Culmination: The Concluding Years of the Second Jernigan Presidency

Culmination: The Concluding Years of the Second Jernigan Presidency

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Culmination: The Concluding Years of the Second Jernigan Presidency

Today we are moving with a mighty force, said the President of the National
Federation of the Blind in 1983: For 43 years we have worked and struggled
to accelerate our movement and send it in a straight line toward freedom and
independence. The efforts of tens of thousands of blind men and women have been
spent for almost two generations to reach the current momentum.

Now, he said, there is no force on earth that can slow us down or turn us
back or change our direction.He went on to declare that the organized blind
would wait no longer for equality and opportunity to be granted or handed to
them:
Through the centuries we have yearned for acceptance, longed for opportunity,
and dreamed of a full life. And too often we have waited. But no more! Never
again! The waiting did not work. We have learned our lesson and learned it well.
Equality will not (perhaps cannot) be given to us. If we want it, we must take
it. So the waiting is over. The yearning and the longing are at an end. And
not just someday or tomorrow but now! From this day forward it will be action.
Let people call us what they will and think what they please. We are simply
no longer willing to be second-class citizens. We want no strife or confrontation,
but we will do what we have to do. To the extent required we will meet pressure
with pressure and force with force. We know who we are, and we will never go
back.

It was not so much the message of Kenneth
Jernigan's
convention
speech that was novel in the year 1983; it was rather
the tone and
spirit that struck a different note from past
occasions
when the organized blind movement was struggling to
survive and
embroiled in civil wars or uphill battles against
powerful
agency forces.

By 1983, when Jernigan spoke of the other
half of inertia at
the National
Convention in Kansas City, the Federation had arrived
at a new
plateau of peace, prosperity, and progress. Peace came to
the movement
with the victorious ending of the California lawsuit
in that
year. The court action against Ammeter and the other
members of
her faction in Washington state had earlier been
concluded,
and the lawsuit to confirm by a ruling of the courts the
Federation's
right to govern the Iowa affiliate and discipline the
dissidents
in that state in accordance with national policy was
(though it
would not be finished until 1984) clearly on the way to
a favorable decision.
But in a deeper sense the Federation's
well-being
and harmony had not really been achieved through the
courts but
by a collective act of will on the part of the
membership,
rallying in convention to cast out the handful of
embittered
malcontents and to reaffirm support for the democratic
structure
and progressive goals of the movement. Peace for the
National
Federation of the Blind was not only the absence of war
within it
was also the presence of a new mood and temper throughout
the movement,
a prevailing self-assurance that spoke of solidarity
and quiet
strength, of prestige and unprecedented influence in the
blindness
system and the public at large.

We have found the other half of
inertia,said the President
in his
banquet speech,and we are generating
the force to make our
dreams
reality. Yes, we still experience discrimination, denial,
and lack of
opportunity; but the tide is running the other way. It
can be seen
in our victories in the sheltered shops; in our radio
and
television spots, which blanket the nation; and in the jobs
which blind
people are getting and holding. It can be seen in the
hope, the
determination, and the zest for the future which blind
people now
are feeling. It can be seen in the mood and the joy of
this
convention.

Following is the complete text of President Jernigan's address delivered at
the banquet of the 1983 convention in Kansas City, Missouri: BLINDNESS:
THE OTHER HALF OF INERTIA
The Unfriendly Skies

Although the problem of the airlines did not begin in the concluding years of the second Jernigan presidency, it reached its
full climax
during that period, so this would seem to be the
logical
place to discuss it.

Throughout the first half century of the
organized blind
movement,
with all its struggles and humiliations, no event has
more vividly
or cruelly exposed its status as a minority group than
that chapter
in its history known to blind people everywhere as the
episode
of The Unfriendly Skies. Likewise, no event would more
plainly
illustrate the fierce determination of this movement of
blind
Americans not to be treated any longer as inferiors or
second-class
citizens. Indeed, the dramatic confrontations between
the airlines
and the blind, individually and collectively, carried
resonant
echoes of another civil rights struggle in another era
when another
minority group, seeking to travel freely, held fast to
their seats
and refused to move to the back of the bus. ( I'm gonna
keep my long
white cane, and I'm gonna travel on this here plane!
read a 1980
headline in the Braille Monitor.)

The humiliation and harassment of blind
passengers in the
wild blue
yonder reached its crescendo in the
decade of the
eighties as
individual airlines and the Federal Aviation
Administration
somewhat modified their policies or shifted
positions in
response to increasing protests by blind passengers.
By 1984 the
incidents of interference by airline personnel with the
rights of
blind travelers were so frequent as to seem almost
commonplace.
Accordingly one of the principal items on the agenda
of the National
Federation of the Blind at its convention that year
in Phoenix
was the issue of The Unfriendly
Skies. Nearly 2,000
blind people
participated in a convention symposium on the subject
Air Travel
and the Blind: The Law, the Policy, and the Practice.
Chaired by
National Federation of the Blind President Kenneth
Jernigan,
the symposium featured a survey of the issue by Marc
Maurer (the
future Federation President, who was then a lawyer in
private
practice), and presentations by a representative of the
Federal
Aviation Administration, J. E. Murdock III, and an official
of Delta
Airlines, Foy Phillips. These presentations were followed
by questions
and comments from the floor, which pointed up the
differences
of interest and attitude dividing the airline industry
and the
blind consumers of its service. Here is how some of the
discussion
went:

Karen Edwards of New Mexico said: On January 31 of this year I boarded an
American Airlines flight in Dallas-Fort Worth destined for El Paso, Texas. After
I seated myself, I proceeded to place my cane between the seat and the fuselage
of the aircraft. As I buckled my seat belt, a flight attendant approached me
and attempted to reach over me to retrieve my cane, saying that it would be
necessary to have the cane stored during takeoff because of safety reasons.
I informed her that the FAA regulations had been updated so that blind people's
rights would be protected and that they could carry their canes at all times
with them during the flight. I tried to explain the rationale behind the regulations,
but to no avail. The flight attendant left and came back with another person,
who said that their inflight manual had these regulations that canes and crutches
had to be stored in overhead racks or in an enclosed space. In the meantime
most of the passengers had already boarded the aircraft, and the attendants
were becoming impatient with me; and finally they presented me with an ultimatum.
'Either you give up your cane now, or you'll have to deplane.' I was not a very
experienced person on an aircraft. I'd flown a few times, but I was shaken up
by this kind of treatment. I thought my only alternative really was to deplane.
I think I could kick myself a few times now for doing it, but I did comply.
I was stranded in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, because there weren't any other
flights leaving that night. I didn't know anyone in the city, and having come
back from the March on Washington, I only had a few dollars left. My ride had
come more than fifty miles to wait for me at the El Paso airport, so he was
still waiting there. It took me several phone calls to finally reach someone
from the Federation who could make contact with someone in Dallas that I could
stay with for the night.

I ended up having to spend more than
sixty dollars in cab
fare to get
to and from his house. The next day I boarded another
American
Airlines flight and had no trouble at all. I took my cane
with me, and
I was expecting trouble but nothing happened. And I
was so
curious I had to ask what had taken place. I was informed
that their
supervisor said that if I wanted to make trouble and my
cane became
dislodged during flight and injured someone else, I
would be
liable. Mr. Murdock, I'd like to know first of all, do you
approve of
such treatment of blind passengers? If not, what can you
do to remedy
these situations? I can assure you it was extremely
humiliating
to have to deplane with all the passengers looking on,
and I'd like
to know if you can do anything. What will you do?

Mr. Murdock replied: Let me say first on behalf of the
industry
which I represent as a government official that I
personally
apologize to you. I think that's atrocious behavior by
American. As
to the solution, I think that the ultimate solution
(the way to
deal with it) is to do what Delta is doing and I will
call Mr.
Crandall when I get home (who is the chairman of American
Airlines),
relate to him the facts if we can get together and go
over the details
a little more and indicate to him I think that's
pathetic
behavior.

President Jernigan said: Mr. Murdock, we got hold of Mr.
Crandall or
tried to. We had letters written on this and other
incidents.
American sent somebody to my office a local official,
not very
high in the hierarchy, to talk to me; and I presume to try
to soothe me
down. I gave him details of many incidents. American
has become
one of the most insensitive, and has behaved as badly as
anybody
could. You've heard one incident. I want quickly to give
you some
others, and please, all of you, make it go rapidly. Brenda
Williams,
are you at a mike?

Brenda Williams said: On June 29 of this year when I was
departing
from Baltimore, Maryland, on TWA Airlines, I was going
through
security; and two guards grabbed me and took my cane from
me. I tried
to explain to them that the cane would not set the
system off;
but, anyhow, they said that they did not want to hear
that. They
just held on to me, refused to turn me loose, and
snatched the
cane away from me.

Charlie Brown then spoke: The incident that Marc Maurer
referred to
about not being able to sit on the upper deck of the
747 occurred
to somebody who is well-known to a number of us and
had nothing
to do with safety, and was pure discrimination. You
talk about
calling this person or that person. What is it that you
will or can
actually do? You wouldn't like to get that kind of
treatment.

President Jernigan: What really can you do if you decide something is wrong,
Mr. Murdock? In all candor if an airline tells you, 'Look, old buddy, we appreciate
your views, but get lost.' What can you do? Anything?

Mr. Murdock: The statutory power of the FAA, as I tried to
spell out in
my speech, is to decide whether things are safe and
unsafe. If
they are correct in their assumption that something is
safe, that
the procedure is safe (not safer or closer to an
absolute)
we're powerless.

President Jernigan: Look, it's safe to grab Brenda Williams
and hold her
and take her cane by force from her. That's safe. Yes,
it is. And
it didn't hurt her. Her pride may be bruised some, but
she won't
die. Can you do anything about that if you find that's
true?

Mr. Murdock: We do not have enforcement authority in that
kind of
behavior.

President Jernigan: So there really isn't anything you can
do about it.
Is that so?

Mr. Murdock: That's right. That's correct, sir.

Joyce Scanlan of Minnesota said:
I'd like to speak to Mr.
Murdock. I
do a good bit of traveling, and most of it by air; and
I can tell
you that that's one of the most unpleasant things that
I do. That
is because of the treatment that I get from airline
personnel
all down the line every step of the way on any trip. I
have to
worry about these folks descending upon me and
custodializing
me and making demands of me and so forth. I could
give you a
whole list of different kinds of things that happen but
one
incident, I think, is probably outstanding and that happened
with United
Airlines when a number of us from Minneapolis were on
our way to
the 1981 National Convention in Baltimore. We had a stop
in
Cleveland, Ohio. As we approached the next flight to board, we
were
confronted by this airline ground person who demanded that we
pledge to
give up our canes before we would be allowed to get on
the airline.
Can you imagine that? You know, we need our canes for
safety and
independence, and this individual insisted that we agree
to give up
our canes (our safety and our independence) in order to
ride that
plane. Well, of course, we had a long discussion about
it, after
which he didn't change his mind; and neither did we. I
thought I
was among the Nazis. This guy stood there and told us how
he was only
following orders. He said he was following your orders,
Mr. Murdock,
from FAA. It was an FAA rule that we had to do all
this. So we
were refused the right to get on the plane. The only
option we
had was to go the rest of the way by bus a twelve-hour
ride. I can
tell you that wasn't pleasant. But I can tell you that
the whole
thing was totally unnecessary, and it came about just
because of
the lack of understanding and the rude, insulting
behavior by
these airline people. Now, do you support that kind of
behavior?
And what can you do about it? I guess I'd like to know
also what
will you do about it.

Mr. Murdock: Well, as Mr. Maurer already indicated, you are
allowed to
take your cane on board, and it is to be available to
you. That's
been done for several years. What we can do in the
future is
really what Delta has done and several other carriers can
do, which is
to raise the consciousness of employees. United
Airlines
employs fifty thousand people. Not all of them are even
nearly
perfect, and it takes a lot of education by that management
to get them
to be responsive to your needs and to other travelers'
needs.

President Jernigan: Mr. Murdock, we agree that the FAA did do what you say.
It says we can have our canes, and yet a lot of the airline personnel come and
straight lie to us and say FAA is now requiring us to do this; and then, they
get insulted when we ask to see the regulations won't show us the regulations,
and say you did it and it leads to confrontation. Marc Maurer said: Dr. Jernigan,
the regulation that we have been talking about this morning, 14 CFR 121.586,
contains a provision which states that if the administrator finds that in the
interest of safety or if, in the public interest, it is necessary to change
the airline's regulations, then the Federal Aviation Administrator has that
power. I wonder if Mr. Murdock can talk to us about what the FAA will do to
change these regulations in the public interest in our interest to have free
and equal access to airlines.

Mr. Murdock: Public interest is, as Mr. Maurer as a lawyer probably knows,
defined in the statute which we have; and unfortunately the Congress in 1938
when it wrote the statute and
defined the
public interest in Section 102 of the Act, which I'm
sure Mr.
Maurer has read, does not include the access you're
talking
about. Now, that doesn't mean I won't try to work for it;
but
statutorily we have very limited powers, and I'm sure Mr.
Maurer knows
that.

Mike Hingson of California said:
Mr. Murdock, in September
of 1980, I
reserved passage and paid for a ticket on Pacific
Southwest
Airlines to fly from Los Angeles to San Francisco. After
arriving at
the gate, I was told that most passengers had already
boarded the
aircraft and I would not be able to fly on that
aircraft,
because of the fact that I needed to be seated in a
bulkhead
seat. I was not allowed to fly on that aircraft and
attempted to
fly on the next scheduled flight on PSA from Los
Angeles to
San Francisco. I boarded the aircraft in plenty of time;
was denied
access to the aircraft beyond the bulkhead seat; and had
discussions
with the flight attendants, the captain of the
aircraft,
and the supervisor of ground personnel about the
situation. I
was eventually forcibly ejected from the aircraft. My
left arm was
bent behind my back. My thumb was injured. My watch
was broken
off my wrist. Subsequent to all that, we found that
PSA's policy
was, in fact, that a blind person with a dog guide
could sit
anywhere on the aircraft they wanted to. There were no
bulkhead
seating requirements. That policy was carefully researched
by a
representative from Pacific Southwest Airlines and had been
made
significantly before the time of my incident. Nevertheless, I
was thrown
off the aircraft in a very humiliating way. I ask
essentially
the same questions that have been asked before. Does
the FAA
support that kind of activity? Is there anything that you
can do to
prevent that kind of activity from happening in the
future? And
if so, what will you do about it?

