Convention Reflections

Convention Reflections

Dr. Jernigan and Steve Benson

Convention Reflections

by Stephen O. Benson

As I sit at my desk on this Sunday, October 11,

reviewing all the details of the agenda and other arrangements for the 1998 convention of

the NFB of Illinois, I reflect on Dr. Jernigan's masterly management of convention

arrangements for our increasingly complex national assemblies, our gathering of the clans.

Dr. Jernigan has referred to the Federation as a family. But he was quick to remind us

that we are the most effective political force in the field of blindness and that we

should never be deterred from using that force to improve the quality of life for blind

people.

The Federation's conventions are exercises in

democracy, the ultimate collective voice of the organized blind at work, the site of

vigorous debate that shapes and establishes policy. People come to conventions to get

their batteries recharged, to renew or nurture long-term friendships, to find mates, to

engage in serious discussion, to learn and to teach, to relax, and to put ideas into

action. Federation conventions change people's lives. National Federation of the Blind

conventions are the most energetic, result-oriented, rewarding meetings I have ever

attended.

I began learning about organizing and managing

meetings as a Boy Scout. As a teenager I organized neighborhood clubs for kids my age, and

I organized and scheduled chess tournaments for two or three summers. As a member of

student councils and service organizations in high school and as a college fraternity

president and delegate to the Interfraternity Council, I honed my meeting management

skills. But it wasn't until I joined the Federation and began to study Dr. Jernigan's

mastery of meeting planning, strategies, and management; his civility under pressure; his

ability to hold adversaries' feet to the fire; and his patience that I really began to

understand how a meeting should be conducted. Once I began to understand his method, I

watched ever more intently, knowing that here was an opportunity to learn at the feet of

one of the best at the craft. Then I attempted to emulate him.

As an important part of this learning process, I

have closely studied Dr. Jernigan's speeches and his delivery of them. A serious student

of public speaking could watch Dr. Jernigan and learn about precise cadence, timing,

inflection, tone, appropriate use of humor, pathos, incredulity, declamation, and the

imperative. Dr. Jernigan's speeches are informative, inspiring, and irresistible calls to

action. It is difficult to imagine that anybody could walk away unmoved from a Jernigan

speech, live or recorded.

At our 1995 National Convention the Illinois

affiliate arranged to have a bagpipe band pipe in the convention. As I said in my

welcoming remarks, "No gathering of the Scottish clans would be complete without

these sounds." Whenever I plan conventions, whenever I think of Dr. Jernigan, I will

always feel and hear the sound of pipes and drums as we heard them in that jubilant entry

into our convention hall on Tuesday morning, July 4, 1995. Those of us who have been

privileged to know Kenneth Jernigan will long remember that day and will always remember

him in the echoes of the moving strains of "Amazing Grace."