The NFB Makes the Difference

The NFB Makes the Difference

Seville Allen

Different Roads: The NFB

Makes the Difference

by Seville Allen

From the Editor: The following article first

appeared in the Spring, 1998, issue of the Vigilant, the publication of the National

Federation of the Blind of Virginia. Seville Allen edits that publication. She is a

longtime Federationist and a leader of the NFB of Virginia. This is what she says:

We hadn't seen each other since that day in June,

1959, when we graduated from the eighth grade. We had been best friends from the time we

entered kindergarten until we returned to school in the fall of 1956 to begin the sixth

grade. I returned as a total, as those with no sight were known at the residential school

for the blind. My best friend was partially sighted, and she continued playing with the

sighted kids. Our friendship faded, and by the time we graduated from eighth grade, we

hardly saw each other at all. That was thirty-nine years ago.

Last spring our paths crossed electronically when

I answered an e-mail she sent to a listserv requesting contact with graduates of the

school for the blind we had both attended. We discovered that during the thirty-eight

years since our eighth grade graduation our lives had taken very different roads. She

attended a public high school in her home town. I completed my secondary education at the

school for the blind. She married and became a parent, raising three children. I became a

clinical social worker, then a career civil servant working as a federal employee.

My former playmate was not a Federationist, but

she arranged to meet me at our 1997 convention in New Orleans so we could meet again in

person. When the time came to meet her, I was a little anxious since all our contact had

been by electronic mail. We had not spoken at all. As it turned out, my anxiety was

unnecessary. She greeted me enthusiastically when I knocked on her door at the hotel.

Since we've met in person, we've spent many hours

getting to know each other again. Her voice and personality are much as I remember. We are

both avid readers, study history, and enjoy traveling. While our lives have been very

different, we still have a lot in common, just as we did as children. The biggest

difference I see between us now is our attitude about our blindness. Blindness has kept

her from reaching her full potential. She tells me how difficult it is to do things

because of her low vision or, as she says, "Because I can't see very well." But

more than that she continuously marvels at what I do in spite of my total blindness. I can

illustrate the difference in our approach to blindness with an incident that happened when

we visited in New Orleans.

She and her husband had gone to a small,

inexpensive restaurant for breakfast. She told me about the wonderful pancakes, and I

asked how to get there. She began explaining where the restaurant was located, then

hesitated. "Well," she said "you better have a sighted person go with you

because you have to cross a street."

I joined the National Federation of the Blind

about twenty-four years ago, and that changed my life. Perhaps had I not become a part of

our Federation family and learned that blindness is an inconvenient characteristic, I too

would have believed I needed a sighted guide to take me to that pancake restaurant.

I realized fully that our different approaches to

blindness result from my involvement with the NFB when we recently met for lunch. I was

visiting her city on a job-related assignment. My rediscovered childhood friend asked how

I travel to strange cities on my own without fear and with no eyesight. I heard myself

telling her that the National Federation of the Blind has made the difference. I told her

that, until I met the Federation, I had assumed there were many things I just wouldn't do,

but for me that is all different now. She was quiet for a moment then told me that, when

she was in New Orleans last summer, she was overwhelmed by watching blind people running

the convention.

That experience has helped her begin to

re-examine her own situation. I'll continue to encourage her through my words and more

through my actions, and perhaps some day she too will be a Federationist. It's never too

late to put blindness in its proper perspective, as one more characteristic that makes us

who we are just as do our height, gender, and temperament.