Mr. Murdock responded:
I sound like I'm repeating myself,
but the
answer to your first question is no. We do not condone or
even accept
that kind of behavior. Secondly, what can we do about
it? I've
outlined for you what I think is the way to go about it.
PSA is
liable to you for assault and battery, based on their own
procedures.
You have lots of legal recourse.

For the next four years the struggle of
the blind to achieve
equality in
air transportation continued and escalated. At the
convention
of the National Federation of the Blind which occurred
in Chicago
in the summer of 1988 Kenneth Jernigan described in
graphic
terms the efforts of airline personnel to deprive blind
travelers of
basic, essential human rights. By that time the
arrests had
multiplied. The period of hostility which must be
endured
before any minority may achieve first-class status had come
to be a
reality for the blind. Progress was often measured in tiny
increments,
but the spirit of determination was undaunted, and the
mood of the
delegates was one of irrepressible confidence in the
capacity of
the blind to succeed in achieving equality.

Even though the right to fly without
intimidation, harassment,
and arrest
was one of the most hard-fought battles of the
Federation
during the last decade of its first half-century, and
even though
at the fifty year mark this struggle had not yet been
concluded,
it welded the Federation into a unified whole and
signaled a
new direction. The blind had previously been almost
universally
ignored by much of society. Certain private agencies
and
governmental programs had been established to serve the blind,
but
blindness was almost never considered as a significant factor
outside
these special entities. Without understanding the
implications,
airline officials promulgated a set of rules for the
treatment of
the blind. It is not astonishing that these rules
discriminated.
However, blind people insisted on equal treatment.
The
organized blind movement declared that the entire airline
industry
must come to admit that it had no useful information about
blindness.
Airline officials, said the Federation, must learn to
treat blind
people as equals, and the teaching would be done by the
blind. This
is the message Kenneth Jernigan presented in his
address
delivered on July 6, 1988, at the convention of the
National
Federation of the Blind in Chicago:

AIR TRAVEL AND THE BLIND THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY

by Kenneth Jernigan
When we met for our convention last year in Phoenix, the
problems
which blind persons are having with the airlines were a
major topic
of discussion. During the past twelve months the
discrimination
and abuse have grown worse. Today the situation is
such that no
blind person anywhere in the country can board a plane
without fear
of harassment, public humiliation, and possibly arrest
and bodily
injury.

The incidents involve almost every
aspect of air travel
insistence
that blind passengers pre-board, insistence that we
post-board,
demands that we demonstrate our capacity to fasten or
unfasten a
seat belt, requirements that we sit (or not sit) in
various
sections of the plane, and even attempts to take our small
children
from us when we are boarding or leaving the aircraft. But
the item
which has unquestionably created the most heat and
publicity
centers around exit row seating. It is not that blind
passengers
have asked to be assigned to these seats but that
airline
personnel have repeatedly put us there and then insisted
(with great
public commotion) that we move. In these confrontations
the
wordsafety is always trotted out and made the excuse for
every
unreasonable and illegal act which anybody cares to
perpetrate.

In May of 1987 Joseph Sontag and Nancy
Kruger were arrested
on a Simmons
Airlines plane. Members of the Simmons flight crew
insisted
that Sontag and Kruger give up their canes instead of
being
allowed to keep them at their seats as permitted by federal
regulations,
and when Sontag and Kruger refused, the police were
called. We
filed a complaint with the federal Department of
Transportation,
and although almost a year has passed, nothing has
been done
about it and there is no indication that anything will be
done about
it.

In October of 1987 Bill Meeker (a blind
employee of the U. S.
Department
of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance
Programs)
was traveling on official business. He experienced what
has almost
come to be the standard airline treatment. He boarded a
Midwest
Express airplane for Milwaukee and took his assigned seat.
He learned
that it was an exit row, and almost immediately
thereafter
he was confronted and ordered to move, being told that
he was
violating a federal regulation. When he said that he knew
the law,
that no such regulation existed, and that he would not
move under
such circumstances, he was arrested. As is typical in
these cases,
the charges were later dropped.

Last November Robert Greenberg was
refused transportation by
American
Airlines. He was assigned a seat (an assignment he had not
requested)
near an emergency exit and was then publicly and
abusively
ordered to move. When he refused, the flight was canceled
and the
passengers were told to leave the plane. Everybody but
Greenberg
was then reboarded. Not only was he not permitted to
reboard, but
he was also told that he could never ride another
American Airlines
plane again at any time in the future. He was
also denied
a refund on his ticket. Once more, we filed a complaint
with the
federal Department of Transportation and again nothing has
happened.

In January of this year Congressman
James A. Traficant
introduced
H.R. 3883, the Air Travel Rights for Blind Individuals
Act. There
are now 110 cosponsors of that bill, which is pending in
the House of
Representatives. In February Senator Ernest F.
Hollings
introduced the same bill, S. 2098. That bill now has
twenty-four
senate cosponsors. These bills by Senator Hollings and
Congressman
Traficant prohibit any special seating restrictions for
blind air
passengers.

Shortly before last year's convention we
got a ruling from
the Maryland
Attorney General that it was unlawful for airlines to
apply
special seating restrictions to the blind. The effectiveness
of that
ruling was proved when Sharon Gold, who was flying from
Baltimore to
California, showed it to the American Airlines crew
who were
trying to make her move from her assigned seat before
takeoff. She
did not move, and she was not arrested or taken off
the plane.
As you will remember, we brought copies of the Maryland
ruling to
last year's convention and asked all of you to move
quickly and
firmly to set up meetings with every state attorney
general in
the nation, and with the manager of every airport. At
that time I
said to you: Show them the Maryland
ruling, and remind
them that
their state has a white cane law, which has the same
provisions
that the Maryland law has. Get a ruling from your
attorney
general. Get an agreement from your airport manager. Once
you get the
ruling, make many copies of it, and see that every
blind person
who flies has one in his or her pocket.

Today the attorneys general of ten
states have made such
rulings, and
since Chicago is a central transfer point for air
travel, the
ruling by Illinois Attorney General Neil Hartigan has
special
significance. Attorney General Hartigan is here today, and
not only the
blind but all others who believe in the rule of law
instead of
whim and special privilege owe him a debt of gratitude.

If we were really dealing with a
question of safety, no one
(blind or
sighted) would object, but we are not. Consider, for
instance,
the opinion of an airline pilot. In an affidavit made in
1985, he
says in part:

I, Jared Haas, being first duly sworn,
depose and state: I
have been a
pilot for many years. I currently fly 727 aircraft, and
I have been
employed to do so since June of 1974.

I am familiar with a number of blind
people, and I am
generally
familiar with the capacities of the blind. In an
emergency
situation there are circumstances in which it would be
helpful to
have an able-bodied blind person seated in an emergency
exit row
with a sighted person. In those cases in which there is
smoke in the
cabin, an able-bodied blind person, being used to
handling
situations without sight, would be able to assist with
more
facility in the evacuation. An able-bodied blind person would
not hinder
an emergency evacuation.

That is what a pilot says, and he is not
just talking theory.
I am aware
of at least one case where it was put to the test.
Everybody in
this organization knows who the late Lawrence (Muzzy)
Marcelino
was. In the early 1980s he was flying home from Baltimore
to
California, and when the plane got ready to land in San
Francisco,
there was a problem. The landing gear wouldn't come
down. The
plane landed on foam, and the lights went out. An
emergency
evacuation occurred. It was night, and there was near
panic. It
was Muzzy who got to the exit and helped the sighted
passengers
find it.

So far as I have been able to determine,
there is not a case
on record in
which a blind person has been involved in the blocking
of an exit
or the slowing of traffic in an airline emergency, and
as I have
just told you, I know of at least one instance (the one
involving
Muzzy) in which blindness was a positive asset. Yet, the
airlines
keep prattling to us about safety while, at the same time,
knowingly
doing things which diminish safety. I refer to the
serving of
liquor to passengers in exit rows and the practice of
permitting
excess carry-on luggage to be stowed with passengers at
their seats.
For that matter, serving liquor at all on a plane in
flight
probably reduces the safety margins, and so does smoking. I
am not
saying that these things should be eliminated but only that
the
treatment of the blind should be seen in perspective.

When I was participating in the
regulatory negotiation
process last
summer to persuade the Department of Transportation to
come up with
rules to prevent discrimination against the blind in
air travel,
I personally heard officials of the Flight Standards
Administration
of the Federal Aviation Administration repeatedly
say that
they felt there was no safety question involved in blind
persons'
sitting in exit rows on planes. They said that if they had
felt there
was a safety question, they would long since have made
appropriate
regulations. The Flight Standards Administration is
that branch
of FAA which is responsible for determining questions
of safety in
air travel. Only when FAA attorneys began to apply
pressure did
the nature of the comments by Flight Standards
officials
change. Rather than oppose the airlines, the FAA
apparently
finds it easier to duck behind the safety issue.

The problem with the arguments being
advanced by the FAA and
the airlines
is that those arguments are based on the false premise
that sighted
persons (excluding the elderly, the frail, the
pregnant,
and children) are uniformly capable and alert. The blind
person (with
whatever limitations and strengths he or she may
possess) is
compared with the ideal sighted person a person who in
most cases
does not exist. Last fall when Senator Dole promised to
help deal
with the airline problem, he said that it would not occur
to anybody
to suggest that he should not be allowed to sit in an
exit row.
Yet (because of his physical handicap), he would not, he
said, be
able to open the exit.

Several years ago when we were taking
both sighted and blind
people to
the Baltimore airport to make a test evacuation of a
World Airways
plane, we had to eliminate from consideration many of
the sighted
that we might have chosen. One had back problems;
another had
foot problems; and still another had difficulties with
heart and
blood pressure. In the real world of everyday commercial
air travel
none of these people would have been excluded from the
exit row.
Why, then, should the blind be held to a different
standard
from the sighted?

The truth is that if you consider the
scarcity of accidents
in
proportion to the number of miles which are flown and the
relatively
small number of blind people who are likely to be on a
given flight
at a given time, the potential risk would almost be
zero even if
all of the claims by the airlines about the unsafeness
of the blind
were true. The serving of liquor to passengers, the
permitting
of smoking, the carry-on luggage, the undetected
emotional
and physical problems of the average passenger, and a
hundred
other things are much more real as problems than the
minimal risk
potentially posed by the blind plus the fact, as I
have already
said, that in certain circumstances the blind would
have an
advantage in helping themselves and others. Nevertheless,
the airlines
persist in their phony game ofIt is
all a matter of
safety,
and the FAA bows to the pressure and seeks
to take the
easy way
out.

In truth and in fact we are not dealing
with a safety issue
at all but a
matter of civil rights, and we simply will not be
bullied and
intimidated into submission. We will speak to the
public and
the Congress until we get results. And make no mistake
about it we
will be heard, and we will be heeded.

Two incidents this spring graphically
illustrate the
unreasonableness
of the treatment which we are receiving from the
airlines. On
a Midway Airlines flight from Baltimore to Des Moines
Peggy Pinder
(the Second Vice President of the National Federation
of the Blind
and the President of the National Federation of the
Blind of
Iowa) was arrested for refusing to move to a seat near an
emergency
exit; and only a few days later Jim Gashel (our Director
of
Governmental Affairs) was arrested and removed from a United
Airlines
flight for almost the exact opposite reason. He was
sitting in
his assigned seat (one he had not requested) in an exit
row and
refused to move. In Peggy's case the facts are thoroughly
documented
and particularly vicious and ugly, not to mention
ironic.

She was going home to Iowa from
Washington after a day of
testifying
before the Republican National Committee on ways of
increasing
participation of blind persons in the mainstream of
American
life and of eliminating discrimination against the blind.
When she
arrived at the airport, she was ordered to pre-board the
plane. She
declined but was told that she would either pre-board or
not be
permitted to travel. She submitted and did as she was
ordered. The
plane had open seating, so she went to the back and
took a seat
in the smoking section. She said she did not need a
special
briefing, but when she was publicly and abusively ordered
to take one,
she did it. Then, when she refused to change her seat
(which was
not in an exit row), she was arrested and bodily carried
from the
plane in a particularly offensive manner. In her own
words:

The officer lifted me from my seat and
physically moved me
into the
aisle. At this point I stood up and waited for the
officer's
next action. The officer positioned himself behind me and
lifted me
from the floor. He accomplished this by reaching his arms
around me
from behind and placing his hands on my breasts. From
this
position he lifted me from the floor and carried me off the
plane, at
one point saying, Jesus Christ.

While asserting my legal rights on board
the airplane, I
maintained a
posture of calmness. I found the personal
confrontation
emotionally upsetting. I was also upset by being
physically
carried from the plane and having my breasts grasped. I
did nothing
to provoke this physical abuse and violation of my
person; yet,
the officer took control over my body.

The fact that Peggy Pinder was arrested
for not moving to
another seat
is confirmed by statements made by Midway officials in
the New York
Times. The Times article, dated April 3, 1988, says in
part:

A Midway Airlines spokeswoman, Sandra
Allen, said it is the
airline's
policy to seat all handicapped people in the first row of
the plane
near where they can be easily evacuated. According to
both the
spokeswoman and Miss Pinder, after she refused to switch
seats the
airport police were called to remove her from the plane.

Not only the New York Times but also
radio, television, and
other
newspapers throughout the land discussed the matter.
Overwhelmingly
the editorial comment was favorable to our cause.
Apparently
Midway thought it had better change its story. Maybe
where Peggy
was sitting had nothing to do with it. Maybe she had
violated a
federal regulation in some other way. Maybe she had
refused to
listen to a briefing about safety features of the
airplane.
Never mind that sighted passengers are not required to
look at the
demonstrations which flight attendants give and that
Peggy can
hear what the flight attendants say during those
demonstrations
as well as anybody else.

Under date of April 15, 1988, David
Armstrong (Midway's
Secretary
and Vice President for Legal Affairs) wrote a letter to
Matthew
Scocozza, Assistant Secretary for Policy and International
Affairs of
the federal Department of Transportation. He began by
very
chummily scratching out Dear Mr.
Scocozza and replacing it
with
Dear Mat. The story Mr. Armstrong told was one of virtue,
long-suffering
patience, and saintly behavior by Midway personnel.
Peggy Pinder
was not ordered to pre-board but politely asked to do
so. She
unreasonably declined and then was permitted to board with
the regular
passengers. In Mr. Armstrong's words: Ms. Pinder
boarded the
aircraft with the first passengers on the regular
boarding
queue.

