who would later become President of the National Federation of the Blind and the most influential leader in the area of blindness during the twentieth century. The first convention for the IFB was planned for 1969, but Dr. tenBroek’s early death in 1968 took much of the momentum out of the new organization. In 1984 a joint meeting of the IFB and WCWB was held that resulted in the creation of the World Blind Union. Today we can be proud that the World Blind Union has grown into an effective international vehicle for collaboration and a meaningful advocacy organization led by the blind.

We invite our brothers and sisters from around the world to our home to share with us the ideas, insights, innovations, and dreams that come from your unique perspectives. We also share with you our progress along with our desire to continue to test the limits and raise expectations for the blind anywhere in the world. Since 1940 we have tackled discrimination in every aspect of life: education, employment, travel, finances, healthcare, recreation, civic participation, and parenting. We have used many tools in our work: organizing in local communities, marching in the streets, battling in the courts, persuading in the boardrooms, moving the politics in Congress, changing perceptions in the media, and demonstrating equality in living the lives we want. We have published extensively about our progress, and we have distributed thousands of pages of literature to all parts of our country and many parts of the world. We now provide free access to all of our publications via our website, <www.nfb.org>. Our national convention, the annual gathering where we discuss our progress and set our priorities, is now the largest annual gathering of blind people anywhere in the world, and we are honored to welcome guests from twenty foreign countries to our conventions on a regular basis.

In the spirit of innovation that characterizes our nation, the blind of America have led the way in engineering solutions to take advantage of the full capacity of blind people and to eliminate artificial barriers that hold us back. One example is our work, beginning in 1975, to develop a reading machine for the blind with genius inventor Ray Kurzweil. The original reading machine was big, slow, and expensive, but it was revolutionary. Through our continued investment and engagement in refining reading technology, we now have a reading machine that can be used on handheld smartphones, which recognizes text in a second, and which costs less than $100. The current reading machine is known as the KNFB Reader, and it runs on iOS, Android, and very shortly on Windows. This technology is as strong as it is because the blind are leading the way in its development.

Literacy is critical to full participation in our society, and each and every person in this room knows that for the blind that means Braille literacy. From aggressively pursuing new Braille literacy programs to actively working on the Marrakesh Treaty, we march confidently with our friends in the World Blind Union to raise expectations for the blind in accessing the world’s knowledge. At the urging of the National Federation of the Blind, the United States Congress authorized the minting of the first-ever US coin that included actual tactile Braille. Released in 2009, the Louis Braille Bicentennial Silver Dollar created a forum for greater awareness of the value of Braille and the barriers to quality Braille instruction in the United States educational system, and sales of the coin generated funds to spark new Braille literacy programs. The launch of the Louis Braille coin and the educational programs initiated in 2009 were led by a leader of the National Federation of the Blind and the WBU’s first vice president, Fred Schroeder. One of the results of our enhanced Braille literacy efforts was the nationwide expansion of the National Federation of the Blind Braille Enrichment for Literacy and Learning (BELL) Academy. The NFB BELL Academy provides blind children with two weeks of quality instruction in Braille, opportunities to practice skills like independent travel with a long white cane, and increased confidence from working with blind adult role models from a variety of backgrounds. During this summer alone, we have offered forty-six NFB BELL Academies in thirty-one states providing more than seventeen thousand hours of instruction to more than three hundred blind youth.

The United States is known for its technological innovations, including advancing the exploration of new frontiers in the universe. For over a decade, the Federation has been leading the way to inspire and engage blind students in science, technology, engineering, art, and math. In honor of our work and to help spread awareness about Braille, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration flew two of our Louis Braille coins aboard the Atlantis shuttle on mission STS125. Although we have yet to get a blind person into the astronaut corps and into space, we believe that the first blind astronaut is alive today, and through our work we will realize success in this and other frontiers. Leaders of the National Federation of the Blind were on hand at the Kennedy Space Center—not too far from Orlando—for the launch of STS125 to witness Braille flying into orbit. In honor of our collective determination to expand the horizons for the blind, we thought we would share with you what it was like to be on hand for the launch of that space shuttle and the first few minutes of flight. [An audio presentation from the launching of STS125 was played and was greeted with cheers and applause.]

Although the automobile was not invented in the United States, our country has taken great pride in cars that are made in America. Driving has come to be a symbol of freedom, independence, and power. Until the last decade, everybody believed that driving a car required the use of sight. In the National Federation of the Blind we continue to ask each other challenging questions about the limits for blind people. Every day we seek to raise expectations for the blind because we know that low expectations are the true obstacle between blind people and our dreams. As we turned the calendar to the twenty-first century, Marc Maurer, who served as President of the Federation from 1986 to 2014, began asking why vision is a requirement for driving. He wondered out loud if we could build access to information systems that could present data nonvisually and whether blind people could use their own abilities to drive a car completely without sighted assistance. From Dr. Maurer’s idea and under his leadership, the National Federation of the Blind began engaging with engineers around the Blind Driver Challenge. While America did not invent the car, the blind of America did imagine, engineer, and develop the technology so that we could accomplish the goal of blind people driving independently.

On January 29, 2011, I was honored to be the driver for the first public demonstration of our Blind Driver Challenge project. This took place just one hour from here at the most famous racetrack in our nation—the Daytona International Speedway. Let’s relive what it was like for me as the driver and for the five hundred members of the Federation who were among the tens of thousands of spectators that were present. [Audio from the Daytona 500 describing Mark Riccobono’s trip around the racetrack energized the audience.]

While we do not yet have the power to put you on a space shuttle, we do have the ability to give you a ride in our blind drivable vehicle with a blind person as your chauffer. On Monday afternoon, we will have a limited number of opportunities for WBU delegates to take a trip around the parking lot with me driving the car. Please visit our general assembly welcome desk in the foyer area to sign up for one of the available times.
The blind of America continue to seek new ways to expand opportunities for the blind. We no longer know where the limits are for blind people. We do know that our imagination and dedication will allow us to pursue all of our dreams. We also know that the collaboration of the blind of our country with the blind around the world is increasingly important in pursuing those dreams. Many of the artificial barriers we encounter—whether it is inaccessible books and technology, the danger that quiet cars pose to all pedestrians, or the misconceptions about blindness that are used to restrict our rights—are now barriers on a global scale. However, these barriers are no match for the self-determined, action-oriented, and authentically driven union that brings us together today. On behalf of the National Federation of the Blind, we welcome you to our home, we thank you for your work to make our lives better as blind people, and we welcome the opportunity to learn from and share with you. In closing, I share with you the promise that the members of the National Federation of the Blind make to each other, as it is a promise we also share with the delegates of the World Blind Union: Together with love, hope, and determination, we transform dreams into reality.

Media Share

// maxLength) {
twtTitle = twtTitle.substr(0, (maxLength - 3)) + '...';
}
var twtLink = 'http://twitter.com/home?status=' + encodeURIComponent(twtTitle + ' ' + twtUrl);
document.write('');
// ]]>

function fbs_click()
{
u=location.href;
t=document.title;
window.open('http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fdev.twitter.com%2Fp…;);
return false;
}

(back) (contents) (next)