Mr. Armstrong went on to portray Miss
Pinder as unreasonable,
petulant,
and immature. In his words:Ms. Pinder
indicated that
she did not
wish to be briefed because she 'had flown several
times.'
Mr. Armstrong went on to say that flight
attendants
continued
(at least four more times) to try to get Miss Pinder to
consent to
be briefed but that she persisted in her refusal thus
violating
the federal law, endangering every passenger on the
plane, and
compelling the pilot to call the police.

This matter of a
briefing is made to sound like a divine
mystery
instead of the routine speech and demonstration which it
is.
Passengers rarely pay attention to it. They do not stop their
conversations
or put aside their magazines, newspapers, books,
earphones, or
calculators especially after their first few flights;
and nobody
tries to force them or put them under arrest for their
inattention.

But let us put this to one side and deal with the more basic question of
the contradictory statements. Who is telling the truth Mr. Armstrong, or Miss
Pinder? If Midway's statements to the press at the time of the occurrence are
not sufficient, perhaps the police report will suffice. In his official statement
the arresting officer said: I along with Officer M. Young responded to the dispute.
We approached the suspect with flight attendant Freitag. Flight attendant Freitag
again asked the suspect to listen to the handicap briefing. The suspect at this
time listened to the briefing. The flight attendant then asked the suspect to
move to the appropriate seat which is in accordance with Midway policy. The
suspect refused. Officer Young and myself asked the suspect to move to the other
seat. The suspect refused. Officer Young then assisted the suspect off the plane
per order of the captain.

Peggy Pinder was, if you can believe it,
arrested on charges
of
criminal trespass; but as is typical in
these cases, the
charges were
dropped. Why? Out of kindness? Don't you believe it.
Midway was
wrong and they know they were wrong. Sooner or later
there had to
be a court case to put a stop to this kind of vicious
abuse, and
this seems about as good a one as any. We hereby serve
notice on
Midway Airlines that they should ready their defenses and
prepare to
justify their behavior before a jury. They have tried to
forestall
the problem by filing a lengthy petition asking the
federal
Department of Transportation to rule that what they did was
in
accordance with Department rules and that (take note, Attorney
General
Hartigan) the states are preempted in the matter by the
federal
government.

As to the Department of Transportation,
it has now indicated
that it will
(at long last) make the rules which the Air Carrier
Access Act
of 1986 required it to issue over a year ago. The
proposed
rules are a classic example of federal double talk and
deceit. They
say very piously and forthrightly that air carriers
may not
discriminate against any blind person in seating
arrangements
except in instances where the Federal Aviation
Administration
requires it for safety, but they will establish a
list of
required functions. With a straight face the chief counsel
of the
Federal Aviation Administration recently told me that no
blind person
could be excluded from an exit row seat but that if a
person could
not see, he or she might be excluded from such a seat.
It is all a
matter of function, he said, not blindness. And these
are the
people who are writing the rules and protecting the public.

As we consider what to do about our problems with the airlines, I want to
remind you of some of the things which have been said about liberty and freedom.They
that give up essential liberty, said Benjamin Franklin, to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Freedom,said Max Stirner, cannot
be granted. It must be taken.

We hear, and we understand. We know what
we must do, and we
have counted
the cost. Is freedom meant only for the sighted, or is
it meant for
us, too? Is it all right (even praiseworthy) for
sighted
Americans to resist coercion and fight for their rights but
not all
right for the blind? Can blind people hope to be free
Americans?
We gave our answer to that question almost fifty years
ago. We
formed the National Federation of the Blind and it is still
here,
stronger and more active today than ever before in it
history.

The battle lines are now drawn on the
issue of freedom in air
travel for
the blind, and we could not withdraw from the fight even
if we would.
We will either win or lose. We did not seek this
fight, but
we have no intention of running from it and we certainly
have no
intention of being beaten into the ground. We have taken
our case to
the Congress, and we will also take it to the public
and the
courts and we intend to prevail. We want no strife or
confrontation,
but we will do what we have to do. We are simply no
longer
willing to be second-class citizens.

Less than a year after this convention
appearance Jernigan
struck the
same theme in testimony before the Subcommittee on
Aviation of
the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation.
He was appearing in his role as Executive Director
of the
National Federation of the Blind and as the long-time leader
of the
organized blind of America. His testimony was a summation of
years of
experience with the airlines and a distillation of decades
of
experience with discrimination and prejudice. It is reprinted
here as an
appropriate commentary on the drama unfortunately still
unfinished
of the organized blind in the unfriendly skies.

Testimony: March 14, 1989

Mr. Chairman, I am Kenneth Jernigan,
Executive Director of
the National
Federation of the Blind. This hearing concerns the Air
Travel
Rights for Blind Individuals Act (S. 341), introduced by
Senator
Hollings and others last month. We are pleased, Mr.
Chairman,
that you and Senator McCain are original co-sponsors of
the bill.
The Air Travel Rights for Blind Individuals Act is
necessary
legislation. The blind, who have come here this morning
from
throughout the United States, can tell you from personal
experience
that this is so.

Today the situation is such that no
blind person in this
country can
board a plane without fear of harassment, public
humiliation,
and possibly arrest and bodily injury. I have been
riding on
airplanes for more than thirty-five years, and I can say
from
firsthand knowledge that it was not always like this. Prior to
the 1970s
blind people almost never experienced problems in air
travel. We
bought our tickets, went to the airport, boarded the
plane,
traveled to our destination, got off, and went about our
business
just like everybody else. If one of us wanted help in
boarding a plane
or making a connection, the assistance was
requested
and given without a thought.

Then, things began to change. Ironically
the problem was
caused by
the 1973 amendments to the federal Rehabilitation Act and
the growing
emphasis on affirmative action and prohibition of
discrimination
against the handicapped. One would have thought
these things
would have been positive steps, but they were not at
least, not
for the blind. Airline personnel and federal regulators
didn't
become knowledgeable overnight or lose their prejudices just
because
somebody told them to engage in affirmative action and
nondiscrimination.
Mostly with respect to air travel the blind
didn't need
any affirmative action. We were doing just fine as it
was. But the
airlines and the federal regulators wouldn't have it
that way.

They began by lumping all of what they
perceived to be the
handicapped
together wheelchair users, the blind, the deaf, the
quadriplegic,
the cerebral palsied, and everybody else including,
very often,
small children. Next they catalogued what they believed
to be the
problems, needs, and characteristics of these groups and
then assumed
that each item on the list applied to every member of
every group
they had included. The resulting mythical composite was
a
monstrosity, totally helpless, totally in need of custody, and
totally
nonexistent except in the minds of airline officials and
federal
regulators.

When we objected and insisted on our
right to the same
freedom of
travel that other Americans enjoy, the airline officials
and federal
regulators reacted with anger and resentment. Since
nobody wants
to admit to prejudice and ignorance, they said their
treatment of
us was based on safety. After all, who can fight
safety!

In 1986 Congress passed a law
specifically prohibiting
discrimination
on the basis of handicap in air travel, and even
that law has
now been twisted into the exact opposite of what
Congress
intended. Today we are faced with a proposed regulation by
the Federal
Aviation Administration in response to the 1986 law,
and it is
not by accident that the regulation was published just
prior to
this hearing. Of course, the regulation is made in the
name of
safety, but it is not a question of safety at all but of
human rights
and the freedom to travel. More specifically the
regulation
prohibits blind persons from sitting in exit rows on
airplanes,
but much more than exit row seating is involved. If the
Air Travel
Rights for Blind Individuals Act is adopted, a signal
will be sent
to the airlines and the Federal Aviation
Administration.
If the legislation is not passed and the FAA rule
is allowed
to stand, a signal will also be sent that the blind are
fair game
for any kind of treatment the airlines and the FAA wish
to give us,
as long as it is done in the name of safety.

If the abuse we are taking from the
airlines had anything to
do with
safety, we wouldn't object, but it doesn't. The truth is
that we are
being made victims of a misdirected and misapplied
federal
policy that has irrationally gone wild. Let me give you
examples and
show you what I mean.

In early February of this year the blind
were in Washington
to talk to
Congress about (among other things) the unreasonable
treatment we
are receiving from the airlines. Going home from that
meeting
Verla Kirsch, a blind woman from Iowa, was assaulted and
publicly
humiliated by Midway Airlines flight personnel. Even
though Mrs.
Kirsch's white cane was on the floor in the approved
FAA manner,
the flight attendant (over her protest) took it from
her,
returning it after takeoff. On the descent into Chicago two
Midway
flight attendants sneaked up on Mrs. Kirsch, hunkered down,
grabbed and
lifted her legs, (yes, I literally mean that) and in
her
words,yanked the cane from under my
feet, bending the cane
and nearly
breaking it.

On the trip from Chicago to Des Moines
(still on Midway) Mrs.
Kirsch found
that the word had gone ahead of her, but this time she
was prepared
and refused to be caught off guard. After publicly
harassing
her, flight personnel found in their own manual that Mrs.
Kirsch was
in the right and that blind persons (according to
Midway's own
policies) may keep their canes at their seats. But the
damage was
done. Imagine the spectacle, the embarrassment, and the
public
humiliation! This (and not just exit row seating) is what is
really at
stake with the proposed FAA rule, this hearing, and the
passage of
the Air Travel Rights for Blind Individuals Act.

Is it safe for blind persons to sit in
exit rows? Are there,
in fact,
times when it would be a plus? Here is the sworn statement
of a pilot:

I, Jared Haas, being first duly sworn,
depose and state: I
have been a
pilot for many years. I currently fly 727 aircraft, and
I have been
employed to do so since June of 1974.

I am familiar with a number of blind
people, and I am
generally
familiar with the capacities of the blind. In an
emergency
situation there are circumstances in which it would be
helpful to
have an able-bodied blind person seated in an emergency
exit row
with a sighted person. In those cases in which there is
smoke in the
cabin, an able-bodied blind person, being used to
handling
situations without sight, would be able to assist with
more
facility in the evacuation. An able-bodied blind person would
not hinder
an emergency evacuation.

That is what a pilot says, and he is not
just talking theory.
I am aware
of at least one case in which it was put to the test. In
the early
1980s Lawrence Marcelino, a member of the board of
directors of
the National Federation of the Blind, was flying home
from
Baltimore to California; and when the plane got ready to land
in San
Francisco, there was a problem. The landing gear wouldn't
come down.
The plane landed on foam, and the lights went out. An
emergency
evacuation occurred. It was night, and there was near
panic. It
was Marcelino who got to the exit and helped the sighted
passengers
find it.

So far as I have been able to determine, there is not a case on record in
which a blind person has been involved in the blocking of an exit or the slowing
of traffic in an emergency, and as I have just told you, I know of at least
one instance (the one involving Marcelino) in which blindness was a positive
asset. Yet, the FAA and the airlines keep prattling to us about safety.

What evidence do they have? I have
carefully studied the
FAA's
proposed rule, and they rely heavily on tests made in 1973 by
the Civil
Aeromedical Institute (CAMI). The FAA's own words
discredit
the CAMI tests.

In their report CAMI said that blind
passengers caused a
slight
slowing of the evacuation of an airplane. However, for the
critical
portion of the tests they did not use real blind persons
but sighted
persons who pretended to be blind. These sighted
pretenders
would have no experience in the techniques used by the
blind, nor
would they have the background to know how to function
with skill
and speed under blindfold. The real blind persons were
not allowed
to open the emergency exits or to go down the
evacuation
slides. It was a matter of safety, done for their own
protection.
They were allowed to walk from their seats to the
emergency
exits.

Moreover, the selection of the people
who were to be tested
is
interesting. The sighted (the so-called nonhandicapped) were FAA
employees or
people recruited through the University of Oklahoma's
Office of
Research Administration. The blind (not the simulated but
the real)
were recruited from the Oklahoma League for the Blind,
which
operates a sheltered workshop. FAA employees are likely to be
familiar
with aircraft and probably are frequent flyers. In short,
the sighted
who participated in the test were selected for maximum
success.

Federal statistics tell us that a large
percentage of
sheltered
workshop employees are multiply handicapped. In addition,
their low
wages and limited opportunities make it unlikely that
they are regular
air travelers. In short, the blind participants
(even when
they were real and not simulated) were selected for poor
performance.
I am not suggesting that all of this was consciously
done.
Nevertheless, it was done. It is not very difficult to see
what the
results would have been if blind frequent air travelers
had been
tested against sighted sheltered workshop employees or,
for that
matter, against the FAA personnel who were actually used.

But we do not have to speculate about
the competence of blind
persons to
perform in emergency evacuations of airplanes. On April
3, 1985,
members of the National Federation of the Blind took part
in the
evacuation of an airplane at the Baltimore airport. The
airplane was
real, and the blind persons were real. They were not
simulated,
and they did not simply walk from their seats to the
exits but
went all of the way opening the emergency exit, deploying
the
evacuation slide, and jumping out. I know, for I was there. I
jumped out
of that airplane twice.

The test made by the National Federation
of the Blind was
much more
realistic than the one performed by CAMI. We wanted
approximately
equal numbers of blind and sighted persons so that we
could see
whether there was any difference in their speed and
efficiency.
Our first problem was to find competent sighted
participants.
One person had back problems; another had a bad
heart;
another had foot problems; and so it went. But in the real
world of
everyday flying every one of these people would have
qualified
for exit row seating, without a question or a thought.

We videotaped that test evacuation, and
I have the tape here
with me
today to submit as part of the record. If you run it once
through at
normal speed, you will see passengers seated in a plane,
then moving
to the exit, and going down the slide. Mostly you will
not be able
to tell the difference between the sighted and the
blind. They
move with equal ease.

When you run the tape slowly (stopping
at critical points to
study it),
what it tells you is damning to the FAA's case. The
airline
personnel said we should move quickly in a double line, but
a flight
attendant was standing at the exit partially blocking it.
I know, for
I had to go around her. In a real emergency I would not
have been
slowed as I was in the test. I would have simply picked
her up,
placed her gently but firmly on the slide, and followed
her.

Standing beside the flight attendant,
you will see a male
airline
employee. He slows the flow of traffic by peeking around
the flight
attendant to look down the slide to see whether the
blind are
making it. The flight attendant also takes time out to
peek,
further blocking the exit.

You will observe that one of the
passengers has a dog guide.
He was
moving quickly to go down the evacuation slide but was
slowed by
the male flight attendant, who insisted on trying to tell
him how to
do it. The female flight attendant kept reaching her arm
back into
the flow of traffic, presumably trying to help but in
reality
impeding the evacuation. In one instance it can be seen
that she
locks elbows with a female evacuee and then grabs at her,
causing the
passenger to lose balance. Nevertheless, the descent
was made
safely. As I have already said, in the real world the
airline
personnel would probably not have had the opportunity to
slow the
evacuation. In any case the tape speaks for itself.

Last week I had occasion to fly from
Denver to Washington,
and what
happened to me is illustrative of the problem we are
facing.
Although on many other trips I have been harassed and
threatened,
nothing like that happened on this one. Everybody was
friendly and
good-tempered, and I am sure the flight attendants
were not
even aware that their actions were noteworthy. But you be
the judge.
Put yourself in my place.

I was traveling with my sighted wife.
Shortly after we took
our seats, a
flight attendant came and very pleasantly and politely
said that
she must give me a special briefing. She asked me to feel
the oxygen
mask and then said that she would like me to fasten and
unfasten my
seat belt for her. Sighted persons are neither required
to look at
nor listen to briefings, and certainly they are not
asked
publicly to demonstrate that they are capable of fastening
and
unfastening a seat belt. Nevertheless, I complied with good
temper and
without protest.

But, you may say, what's the big deal?
Such treatment doesn't
really mean
that you are being treated like a child, or thought of
as one.
Perhaps but a few minutes later a second flight attendant
(again, a
most pleasant individual) came to my seat and said to my
wife:
Has he had his special briefing yet?

I smiled and replied:
Yes, he has had his briefing.

The flight attendant gave a small
embarrassed laugh, and the
rest of the
flight proceeded without incident but what I have just
told you has
far more significance than superficial appearance
would
indicate. It translates into a general public feeling that
the blind
are incompetent and unable to compete. Put to one side
the damage
it does to the self-image of the blind who are still in
doubt of
their own worth or, for that matter, what it would do to
any of us,
whether blind or sighted especially, if the occurrence
is not
isolated but part of an everyday pattern.

This simple incident which seems so
innocent and unimportant
is the very
essence of our problem. It translates into
unemployment,
lack of acceptance, low self-esteem, and second-class
citizenship.
Is it all right (even praiseworthy) for other
Americans to
insist on their rights but not all right for the blind
to do it?
Are human dignity and freedom meant for everybody else in
this country
but not for the blind? Is the American dream
exclusively
the property of the sighted or is it meant for the
blind, too?
I believe it is meant for all of us, and I think
Congress and
the public think so, too. I believe that as you learn
the facts,
you will not permit the airlines and the FAA to continue
what they
are doing to the blind.

Yes, we are talking about safety, but
not the kind
contemplated
by the FAA in its discriminatory rule. That is why we
are asking
for your help. That is why we are asking you to pass
(and pass
quickly) the Air Travel Rights for Blind Individuals Act.

To Braille or Not to Braille

The decade of the eighties found the
organized blind facing a
new and
complex issue one which brought the movement into conflict
and debate with
some of the educators and teachers of blind
children.
The issue was the use of Braille in the school
curriculum,
particularly in connection with students having some
residual
vision. On one side of the debate were those educators who
regarded
Braille as generally obsolete and not competitive with
other
reading methods; on the other side were some of the educators
and the
majority of blind people who regarded Braille as the
essential
means to literacy for blind persons.

The intensity of the debate over the
teaching of Braille
during this
decade might seem puzzling to those unfamiliar with the
subject and
without the personal associations of memory and
tradition
which it calls up for many who are blind. As a preface to
more
systematic examination of the issue, here is an
impressionistic
narrative of one blind youth's encounter with the
world of
Braille, books, and boarding schools. Written by Kenneth
Jernigan,
the article appeared in the June-July, 1987, Braille
Monitor:

Of Braille and Memories and The Matilda Ziegler

by Kenneth Jernigan

When I was a boy growing up in
Tennessee, Braille was hard to
come by. At
the Tennessee School for the Blind (where I spent nine
months of
each year) Braille was rationed. In the first grade we
were allowed
to read a book only during certain hours of the day,
and we were
not permitted to take books to our rooms at night or on
weekends.
Looking back, I suppose the school didn't have many
books, and
they probably thought (perhaps correctly) that those
they did
have would be used more as missiles than instruments of
learning if
they let us take them out. When we advanced to the
second
grade, we were allowed (yes, allowed) to come down for
thirty
minutes each night to study hall. This was what big boys
did. In the
first grade we had been ignominiously sent to bed at
seven
o'clock while our elders (the second and third graders and
those
beyond) were permitted to go to that mysterious place called
study hall.
The first graders (the little boys )
had no such
status or
privilege.

When we got to the third grade, we were
still not permitted
to take
books to our rooms, but we were allowed to increase our
study hall
time. We could actually spend a whole hour at it each
night Monday
through Friday. It was the pinnacle of status for the
primary
grades.

When we got to the
intermediate department (the fourth,
fifth, and
sixth grades) we were reallygrowing
up,and our
status and
prestige increased accordingly. We were allowed (I use
the word advisedly allowed, not forced) to go for an hour each
night Monday
through Friday to study hall, and during that time we
could read
books and magazines to our hearts' content. True, the
choice was
not great but such as there was, we could read it. Of
course, we
could not take books to our rooms during the week, but
on Friday
night each boy (I presume the girls had the same
privilege)
could take one Braille volume to his room for the
weekend.

Before I go further, perhaps I had
better explain that
comment
about the girls. The girls sat on one side of the room, and
the boys sat
on the other; and woe to the member of one sex who
tried to
speak or write notes to a member of the other. Girls, like
Braille
books, were difficult to get at and all the more desirable
for the
imagining. But back to the main thread.

As I say, each boy in the intermediate department could
check out one Braille volume on Friday night. Now, as every good
Braille
reader knows, Braille is bulkier than print; and at least
four or five
Braille volumes (sometimes more) are required to make
a book. It
is also a matter of common knowledge that people in
general and
boys in particular (yes, and maybe girls, too) are
constantly
on the lookout to beat the system.
What system? Any
system.

So on Friday nights we boys formed what
would today be called
a
consortium. One of us would check out volume one of a book; the
next, volume
two; the next, volume three; et cetera. With our
treasures
hugged to our bosoms we would head to our rooms and begin
reading. If
you got volume three (the middle of the book), that's
where you
started. You would get to the beginning by and by.

Now, girls and Braille books were not
the only items that
were
strictly regulated in the environment I am describing. The
hours of the
day and night fell into the same category. Study hall

ended at
8:00, and you were expected to be in your room and in bed
by 9:40, the
time when the silence bell
rang. You were also
expected to
be trying to go to sleep, not reading.

But as I have said, people like to beat
the system; and to us
boys,
starved for reading during the week, the hours between Friday
night and
Monday morning were not to be wasted. (Incidentally, I
should say
here that there were usually no radios around and that
we were
strictly forbidden on pain of expulsion, and God knows what
else to
leave the campus except for a brief period on Saturday
afternoon
after we got big enough, that is, and assuming we had no
violations
on our record which required erasure by penalty.) In
other words
the campus of the Tennessee School for the Blind was
what one
might call a closed ecology. We found our entertainment
where we
could.

Well, back to Friday night and the
problem of the books.
Rules are
rules, but Braille can be read under the cover as well as
anywhere
else; and when the lights are out and the sounds of
approaching
footsteps are easy to detect, it is virtually
impossible
to prohibit reading and make the prohibition stick. The
night
watchman was regular in his rounds and methodical in his
movements.
He came through the halls every sixty minutes on the
hour, and we
could tell the time by his measured tread. (I suppose
I need not
add that we had no clocks or watches.)

After the watchman had left our
vicinity, we would meet in
the bathroom
(there was one for all twenty-six of us) and discuss
what we had
been reading. We also used the occasion to keep
ourselves
awake and exchange Braille volumes as we finished them.
It made for
an interesting way to read a book, but we got there and
instead of
feeling deprived or abused, we felt elated. We were
beating the
system; we had books to read, something the little boys
didn't have;
and we were engaged in joint clandestine activity.
Sometimes as
the night advanced, one of us would go to sleep and
fail to keep
the hourly rendezvous, but these were minor
aberrations
and the weekend was only beginning.

After breakfast on Saturday mornings
most of us (not all)
would
continue reading usually aloud in a group. We kept at it as
long as we
could, nodding off when we couldn't take it any more.
Then, we
went at it again. Let me be clear. I am talking about a
general
pattern, not a rigid routine. It did not happen every
weekend, and
even when it did, the pace was not uniform or the
schedule
precise. We took time for such pleasantries as running,
playing, and
occasional rock fights. We also engaged in certain
organized
games, and as we grew older, we occasionally slipped off
campus at
night and prowled the town. Nevertheless, the reading
pattern was
a dominant theme.

Time, of course, is inexorable; and the
day inevitably came
when we
outgrew the intermediate department and advanced to high
school
seventh through twelfth grades. Again, it
meant a change in
status a
change in everything, of course, but especially reading.
Not only
could we come to study hall for an hour each night Monday
through
Friday and take a Braille volume to our room during
weekends,
but we could also check out Braille books whenever we
liked, and
(within reason) we could take as many as we wanted.

Let me now go back once more to the
early childhood years.
Before I was
six, I had an isolated existence. My mother and
father, my
older brother, and I lived on a farm about fifty miles
out of
Nashville. We had no radio, no telephone, and no substantial
contact with
anybody except our immediate neighbors. My father had
very little
formal education, and my mother had left school just
prior to
graduating from the eighth grade. Books were not an
important
part of our family routine. Most of the time we did not
have a
newspaper. There were two reasons: Our orientation was not
toward
reading, and money was scarce. It was the early thirties.
Hogs (when
we had any) brought two cents a pound; and anything else
we had to
sell was priced proportionately.

I did a lot of thinking in those
preschool days, and every
time I
could, I got somebody to read to me. Read what? Anything
anything I
could get. I would nag and pester anybody I could find
to read me
anything that was available the Bible, an agriculture
yearbook, a
part of a newspaper, or the Sears Roebuck Catalog. It
didn't
matter. Reading was magic. It opened up new worlds.

I remember the joy a joy which almost
amounted to reverence
and awe
which I felt during those times I was allowed to visit an
aunt who had
books in her home. It was from her daughter (my
cousin) that
I first heard the fairy stories from The Book of
Knowledge, a
treasure which many of today's children have
unfortunately
missed. My cousin loved to read and was
long-suffering
and kind, but I know that I tried her patience with
my
insatiable appetite. It was not possible for me to get enough,
and I always
dreaded going home, finding every excuse I could to
stay as long
as my parents would let me. I loved my aunt; I was
fascinated
by the radio she had; and I delighted in her superb
cooking but
the key attraction was the reading. My aunt is long
since dead,
and of course I never told her. For that matter, maybe
I never
really sorted it out in my own mind, but there it was no
doubt about
it.

As I have already said, I started school
at six and when I
say six, I
mean six. As you might imagine, I wanted to go as soon
as I could,
and I made no secret about it. I was six in November of
1932.
However, school started in September, and six meant six. I
was not
allowed to begin until the next quarter January of 1933.

You can understand that after I had been
in school for a few
weeks, I
contemplated with mixed feelings the summer vacation which
would be
coming. I loved my family, but I had been away from home
and found
stimulation and new experiences. I did not look forward
to three
months of renewed confinement in the four-room farm house
with nothing
to do.

Then, I learned that I was going to be
sent a Braille
magazine
during the summer months. Each month's issue was sixty
Braille
pages. I would get one in June, one in July, and one in
August. What
joy! I was six, but I had learned what boredom meant
and I had
also learned to plan. So I rationed the Braille and read
two pages
each day. This gave me something new for tomorrow. Of
course, I
went back and read and re-read it again, but the two new
pages were
always there for tomorrow.

As the school years came and went I got
other magazines,
learned
about the Library of Congress Braille and talking book
collection,
and got a talking book machine. By the time I was in
the seventh
grade I was receiving a number of Braille magazines and
ordering
books from three separate regional libraries during the
summer.
Often I would read twenty hours a day not every day, of
course, but
often. I read Gone With the Wind, War and Peace, Zane
Grey, Rafael
Sabatini, James Oliver Curwood, and hundreds of
others. I
read whatever the libraries sent me, every word of it;
and I often
took notes. By then it was clear to me that books would
be my
release from the prison of the farm and inactivity. It was
also clear
to me that college was part of that program and that
somehow I
was going to get there. But it was not just escape from
confinement
or hope for a broader horizon or something to be
gained. It
was also a deep, ingrained love of reading.

The background I have described
conditioned me. I did not
feel about
reading the way I see most people viewing it today. Many
of today's
children seem to have the attitude that they are
forced, not permitted,to go to school that
they arerequired,
not
given the privilege and honor,
to study. They are inundated
with reading
matter. It is not scarce but a veritable clutter, not
something to
strive for but to take for granted. I don't want
children or
the general public to be deprived of reading matter,
but I
sometimes think that a scald is as bad as a freeze. Is it
worse to be
deprived of books until you feel starved for them or to
be so overwhelmed with them that you become blas, about it? I don't know, and I
don't know that it will do me any good to speculate.
All I know
is that I not only delight in reading but believe it to
be a much
neglected joy and a principal passport to success,
perspective,
civilization, and possibly the survival of the
species. I
am of that group which deplores the illiteracy which
characterizes
much of our society and distinguishes many of its
would-be
leaders and role models. I am extremely glad I have had
the
opportunity and incentive to read as broadly as I have, and I
believe my
life is so much better for the experience that it
borders on
the difference between living and existence.

It is interesting to contemplate how a particular train of thought can be
set in motion. The memories and reflections I have been recounting were called
to mind by a press release which recently crossed my desk. I want to share it
with you and then make a few comments about it. Here it is:

Free Magazine For Blind Completes 80
Years

New York, March, 1987 With its March
issue, The Matilda
Ziegler
Magazine for the Blind completes eighty years as a free
general
interest magazine for blind and visually impaired persons.
The Ziegler,
as it is affectionately known by readers, was founded
in 1907 by
Electa Matilda Ziegler, wealthy widow of William
Ziegler,
founder of the Royal Baking Powder Company. The Ziegler
has no print
edition its ten issues per year are in Braille and on
recorded
flexible disc.

Since one of the main difficulties faced
by blind people is
lack of easy
access to the thousands of print magazines and books
published
every year, the Ziegler gives its readers an informative,
stimulating,
and entertaining selection from these print materials.
It reprints
articles from newspapers and magazines, and includes
short
stories, poetry, and humor. While the Ziegler is not about
blindness,
it does devote space to news and information of special
interest to
people with vision problems. In Reader's Forum,
readers have
an opportunity to sound off
on any subject and to
discuss
solutions to problems caused by lack of, or poor, sight.
The
Ziegler's highly popular Pen Pals
section enables blind and
visually
impaired persons worldwide to get in touch.

It was a highly improbable sequence of
events that led to the
founding of
the Ziegler. In 1906 Walter Holmes, a Tennessee
newspaperman,
was on a business trip to New York City, when he came
across a
newspaper description of a large bequest to charity.
Irritated by
the fact that no money was left to benefit blind
people, he
dashed off a note to the paper, pointing out how
desperately
blind people needed books that they could read with
their
fingers. Few books, he noted, were transcribed into a form
that could
be read by touch, and those few were far too expensive.
The then
popular Ben Hur, for example, cost only $1 in print, but
an embossed
version cost all of $30!

Walter Holmes' letter was published, and
he received a
response
from one E. M. Ziegler, who asked to meet him. E. M.
Ziegler
turned out to be a woman, Electa Matilda Ziegler, and at
their
meeting she agreed to pay for a magazine for the blind, if
Holmes would
run it. To this serendipitous meeting the Ziegler
Magazine
traces its origins. Why was Mrs. Ziegler so interested in
blind

people? What was Mr. Holmes' interest? She had a blind son,
and he had a
blind brother.

True to her word, Mrs. Ziegler paid the
expenses (some
$20,000 per
year) from her own pocket until 1928, when she set up
an
endowment. It is this carefully invested fund that has
underwritten
the magazine ever since.

The Ziegler's first issue in March,
1907, was greeted with
enormous
enthusiasm by blind and sighted people alike. Blind and
deaf Helen
Keller, then twenty-six years old, wrote to Mrs.
Ziegler,
I must send you my glad thanks for the
pleasure and the
facilities
which you have placed within our reach. I have waited
many years
for such a magazine.

Mark Twain wrote:
I think this is one of the noblest
benefactions
that has been conferred upon a worthy object by any
purse during
the long stretch of my seventy-one years.

Eighty years later readers are still
full of praise and
gratitude
for the magazine. One old lady, who has been a reader
since that
first issue, recently asked to have her subscription
changed from
Braille to recorded disc since, at her advanced age,
she could no
longer read Braille as quickly as she would like, but
she did not
want to miss a single issue.

To mark the completion of eighty years,
the Ziegler asked its
readers to
submit essays to a contest on the subject, An Unforgettable Journey. First prize was won by a
reader in
Jerusalem,
Siranoosh A. Ketchejian, who described a 1909 journey as
a small girl
from her home in Armenia to a school for blind
children in
Jerusalem.

The second prize went to Virginia A.
Reagan of Rogersville,
Missouri.
Her essay describes her continuing journey toward
independence
despite total blindness and orthopedic problems that
oblige her
to use a wheelchair. She points out, however, that her
biggest
battles were with the discouraging attitudes of doctors and
others who
believed she would never be capable of living
independently.

James R. Stell of Glasgow, Kentucky, won
third prize for his
vivid
recollection of a journey he made to New York City thirty
years ago
with the band of the Alabama School for the Blind. The
band played
at an international Lions convention.

By printing this press release I do not mean to imply that the Matilda
Ziegler Magazine is (or ever was) the greatest thing since sliced bread
or even that I think it is unusually well done. I have not read or even seen
a copy of it for years, and I have often heard it snidely called the Lydia
Pinkham Magazine an epithet which may elude some of the members of the younger
generation. Be that as it may, the Ziegler was one of those early Braille
magazines that I had the opportunity to get my hands on when I was searching
for anything that I could find to read. Along with the Search Light,
the Weekly, the Children's Friend, Discovery, the Reader's
Digest, and a host of other Braille magazines, it provided me with both
pleasure and information at a time when I most urgently needed them and it was
one of the first. I must confess that the Ziegler was not my favorite,
but I read it and I am not putting it down.

It was one of the early Braille
magazines, which was freely
made
available to anybody who requested it, and I am sure that
through the
years it has brought countless hours of pleasure to a
great many
people. Because of the progress of the National Library
Service for
the Blind and Physically Handicapped, the advent of the
computer,
the Braille and recorded magazines now available, the
number of
volunteer transcribers who are willing to produce
material,
and the accumulation of Braille and recorded books
scattered
throughout the country, the blind children and adults of
today will
hopefully never have to repeat the experiences I have
described.
Yet, the hunger for Braille, the isolation and
loneliness,
and the early magazines like the Ziegler are an
important
part of our heritage as blind people a heritage we should
not forget
and from which we should continue to profit and learn.

The explosive growth of new procedures
and technology, notably
in the area
of communication skills, caused the Braille Monitor to
devote an
entire issue (May, 1982) to the subject of Braille and
its
alternatives. The lead article was a comprehensive summary and
assessment
by the NFB's President, which explained much of the
controversy
and raised many of the issues which were to gain
attention
during the decade:

Braille: Changing Attitudes, Changing Technology

by Kenneth Jernigan

On rare occasions we devote an entire
issue of the Monitor to
a single
topic. That is what we are doing in the present instance.
The topic is
Braille. Braille is so central in the lives of the
blind and so
much is happening in the way of new attitudes and new
technology
that an overview is needed a bringing together of facts,
an attempt
at perspective.

Before the time of Louis Braille, blind
persons had very
little
opportunity to read at all. Of course, because of the low
literacy
rate, many of the sighted were in the same boat.
Nevertheless,
the blind were at a distinct disadvantage. Through
the years
there had been attempts to develop this or that sort of
tactile
system, but it was Louis Braille who made the breakthrough
in 1825.

However, his invention was only a
beginning. Throughout the
remainder of
the nineteenth century Braille was the center of
controversy
and opposing views. Different systems and
configurations
of dots to form the alphabet coexisted side by side,
and each had
its advocates. The disputes continued into the
twentieth
century, and, for that matter, are still taking place.
Even now,
the Braille Authority of North America is debating new
rules and
contemplating changes.

When I entered the Tennessee School for
the Blind as a boy of
six in the
early 1930s, I was exposed to New York Point, American
Braille,
Grade One, Grade One and One-Half, Grade Two, Moon Type,
and some
sort of unfathomable raised print, the name of which I
either never
heard or soon forgot. I hasten to add that nobody even
attempted to
teach me all of these various systems. I was merely
exposed to
them and told of their numerous virtues or shortcomings
by whichever
advocate happened to be speaking at the moment. In the
first grade
I was taught (or, at least, an attempt was made in that
direction)
both to read and write Grade One Braille. The writing
was done on
a board slate, and I have always been glad that I
learned the
use of the slate before being introduced to the
Brailler
(the equivalent of a typewriter). Incidentally, although
I can now
read Braille with perfect ease at several hundred words
a minute and
can write it with speed and accuracy on slate or
Brailler, I
flunked both Braille reading and Braille writing in the
first grade,
necessitating going through the first grade again the
following
year. Yes, it was a different world.

As I progressed through high school and
college, I became
acquainted
with the British system of writing Braille, which had a
number of
differences from what I was accustomed to. For instance,
the first
time I realized that the British used the letters JC for
Jesus
Christ, I thought it a bit familiar and not at all in keeping
with what my
history books had taught me about the conservative and
stodgy
nature of the inhabitants of that part of the world.

Even so, by the early 1940s everybody
who could read Braille
very well at
all could get along with almost anything that was
floating
around. New York Point was not being produced anymore, and
American
Braille was about in the same situation. Moon Type (which was a series
of curved lines invented by an Englishman named Dr.
Moon for the
purpose of making it easier for older blind persons to
read) was
almost nonexistent, a few volumes being kept at most of
the
residential schools for the blind as conversation pieces and to
impress
visitors.

In the early 1940s most blind children
went to residential
schools, and
Braille was pretty much the standard medium for
teaching.
Large print (or sightsaving material a term with curious
connotations
since it does nothing of the sort) was discussed now
and again,
but mostly it was still waiting in the wings. Students
who were
blind enough to go to the residential school but who had
some
remaining eyesight ( partials they were
called and some of
them were quite
highpartials ) learned to read Braille
with their
eyes, and
they stubbornly and persistently took every opportunity
to do it
despite the scoldings and objections of their teachers. In
fact, there
was quite an art to the rapid reading of Braille
visually. As
I understand it, the dots were not read directly.
Instead, the
page was so held that the dots cast shadows, and these
were read.
Be that as it may, a constant state of war always seemed
to exist
between the teachers and the partials,doubtless honing
wits of both
groups and building character into the bargain. The
teachers
developed a large cloth apron-type affair (known as a
blindfold,
which it wasn't) and insisted that the
partials wear it
while
reading or writing Braille. A loop fitted over the neck and
the
cloth blindfold
was draped over the Braille material. The
student was
expected to put his or her hands underneath the cloth
and do the
reading or writing. The partials
countered by trying
to hold the
top of the blindfold
away from the body and peeking
under it. Of
course, when the teacher's back was turned, the
blindfold
was pushed aside altogether.

In some of the schools the teachers
stepped up the warfare by
turning off
all of the lights in the night study hall sessions
leaving
sighted teachers (most of them were sighted at that time),
partials,
and the totally blind all in the dark
together. Of
course, in
such a situation the totally blind were at a
considerable
advantage, and the sighted teachers (having usually
learned very
few if any of the techniques of blindness) labored
under a
severe handicap. The partials
were somewhere between,
depending on
how well they had learned to function as blind people.

I was called on to supervise such a
night study hall in the
late forties
and early fifties when I was a teacher of English at
the
Tennessee School for the Blind, and the maintenance of
discipline
posed unique problems. It takes a bit of practice and
skill to
follow the trajectory of a thrown object back to its point
of origin,
but the science can be mastered not to mention which the
teacher
tends to have certain inherent advantages in such warfare.
At least,
such was the case in the climate of discipline and
practice
which prevailed at that particular time in our history.
Let me
simply say that the outcome was not always certain and that
the
situation was turbulent, but it provided a certain amount of
stimulation
and was both challenging and do-able.

In the meantime another element was
beginning to come into
play, one
that would have a far-reaching impact on the future of
Braille. In
the 1930s the talking book machine began to be
increasingly
available and popular. At first its impact on the
teaching of
Braille (especially, in the residential schools and
that is
where most of the teaching was done) was minimal. Because
of the
politics of the federal legislation authorizing library

services for
the blind, talking books, which were a principal
component of
the library services, were not supposed to be
available to
children. The talking book machines and records were
not used in
most of the residential schools until after the
mid-forties
and even then at a very slowly accelerating pace.

In view of the fact that blind adults
(people somewhere in
the
neighborhood of sixteen or thereabouts) were entitled to borrow
from the
libraries around the country; in view of the fact that the
definition
of the word adult,
as well as the way of figuring
one's age
can be variously interpreted, depending upon the
exigencies
of the situation; and in view of the further fact that
many of the
libraries were in states far removed from their
borrowers
and could do little to test the veracity of the
information
provided to them by those borrowers, talking book
machines and
records began to make their appearance in the schools
with
increasing frequency.

However, they were not generally used in
the classrooms or
the school
study halls but in the bedrooms of the students and in
their homes
during vacations. The early talking book machines were
heavy and
cumbersome, and the records would only play about fifteen
minutes to
the side. War and Peace, for instance, came in eight
large
containers comprising 160 records, and Gone With The Wind was
on 80
records. Nevertheless, the quality of the reading was
excellent,
and one could do other things with the hands while
listening.
Before the advent of the talking book, Braille was the
only game in town. If you were blind and if you wanted to read,
you learned
Braille, but now there was an alternative.

When the wave of retrolental fibroplasia
spread throughout
the
population in the forties and fifties, leaving thousands of
children
blind, the residential schools could not have handled
(even if
they had wanted to) the massive influx of students. Before
retrolental
fibroplasia, most state residential schools for the
blind had
somewhere between one hundred and two hundred students.
Now, in the
late forties and fifties, the number of blind children
needing
education was several times that much in many of the
states.
There were not enough trained teachers to meet the need,
and the
American Foundation for the Blind got into the act, helping
promote
teacher-training courses in a number of colleges and
universities.
Many felt that the American Foundation added a
negative
element to the problem by its constant discussion of which
was the
better setting for educating the blind child, the
residential
school or the local public school. Of course, the
debate was
largely meaningless since the residential schools could
not possibly
have met all of the need and since many of the local
public
schools were also unable to do an adequate and meaningful
job. Be this
as it may, the American Foundation filled a gap which
no one else
was prepared to fill and, thereby, performed a positive
service. The
philosophy was usually not the best, and there were
often power
plays; but the alternative to the American Foundation's
stepping
into the breach would undoubtedly have been that many
blind
children who got at least a fair degree of education would
likely have
had none at all.

In the pre-retrolental fibroplasia days,
when the great
majority of
blind children and most of the newly blind adults who
received
instruction in Braille got it in the residential schools,
classes were
relatively small, and a good deal of individual
attention
could be given. Moreover, most (not all but most) of the
Braille
teachers were really expert at Braille. They knew Braille,
and they
could read and write it.

With the new wave of blind children
coming into the schools,
there were
bound to be changes and not only changes but also a loss
of quality
in certain areas the kind of thing which always
characterizes
crash programs. Many of the new teachers were not
expert in
Braille, and they were not as sure of its centrality and
necessity as
their predecessors had been.

The talking book machines were now
lighter and smaller than
they had
been, and the records were beginning to be lighter and
longer
playing. As compared with the heavy thirty-three and
one-third
rpm, fifteen minutes to the side, disc of the 1930s, for
instance,
today's talking book record is a paper thin, lightweight,
floppy disc,
which runs at eight and one-third rpm and plays an
hour to the
side. Other things have also come to compete with
Braille.
First came the open reel tape, and today it is the
cassette.
The cassette player and the books recorded on cassette
are much
more portable and easier to get from place to place than
Braille. In
the schools today talking books and cassettes are often
used early
on, and this necessarily means less reliance on Braille.

Then, there is the matter of large print
(the sight saving
material of
old) and various electronic and manually operated
magnification
systems for blind children who have some remaining
residual
vision. This is not merely a matter of new facts and
techniques
but often of philosophy as well. I have sometimes told
the story of
going into a classroom and having a teacher say to me
in the
presence of two young children, one totally blind and one
with some
remaining vision, This little girl can
read print. This
little girl
has to read Braille. Of course, the
wordscan
and
has to
were the key to the matter. Undoubtedly
without consciously
knowing that
she was doing it or meaning to do it, the teacher was
putting
down Braille and making it less
attractive and pleasant to
read. She
may have been helping to cause the totally blind child to
be a poor
Braille reader, or virtually a non-Braille reader. She
was teaching
both children that it is not respectable to be blind
and that, if
you are blind, you cannot expect to compete on terms
of equality.
After all, the girl with some residual vision had only
about ten
percent of her eyesight, and if you are capable in
proportion
to your ability to see, ten percent of a person is not
much.

This is not to say that some of the
magnification devices and
other visual
aids have not been of help to those with residual
vision, for
they have. Rather, it is to make the obvious point that
such devices
have led (at least, to some degree) to a de-emphasis
of Braille.
If visual aids are seen in context and used with
reason, they
can be positive (whether for children or adults), but
if their use
is pushed to the extreme (as has been the case in some
of the
schools and adult training programs), the results can be
very nearly
disasters. For example, I know a number of people who wanted to learn Braille when they were children in school and were not permitted
to do it, being told that the normal thing to do was to read print and use
their remaining vision. They were compelled to do this despite the fact that
their prognosis was for continuing deterioration of sight and despite the fact
that their vision was so poor that they could not read print (even large print)
with comfort and fluency. Many of those people are now totally blind, and no
small number of them deeply resent the way they were treated. They are either
poor Braille readers or have had to expend a great deal of time and effort to
learn the skills they could easily have been taught in school.
There are other developments which have impacted upon Braille
the
thermoform machine, for instance. When it was announced, the
thermoform
seemed such a positive thing. It allowed an individual
to take a
regular sheet of Braille, place it on a platform, and
draw a piece
of heated, thin plastic down over it to reproduce the
Braille
dots. It was a veritable copy machine for the blind. It
made it
possible to duplicate single copies of individual Braille
paper, or
for that matter, short-run multiple copies. If it had
been used
for program agendas, throw away information, or making
copies of
Braille letters in other words if it had been used as
print copy
machines are used, it would have been an unmixed
blessing. It
would have strengthened the use of Braille.

But such was not to be the case. Over
the years a great many
books have
been hand-transcribed by sighted volunteers. More and
more, with
the advent of the thermoform machine, the original paper
Braille copy
of the book has been kept on file by the transcribing
group or the
library as amaster,
and thermoform duplicates have
been sent
out to fill requests. In my opinion (and that opinion is
shared by
most Braille readers with whom I talk) this has done a
great deal
to discourage the use of Braille.

For my part I find prolonged reading of
thermoform extremely
unpleasant.
The plastic sheets tend to stick to the hands, and the
fingers tend
to be irritated after a time. Moreover, I cannot read
thermoform
nearly as rapidly as I can read Braille produced on
paper.
Certainly I cannot read it as pleasantly.

I suspect that if print were so produced
that it hurt the
eyes of
sighted people who read it, far less reading would be done
by the
sighted than is the case today. I further suggest that the
alternative
to print (television) would assuming that such is
possible be
even more popular than it is today. This is not to
blame
anyone, nor is it to shrug off the problems (economic and
otherwise).
It is simply to state facts as I see them and to hope
that we can
find solutions.

The last few years have brought still
other developments in
technology.
There is the Kurzweil Reading Machine, which scans a
print page
and translates it into spoken words. This machine has
achieved
some positive results, but it still has a ways to go to
fulfill the
initial hopes which people had for it. It is too costly
for the
individual blind person to afford; it still has certain
technical
problems; it is not easily portable; and it is not clear
whether
enough capital will continue to be put into its development
to make it
an ongoing major factor in the total mix of reading for
the blind.

Then, there is the Optacon a scanning
system which translates
what the
camera sees on the printed page into a pattern of
vibrating,
closely packed reeds which can be felt with one finger.
Again, there
have been certain positive results with the Optacon,
but there
are also severe limitations and when exaggerated claims
are made concerning
its usefulness and performance, the minuses
quickly
outstrip the plusses. By and large, reading with the
Optacon is
quite slow, and a great deal of training is required for
its skillful
use. Moreover, expense is again a factor, but not as
much as in
the case of the Kurzweil machine.

By no means all (but a great deal) of
the Braille produced in
this country
is purchased through the program of the National
Library
Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped of the
Library of
Congress (NLS). The same is true of recorded and other
reading
material available to the blind. Thus, NLS has a major
voice in
determining what kind of reading material will be
available to
the blind, and in what form that reading material will
be.

In the early days of the library program the service was limited to the blind,
and Braille received a major emphasis (incidentally, the restriction against
serving blind children has, to the satisfaction of everybody, long since been
abolished). In the 1960s pressure began to be brought to open up the library
service for the blind to other physically handicapped groups. The NLS was not
opposed to this because it would broaden its mission and, presumably, strengthen
its power base. Further, since the other groups of the handicapped have never
been as strongly organized as the blind, it would presumably water down the
political impact on policy matters by making us a smaller part of the total
constituency. To say that these political considerations undoubtedly figured
in the Library's policy decision is not to say that the Library may not also
have felt that the other groups needed service and that NLS could fill that
need.

When the legislation to add other groups to the library service was introduced,
we opposed. We said that we favored providing library service to the other groups
but that we felt it should be done through another division of the Library of
Congress. We said that since these groups did not use Braille, their inclusion
would mean a proportionately smaller amount of resources devoted to the production
of Braille. We further expressed concerns that all phases of service to the
blind would suffer by adding the larger constituency as opposed to establishing
for it a separate program. Nevertheless, when the legislation was introduced
into the next session of Congress, we agreed to its passage provided safeguards
could be established and assurances could be given that our concerns could be
satisfied.

Within recent years there has seemed to come a recognition that Braille must
again receive an increased emphasis. Valuable as the other means of communication
may be, there are certain areas in which there is simply no substitute for Braille
for the blind person. Taking notes and writing can be done more efficiently
in Braille than by recording assuming, of course, that the person using the
Braille is skilled. Intensive study is more easily done by Braille than from
a recording, and there is no adequate substitute for Braille in delivering a
public speech, verbatim or from notes. There is also the pleasure of reading
aloud to others or to oneself, but this admittedly gets into the realm of the
subjective. However, it is highly doubtful whether the majority of the sighted
population would consider for a moment giving up all print in favor of recorded
material or, even for that matter, television.

As we move into this present decade, there are several hopeful signs. In
the first place let it be said that the NLS and all other groups involved with
the blind would like (if a feasible way can be found to do it) to have plentiful
and readily available Braille at low cost for the blind. The question is how
to do it. Some of the recent developments in the production of Braille by computer
are extremely hopeful and could serve as the subject for an entire article themselves.
There is increasing hope that the computer can provide breakthroughs which will
make possible a greatly increased quantity of Braille at a much reduced cost.

However, unless those of us in the field recognize the importance of Braille
and train people to read it and rely on it, it will become a dying skill regardless
of its cheapness or availability. Furthermore, unless we make Braille available
in a form and in a texture which allows for rapid and pleasant reading, its
use will diminish. Braille is one of the most useful tools which the blind have,
and we must extract from it its maximum potential.

This brings me to one of the most revolutionary concepts in the production,
cost, portability, and usability of Braille which has ever been contemplated.
I refer to what has been called cassette or paperless Braille. The idea is that
a large quantity of Braille could be stored on a very small cassette and could
be displayed through small pins that could be raised to form the Braille dots.
There are several such machines in the offing, and the National Library Service
is considering purchasing one of them or a hybrid of the best features of as
many of them as it can put together. If the effort is successful, NLS would
probably look toward eventually replacing regular Braille volumes in its collection
with the cassette-Braille machines. I have personally examined two of these
machines an earlier model of the Elinfa and TSI's Versabrailler. I have not
examined the Rose Reader, but if it can do what its inventors claim, it may
hold the key to the future. Of course, theif must be kept in mind. The problem
with the Elinfa and the Versabrailler is that they display only one line at
a time and not a very long line at that. I think this would mean that the fast
Braille reader would be slowed down, but we will have to see. When I tried the
Versabrailler (and I must emphasize that I only used it for a few minutes on
one occasion), I could read Braille on it very nearly as fast as I could talk.
However, I can read ordinary Braille on a regular paper page much more rapidly
than that. Of course, I do not know what I could do if I spent time training
on the Versabrailler, but since I use both hands and read on two lines at once
in reading ordinary Braille, common sense tells me that if I have access to
only one short line at the time I will necessarily be slowed down.

When I tried the Elinfa, I thought it was totally worthless. However, I cannot
emphasize too strongly that I saw it only once, that it was an early model,
and that it probably still had bugs to be worked out of it. Since it displays
only a single short line at the time, some of my comments about the Versabrailler
would also be applicable.

As I have said, I have not examined the Rose Reader, but its inventor claims
that it will display an entire Braille page at once. I should think that this
would be a tremendous advantage.

The National Library Service has recently been making tests involving cassette
Braille. It has also found itself in a controversy with some of the manufacturers
of the machines particularly with Mr. Leonard Rose, one of the inventors of
the Rose Reader.

Five years after the publication of that article, the controversy surrounding
the teaching of Braille had heated up around the country and particularly, in
the National Federation's home state of Maryland. There, on many occasions,
leaders of the organized blind, such as Kenneth Jernigan and Mary Ellen Reihing
(at that time, president of the Baltimore Chapter of the National Federation
of the Blind) found themselves engaging in debate or contentious correspondence
with Dr. Richard Welsh, Superintendent of the Maryland School for the Blind.
Two such episodes, typical of many others, were discussed by Jernigan in what
might be described as a delicious commentary, entitled "A Taste of Rarebit,"
published in the Braille Monitor in August, 1987. The essay follows:
A Taste of Rarebit

by Kenneth Jernigan

Before I came to Maryland in 1978, I had never had the pleasure of meeting
Dr. Richard Welsh, the Superintendent of the Maryland School for the Blind.
That deficiency in my social experience has now been remedied, for on more than
one occasion during the past nine years Dr. Welsh and I have occupied the same
platform, sat in the same room at meetings, and shared with one another such
wisdom as each of us possessed.

Last fall at the convention of the
National Federation of the
Blind of
Maryland Dr. Welsh was a speaker. He did not come
willingly or
with good temper but only after a number of contacts
had been
made with members of his board to suggest that it was
inappropriate
for the superintendent of the state school for the
blind to
refuse to attend. After all, the NFB of Maryland is the
largest
organization of blind people in the state, and the School
has (or
should have) a certain degree of accountability.

Dr. Welsh's segment of the agenda was
not characterized by
placidity.
In fact, one might call it tempestuous. He said, among
other
things, that it might be a bad thing for a growing child to
try to learn
both print and Braille since it might slow both
processes. I
got the impression that he was saying that a child had
a certain
amount of reading capacity and that if you split it
between
print and Braille, you would probably come out with around
fifty
percent efficiency in each. It was certainly a novel theory,
but novelty
was about all that it had to recommend it.

When some of us pointed out to him that
children sometimes
learn two
languages simultaneously and seem to have increased
proficiency
in each because of the experience of having learned the
other, he
only answered with emotion instead of logic. He seemed to
feel that
Braille was vastly inferior to print and that a child
should, if
possible, read print at all costs, even if Braille would
be faster
and more efficient. I got the definite impression that
Dr. Welsh
felt that print wasnormal
and that Braille was
subnormal.

He said that if a family really felt that their child should learn Braille,
that this should be taken into consideration, but it was made very clear that
the School would discourage it. He also made a great point of the fact that
all children are different and that they should not be treated alike or fitted
into a rigid mold. It sounds good, but what does it mean? To Dr. Welsh it meant
that blind children should not be (as he put it) pressured or forced to learn
Braille. We asked him whether sighted children should be put into a rigid mold
and forced to learn print. He thought this was different. It is normal to read
print.

In the circumstances it is not surprising that Dr. Welsh did not believe
that teachers of blind children (even those who teach reading) should be required
to have proficiency in Braille. We asked him whether a teacher of French should
be required to know French. He thought this was not relevant. We asked him whether
a teacher of math should be required to know math. He didn't think that was
relevant either. Certain legislators who were present thought it was extremely
relevant. Dr. Welsh was not happy. Federationists are troublemakers. They are
militant, too.

Not surprisingly, a bill was introduced into the Maryland legislature early
this year to require that Braille be made available to every blind and severely
visually impaired child in the state. Also not surprisingly, the special education
teachers and Dr. Welsh (some of the very people who certainly should and often
don't know Braille) came out in force to oppose the bill. Dr. Welsh's performance
was not only in poor taste but also possibly even worse than that. He brought
small children and their parents to the legislature to talk about how terrible
it would be if they were forced into the rigid mold. It was enough to make one
cry, and a number of people did some for one reason, and some for another. Temporarily
Dr. Welsh got his way. For another year blind children in Maryland will not
beforced to learn to read. They will avoid the evils of literacy. But the battle
is only beginning.

Under date of April 15, 1987, a letter
from Mary Ellen
Reihing,
president of the Baltimore Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind of Maryland, appeared in the Baltimore Sun:

Literacy Crisis for the Blind

Editor: A whole generation of blind children in Maryland is
in grave
danger of becoming functionally illiterate. Special
education
teachers certified to teach blind children, both at the
School for
the Blind and in public school programs, are
discouraging
their students from learning Braille. Of the 120
children in
academic programs at the Maryland School for the Blind,
the school
reports that only 33 are learning Braille.

Why? Poor teacher training programs account for part of the problem. It is
possible to become certified to teach blind students in Maryland without being
able to read Braille fluently. Volunteer Braille transcribers, who often do
not have college degrees and are not accordedprofessional status, must demonstrate
a knowledge of Braille to be certified which is greater than that required of
a teacher of the visually impaired seeking a master's degree.

The root of the literacy crisis for blind children goes beyond the poor quality
of teacher preparation. At its heart is the notion that the techniques used
by blind people are inferior to those used by the sighted. It is normal to read
print. It is abnormal to read Braille. Therefore, a blind child with residual
vision, no matter how poor that vision may be, is taught to read print even
when Braille would be more efficient.

Joe can see well out of the corner of his eye, but he can't focus on any
detail work. He can't read the banner headlines in a newspaper. If he uses a
closed circuit television system, he can read print that is so enlarged that
four or five letters will fit on a twelve-inch television screen. Since he has
not learned Braille, he has no way to read any of the notes he has written until
he can return home to use his closed circuit television.

Jane was born with cataracts which were removed when she was a baby. She
also had a condition that caused her eyes to jump uncontrollably. Focusing caused
her pain, but she could read regular print very effectively for about ten minutes.
If she tried to read longer, tears rolled down her face, and she was unable
to focus on anything at all for several hours. Her teachers told her she was
being lazy when she said that she couldn't read any more. As she got older,
and reading demands increased, she fell farther and farther behind. Jane became
convinced that she was stupid and dropped out of high school. Jane has come
to understand that her reading problems are visual, not mental. Even so her
attitudes about reading are fixed. Though she could read books that have been
recorded on tape, she structured her life to avoid books in any form.

Lynn read large print when she was a child. She had friends who were totally
blind, and she wanted to learn Braille so she could write letters to them, but
her teachers refused to help her learn it. In fact, they punished her for trying
to read Braille because she wasn't blind. Shortly after she graduated from high
school, Lynn lost the rest of her vision. She had to quit her job as a secretary
to learn Braille. Fortunately for Lynn, she was able to find another secretarial
job after her training. If she had known Braille from the beginning, she would
not have had to interrupt her career.

Expense has been given as a reason for denying literacy to blind children.
No one is suggesting that regular classroom teachers become proficient in Braille.
The only teachers who would be involved are the special education instructors
who are already supposed to be fluent in Braille. The Library of Congress offers
a free course to anyone who wants to learn Braille transcription. Those who
talk about expense should think about the life-long cost of illiteracy and noncompetitive
functioning for blind people.

Administrators say that many blind students at the Maryland School for the
Blind see too well to need Braille. One is left to wonder what such students
are doing in a specialized program for blind children if they really do not
need any of the techniques of blindness. Perhaps the real problem is that those
charged with the responsibility of teaching our blind children really do not
believe that blindness is respectable.

Mary Ellen Reihing, Baltimore.

Under date of April 25, 1987, Dr. Welsh replied. He said that it was perfectly
proper for blind children in Maryland not to know Braille since blind children
in the rest of the country don't know it either. If only fifteen percent of
the blind youngsters in the country can read Braille, Maryland's thirteen percent
is only two percentage points worse. In other words illiteracy is all right
if you can just prove that other people are almost as uneducated as you are.
One has to wonder if Dr. Welsh really understands the implications of what he
is saying.

He went on to say that some ninety-five percent of the students at his school
had other handicaps besides blindness, from which one was presumably meant to
reason that it is all right to push a multiply handicapped child toward reading
print but not all right to push him or her toward reading Braille. Besides,
the argument about multiple handicaps is always trotted out by anybody and everybody
with a weak case the sheltered workshops, which don't want to pay decent wages;
the airlines, which don't want to let blind persons sit in exit rows; the schools,
which don't want to teach Braille.

Next Dr. Welsh said that current state
and federal laws
require that
the program for a handicapped child's education must
be based on
an assessment of that particular child's individual
needs and
abilities. He jumped from this to the conclusion that
blind
children need not be taught Braille. He then threw in a few
words about
his rigid mold and topped it off with some comments
about how
bad it was that the schools of twenty years ago taught
visually
impaired students under blindfold. Twenty years ago is
always bad.
Blindfolds are bad. By implication, Braille is bad.

In the rest of his letter Dr. Welsh talks about the damage which was done
to the blind children of a generation ago who were forced to learn Braille.
I know a great many of those people, and my observation contradicts Dr. Welsh's
theories. I believe the people to whom he refers were neither educationally
nor psychologically damaged by being taught Braille. Dr. Welsh says: Respect
for blind people begins with the recognition that each blind person is an individual,
and each should be treated as such.

Bravo! one cries. But what does this have to do with learning to read? I
favor the flag and the Bill of Rights. Does this mean that sighted children
should not be taught to read print? I have always thought that freedom and literacy
went hand in hand, that liberty and education were almost synonymous. Apparently
Dr. Welsh thinks otherwise. But let him speak for himself. Here is his letter:

Braille Isn't For All Sight-Impaired Kids

Editor: On April 15 you published a letter from Mary Ellen Reihing, President
of the local chapter of the National Federation of the Blind, which pointed
out that most visually impaired students in Maryland do not use Braille. The
writer concluded that the reasons for this are that teachers are poorly trained,
that it is too expensive to teach Braille and that administrators do not believe
that blindness isrespectable ; therefore, the techniques used by blind people
are considered to be inferior, and are not taught.

The 1986 report of the American Printing House for the Blind indicates that
only fifteen percent of all visually impaired children in the United States
use Braille. This is very close to the thirteen percent of the students at the
Maryland School for the Blind who use Braille. But the reasons for these facts
are very different than those suggested by Ms. Reihing.

First, ninety-five percent of the children who attend the Maryland School
for the Blind have additional handicaps to their visual impairment. Forty percent
have severe and profound developmental disabilities which make them incapable
of reading, regardless of the medium they are using. Many have orthopedic or
neurological impairments which make it impossible to read Braille. Most have
some degree of usable vision which they can use efficiently to read print.

We have many teachers who are proficient in reading and teaching Braille,
and we capably provide this instruction when it is needed. We also teach other
special techniques and adaptations which are used by blind people, not only
for academic learning but also for independent mobility, vocational training,
daily living skills and leisure activities.

Current state and federal laws require the educational program provided each
handicapped child to be based on an assessment of that child's needs and abilities
and to be approved by the child's parents. This is an improvement over past
educational practices, which were influenced by general theories about what
was best for all children in a particular category, regardless of the needs
of the individual child. Fortunately, most schools do not operate that way anymore.

Thirty years ago, it was the general belief that all visually impaired children
should learn Braille, whether they needed it or not. Children who had enough
vision to learn to read print were blindfolded and forced to read Braille with
their fingers.

The vast majority of these children never used Braille again in any functional
way, and many had to teach themselves how to read print after they left school.
It is the position of the Maryland School for the Blind and most educators that,
in general, if a child has the cognitive ability required for reading and is
able to recognize print symbols, then strong consideration is given to print
as the reading medium for that child. Print is the more common communication
system used in the community, and more information is available in print than
in any other medium.

If a child is unable to use print as an efficient reading medium then Braille,
along with auditory and/or multiple media, is considered as a possible reading
and learning mode. In some cases, a child whose primary medium is either print
or Braille may also be taught to read in one or more of the other media, when
that child's visual prognosis or personal interest suggests that learning to
read in multiple media may be of value. This is particularly true when the child
is clearly going to lose all useful vision.

During each of the last two legislative sessions, the National Federation
of the Blind has requested that legislation be introduced which would change
state law to reflect their philosophy on the use of Braille. Both times, the
responses of visually impaired students and their parents, blind adults and
educators who are trained in this specialty have led to the defeat of this proposed
legislation.

We cannot return to the practice of treating all people in a given category
as if they are the same. We do not educate children without handicaps in this
manner, and we should not allow it for handicapped children. Respect for blind
people begins with the recognition that each blind person is an individual,
and each should be treated as such.

Richard L. Welsh, Baltimore.

As one reads Dr. Welsh's letter, various emotions compete for ascendancy.
Perhaps the only appropriate response is a piece of doggerel: A kiss is dry
without a squeeze; So is a rarebit without some cheese.

One of the most instructive and authoritative articles yet to appear on the
educational role of Braille was published in the Braille Monitor in August,
1988, under the title "Braille: Pedagogy, Prejudice, and the Banner of
Equality". The author was Fred Schroeder, president of the National Association
of Blind Educators, and a member of the Board of Directors of the National Federation
of the Blind. Schroeder, who had been an elementary school teacher and later
an orientation and mobility instructor, was also formerly the coordinator of
Low Incidence Programs for the Albuquerque Public Schools. His article, which
combines first-hand experience with professional expertise, was given as a paper
in Toronto, Canada, on June 1, 1988, at a conference sponsored by the Canadian
National Institute for the Blind, the theme of which was "Braille: Future
Directions". Schroeder became Director of the New Mexico Commission for
the Blind in July of 1986:
Braille: Pedagogy, Prejudice, and the Banner of Equality

by Fred Schroeder

When speaking generally about Braille,
it can be said without
controversy
that Braille represents the means to literacy for the
blind. On
its face it seems self-evident that for the blind to be
literate we
must have a tactile method of reading and writing. As
with most
truths that appear self-evident, our particular beliefs
and
attitudes color our perception and affect the way in which our
beliefs are
put into action. Although we flatter ourselves with the
belief that
we are rational beings, we cannot ignore the impact of
prejudice on
our behavior. For this reason a discussion of Braille
must
necessarily encompass a discussion of societal beliefs about
blindness,
as well as our own beliefs as blind people about
blindness.

When I was seven years old, I lost the
majority of my
eyesight.
While not totally blind, I was no longer able to function
competitively
using my sight. At that time in my life I did not
regard
myself as a blind person and if asked would have fiercely
resisted
viewing myself as blind. The intensity of my aversion to
thinking of
myself as blind was directly tied to my fear of
blindness.
While recognizing that I was no longer fully sighted, I
would not
think of myself as a blind person since for me blindness
conjured up
images of hopelessness and helplessness. I did not know
what had
shaped my beliefs up to that time, but looking back I can
identify
many of the events which helped strengthen my negative
beliefs
about blindness. I was one of four children, and as in most
families
various household chores were divided up among us. While
never
explicitly stated, the chores I was assigned were those in
which my
poor vision would cause me the least difficulty. Both my
family and I
assumed that the tasks around the house routinely
involving
sight necessarily required sight and, therefore, none of
us sought
alternative methods for me to do other jobs. Rather than
promoting
confidence by giving me a belief that I could contribute,
this
practice led me to the conclusion that I could function
competitively
only by means of my remaining vision. When I returned
to school,
the same pattern continued. If I could not see well
enough to do
a particular thing, I was either excused from the
assignment
or paired off with a partner who generally did the
majority of
the work. Whichever way it went, the belief persisted
that to see
was to be competent and not to see was to be
incompetent.

During the time I grew up, it was
believed that the more a
person used
his or her remaining eyesight the sooner it would
deteriorate.
For this reason I was not encouraged to use print for
fear that it
would cause a further decrease in my vision. Since I
was not
using print, there seemed little need to teach me to spell.
As you can
imagine, the effect on my academic training of not
reading was
widespread and damaging. My mother, realizing that I
would not be
using print and recognizing the need for me to become
literate,
arranged for me to receive instruction in Braille. It was
at this
point that my beliefs about blindness began to surface in
a tangible
way. I resisted learning Braille and applied great
quantities
of effort to insuring that I would never learn it. I
would read
dots with my remaining sight and not by touch. I would
refuse to
practice between lessons, hide my book before lessons,
and in every
way possible avoid contact with Braille. I would argue
with my
mother that I did not need to know Braille since more and
more
material was being recorded on tape. In short, my beliefs
about
blindness were governing my attitude toward Braille. By not
wanting to
think of myself as a blind person, I resisted learning
the skills I
needed to function competitively. My fear of being
less capable
prevented me from learning the very skill which would
have enabled
me to function on a par with my sighted peers.

Now that the sight-savingera is
behind us, I often wonder
what would
have happened to me in today's educational system. Would
I have been
taught Braille, or would I have been encouraged to read
print with a
closed circuit television or other similar device?
Unfortunately
the answer is all too easy to predict. The modern-day
educational
system does not encourage teachers of blind children to
concentrate
on Braille as a primary reading system for other than
the totally
blind. Children with any remaining eyesight are pressed
to read
print long past the point of reason and common sense.

In my professional life I started as a teacher of blind children. I have
observed children using print in situations and under conditions which defy
reason. In particular I can vividly remember watching a child being instructed
in print using a CCTV at full magnification. To complicate matters this child
could not see well if there was any glare in the room, so before he started
reading, the blinds were closed. To complicate matters further, this child could
not read letters that were at all stylized. Therefore, the teacher would first
retype all of the child's material, using a sans serif large print typewriter
which made very plain typewritten letters. After the teacher had retyped the
child's material, closed the venetian blinds, and turned the CCTV to full magnification,
this child was able to read a few letters at a time with excruciating slowness.
Nevertheless, I was told that she was not being taught Braille because her parents
wished her to read print. When this child became my student, I set about teaching
her Braille and found that her parents came to value her ability to read and
take pride in her newfound literacy. I firmly believe that their reluctance
to allow her to learn Braille was directly tied to their desire not to think
of their child as blind rather than to a belief that print represented a more
efficient means of reading for her. I also believe that their negative attitudes
were shaped by the negative attitudes of the teacher.

When I first determined to become a
teacher of blind
children, I
took it for granted that Braille reading and writing
would be
stressed. My teacher preparation program required a
one-semester
course in Braille with an optional semester course in
Braille math
and music notation. This limited amount of training in
Braille is
disturbing enough. However, my program was, at that
time,
regarded as placing more emphasis on Braille than most other
programs
throughout the nation. Quantity of Braille instruction
alone was
not the problem. Prospective teachers completing the
Braille
course had only marginal reading and writing ability, and
if the
course was taken early in their program, they might not use
Braille for
several years before becoming certified as teachers of
blind
children.

When I was student teaching, I needed to
have large
quantities
of material transcribed into Braille. To assist me I
hired a
woman who had just taken the Braille course the previous
semester.
She had received an A
in the course and, therefore,
would (I
assumed) be reasonably facile with Braille. The material
she first
transcribed for me averaged sixteen Braille errors per
page. I was
having this woman transcribe my material on
eight-and-a-half
by eleven-inch paper. Figuring two to
two-and-a-half
Braille pages for each print page, this is analogous
to hiring a
typist who had just completed a typing course with an
A
grade who averages thirty to forty errors
per typewritten page.
I believe it
is fair to say that many teachers of blind children
are not
skilled in Braille and, therefore, seek alternatives to
Braille in
working with their students. I remember when the Optacon
was first
introduced. The manufacturer claimed that the Optacon
would make
Braille obsolete. The manufacturer, in cooperation with
leading
professionals in the field, developed a reading program
adapted for
the Optacon. This was not a program to teach a child
who was
already a skilled reader to transfer that skill to the
Optacon.
Rather, this was a program intended to teach children the
skill of
reading by means of the Optacon. If this belief were
limited only
to the wild exaggerations of the manufacturer, it
could be
more easily dismissed. Unfortunately, while going through
my teacher
training, I had friends who seriously proposed
eliminating
Braille as a requirement from the teacher preparation
curriculum
since it would soon be obsolete.

Lack of use of Braille by the teachers
compounds the problem.
I was once
told by a leading professional that it is not uncommon
for an
itinerant teacher to have periods of seven to ten years
without a
single Braille student. I would argue that this would not
be the case
if all children who should be taught Braille were
taught
Braille. Nevertheless, if it is the practice, it is easy to
see how a
teacher's proficiency could easily deteriorate assuming,
of course,
that the teacher had such proficiency in the first
place.
A fundamental question which must be asked is this: Which children should
be taught to read Braille, and which children should be taught to read print?
In my professional work I developed a set of criteria which I used to answer
this question. I believe that if a child can read standard sized print (holding
it at a normal reading distance) and if that child can read for a sustained
period of time without eye strain, then it is reasonable for that child to read
print. In other words, if a child can function as a normally sighted person,
then it can be reasonably expected that the child will be able to function competitively
as a print reader. If the child suffers eye strain and cannot read for sustained
periods of time, then it is reasonable for that child to learn Braille. All
children must have a reading method which allows them to be fully literate.
I believe the criteria I have listed are really nothing more than a functional
definition of literacy. While no one would argue against literacy, the fact
of teachers not receiving adequate training in Braille (coupled with new technology,
such as CCTVs) has steered educational practice away from Braille and away from
literacy.

Four or five years ago a leading professional organization in the United
States circulated a proposed position paper asking for comments from the field.
This position paper was intended to establish working criteria to settle once
and for all the question of which children should read print and which children
should read Braille. I was astonished when I read that one of the criteria seriously
being proposed was that a child who was able to read print at ten words per
minute should continue to be a print reader and not be taught Braille. To the
best of my knowledge this position paper was never formally adopted. However,
I was dumbfounded that a leading professional would even propose such a criterion.

I believe that there exists a prejudice against Braille and that, as with
most prejudice, it is not deliberately intended or, for that matter, even recognized
by those who feel it most deeply. I believe the source of the prejudice is nothing
deeper or more mysterious than the public misunderstanding and misconceptions
about blindness. Dr. Kenneth Jernigan, Executive Director of the National Federation
of the Blind, tells of visiting a classroom of blind children and being told
by the teacher: This little girl reads print. This little girl has to read
Braille. It is human nature that prejudice (while irrational) is defended
by seemingly rational explanations. This is certainly true with the prejudice
against Braille. We are told that Braille is too bulky and too expensive to
produce that it is limited in quantity and that, therefore, to teach a child
Braille is to limit what the child will be able to read. We are told that it
is better to teach a child print, thereby making available great quantities
(virtually endless quantities) of reading material to the child. Never mind
that the child may be only able to read at ten words per minute. Never mind
that the child may suffer eye strain and only be able to read for a brief time.
While Braille is too expensive, never mind the cost of Optacons, talking computers,
or CCTVs. While Braille is too bulky, never mind the size and awkwardness of
many low vision aids.

Several years ago I attended a professional conference and saw a presentation
on the mainstreaming of blind children into a regular public school. One of
the slides showed a child with a CCTV mounted on a cart, which he wheeled with
him from class to class. Yet, Braille is too bulky, too expensive, and too limited.
As an educator, I have seen low vision children with smudges on their noses
from trying to read their own handwriting their own handwriting which was done
with a soft lead pencil or felt tip pen. Yet, somehow many of the professionals
who shape the thinking of society cling to the belief that to read print is
inherently better than to read Braille inherently normal.

Young blind children must be instructed in the skill of Braille writing,
not only by means of the Braille writer but with the slate and stylus as well.
Earlier in this century Braille writers were in scarce supply, and generations
of blind children grew up learning to write with the slate and stylus from the
time they entered the first grade. Now we are told that young blind children
lack the fine motor control to use the slate and stylus and, therefore, that
this skill should not be taught until middle school. When a child is in middle
school, he or she must already have a reliable means of taking notes. It is
too late to be introducing a notetaking system. Even though the slate has represented
an efficient notetaking system for generations of blind people, modern day pedagogy
suggests that the slate is too slow and causes too much confusion to be a useful
tool because it teaches children to write backward. Many teacher preparation
programs introduce the slate as little more than a relic of bygone days. Instead
of being taught an efficient writing method, far too many children are given
soft lead pencils or felt tip pens and are taught to handwrite notes which they
can only decipher with great difficulty if at all. How will these children compete
in today's society? How will they obtain a college education when they are not
able easily to read their own handwriting? How will they make a class presentation
or deliver a speech without being able easily to read from a printed text? The
answer (Braille) seems obvious, and it is certainly available but this simple
truth seems to elude many of today'sprofessionals in the field.

What we need and must have is an understanding in ourselves and in society
that, as blind people, we must be able to compete on terms of equality with
the sighted. To compete we must be literate, and to be literate we must be able
to read and write Braille. We must promote a belief and an attitude that it
is respectable to be blind and that there is no inherent inferiority or second-class
status in the methods associated with blindness. As a child, when I resisted

learning Braille, I was resisting conceiving of myself as a blind person. I
automatically assumed that to be blind was to be inferior and, therefore, that
to use the tools of blindness was an acceptance of inferiority. By rejecting
blindness (and with it Braille) I was rejecting the very skill which would have
allowed me to compete on an equal footing with my peers.

We cannot allow our attitudes and the attitudes of society to rob us of our
right to first-class status. We must press for greater emphasis on Braille among
our school children. We must press for greater availability of Braille. Perhaps
the greatest gift of our high tech age is computer production of Braille, reducing
both cost and transcription time. But above all, we must press for an understanding
that the tools we use as blind people are not the badge of second-class status,
but rather the banner of equality.
A Study in Scholarship

Almost from its inception the National Federation of the Blind sought ways
to fund and award scholarships for deserving blind students. In 1984 the NFB
was able to expand its existing program of awards into a broad scholarship system
directed to blind post-secondary students. Beginning in that year more than
$50,000 was devoted annually to these scholarships, which by 1990 had grown
in number to a total of twenty-six. Of these the smallest award was in the amount
of $2,000, and the largest was $10,000. When President Jernigan first outlined
the new program, he was concerned not only with recognizing the achievements
of outstanding blind students and helping with their educational expenses but
also with assembling every year a portfolio of blind individuals whose accomplishments
would explode the myth that blind persons cannot excel at the entire panoply
ofhigher learning. All of these worthy goals could, of course, have been accommodated
simply by announcing the scholarship winners and mailing them their checks.
But Jernigan had an additional goal in mind, one more important perhaps than
all the rest. He proposed to bring blind students, the brightest and the best,
to the National Convention for a week of communion with the Federation in its
characteristic activity during which the students might learn more about themselves,
about blindness, and about the organized blind in ways that no amount of formal
learning could duplicate. The unique bond of the Federation, after all, was
ultimately the bond of community, of deeply shared personal commitment one to
another, and could only be taught and learned in live association. For that
reason the scholarship program was designed to require attendance at the convention
as a condition of eligibility.

From the first year of the expanded program, it was clear that making it
possible for scholarship recipients to attend the National Convention was appropriate
and constructive. The number of winners each year matched the number of scholarships
available; thus before the scholarship committee made its final decisions on
the awards, there was opportunity to meet and get to know the students to a
degree that few other award-granting institutions could approximate. And there
was something more to be bestowed than the monetary awards; there was the gift
of the Federation itself. That was the thrust of remarks made at the 1989 convention
by the committee chairman, Peggy Pinder (who was also the NFB's Second Vice
President), in the course of her scholarship presentations:

Now that we have bestowed the 1989 scholarships, I want to say a final word
to each of you who is a winner this year. We have given to you of our treasure,
of our hard-earned income; but we have also given to you something else. We
consider our scholarships to you only secondary to this. We have given you another
and greater gift as through the week we have spent time with you, attended meetings
with you, dined with you, played poker with you, talked with you, laughed with
you, danced with you, debated and discussed with you. Through our common experiences
we have shown to you that which is most important of all to you, the most precious
thing we have, and the thing we now offer to you our organization, the National
Federation of the Blind.

We blind people first felt the need ourselves to establish an organization
because we did not have a common philosophy, a structure through which to implement
that philosophy, or the policies that brought it into life. We have made that
philosophy, that organization, and those policies, and we now offer them to
you. But we ask you to recognize with us that a philosophy, a structure, and
policies in common do not make the National Federation of the Blind. They are
merely the building above the ground. Underneath it is our feeling for one another.
We do love one another. We do hurt when one of us is hurt. We do comfort one
another when hurt occurs. We do fight for one another when one of us is wronged.
We do defend one another. We rejoice with one another when achievements occur
because they are the achievements of each of us, not in some verbal sense, but
really truly ours because we do love one another and feel that strength of attachment
for one another on which our philosophy, our structure, and our policies are
built. We offer all of these to you, but particularly the love. You have shown
great achievement and shown that you can give as well. We give our movement
to you, and ask you to love it as we have loved it, ask you to nurture it as
we have nurtured it, ask you to make it grow as we have made it grow. We are
proud of it just as we are proud of you.

Scholarship winners, congratulations! Let's work together to make all our
futures come true!

In the first year of the scholarship program, one of the winners was a high
school senior who had lost his sight a few years before. He was tentative during
his convention appearance about his career plans and about his ability to navigate
independently. Five years later, this same student was confidently exercising
the skills first learned in the Federation as he attended Yale Law School and
simultaneously led America's blind students as their elected chief. In another
case, a scholarship winner had intended to pursue a career in college teaching;
but as he came to learn about the Federation, he also learned that he had selected
that career to minimize his contacts with the general public whose attitudes
were so often painful to encounter. Working with Federationists, he discovered
that he had a liking for social action and public mingling, after all, and he
subsequently became a management trainee with IBM.

The week-long experience of the NFB convention itself was typically an inspiration
for the scholarship winners. While committee members and others took on the
responsibility of teaching the students how to use a long white cane effectively,
more important than this instruction was the graphic example all around them
of hundreds of other blind persons speeding about, both at work and play, on
schedules and travel routes that were part of the routine day. Of course, it
was then common enough for blind persons somewhere along the way in their lives
to be taught a little about the white cane; but it was equally common for the
instructor to be sighted and for the student to conclude that getting around
must be a terrible burden for the blind simply because there were no role models
of confident, self-possessed blind persons included in the cane curriculum.
At the Federation conventions, on the other hand, hundreds of such positive
role models were encountered in the daily round of activities; no one could
be a part of that for many days without getting the point and learning the lesson
of independent mobility.

The effects of the program were dramatic. Not only were blind students encouraged
to seek higher education, but the brightest among them came to understand a
new philosophy of blindness. State programs of rehabilitation (although they
were established to assist blind students to obtain proper training) often failed
to provide inspiration, talented instruction, or the resources for securing
educational opportunity. All of these were available at the convention of the
National Federation of the Blind. Perhaps the most significant was the encouragement
and the spirit which were engendered: If they can do it, so can I.

Train Up a Child

As the Federation grew through the 1970s and into the 1980s, more and more
of its members realized that the Federation message was simply not reaching
people quickly enough. Some blind people lost their sight as adults, but many
of them were children, some of whom did not hear of the Federation until they
had reached adulthood. Why, Federation leaders thought, not make available to
blind children and their parents the same message that was being disseminated
to blind adults?

The Federation began by establishing a Committee on Parental Concerns. Then,
in 1982 the first seminar for parents of blind children was held at the National
Convention, and it immediately became an annual event. These seminars attracted
parents of blind children from throughout the country. The parents themselves
planned the program and met throughout the convention week, sometimes in formal
sessions on topics specific to the education of their children and sometimes
informally to share frustrations and successes. The blind children, too, came
to the National Convention, along with their brothers and sisters who were not
blind. Specific programs were organized for the blind children to meet and get
to know young blind adults with whom they might form friendships. Since blindness
occurs randomly in the population, most blind children do not have blind parents.
Therefore, it was felt to be important to make sure that the children had as
role models a variety of blind adults to help them envision themselves growing
up into competent, responsible citizens.

The parents and children alike were given the chance to learn the same thing
that the scholarship winners were learning the efficiency of the long white
cane, the broad array of jobs being successfully handled by the blind, and a
sensible perspective on blindness. The reaction of parents to the Federation
message was often relief mixed with anger relief that they had finally found
someone who talked sensibly about their blind children as normal people, combined
with anger that no professional had told them about the Federation. And all
of the family members parents, blind children, and sighted siblings left the
convention feeling that they had met hundreds of blind people who would happily
serve as continuing resources in the years to come.

By 1981 the Federation was publishing Future Reflections, the most
widely circulated and respected magazine in the field dealing with the concerns
and problems of parents of blind children. The Federation had also established
a parents division, which was actively working throughout the country as a resource
and support group. Barbara Cheadle, president of the Parents of Blind Children
Division, was editor of Future Reflections, and she and her husband John
were devoting substantial energy to contacting and organizing parents. Although
both of the Cheadles were sighted, they were dedicated to the Federation and
gave it a high priority in their lives. One reason for this devotion was undoubtedly
the fact that the Cheadles had an adopted blind child of their own. Barbara
Cheadle wrote an article which appeared in the March 1985, Braille Monitor,
which talked about the establishment and progress of Future Reflections:
Future Reflections

by Barbara Cheadle

In July 1981, at the annual meeting of the NFB Parental Concerns Committee
a motion was made and carried to start a newsletter for parents of blind children.
Under the leadership of Susan Ford and others the committee was alive with excitement.
All kinds of creative ideas and projects were being discussed and proposed.
The newsletter was one of them.

Later that summer I as the new volunteer editor of this venture pulled out
paper and pens, sat down at the kitchen table, and started to put together our
first issue. We mailed out 368 copies of a 15-page newsletter that November
of 1981. John's parents came to see us the weekend that we were right in the
middle of folding, stapling, labeling, and trying to puzzle out the postal regulations
for bundling all those papers. We put John's parents to work, too. Before they
left, they even paid for the privilege of helping. They left us a check as a
donation to the National Federation of the Blind. It had taken us all weekend
to get the job done.

This month November 1984, three years later we had 7,000 issues of a 32-page
magazine (now called Future Reflections) printed for circulation. This
time we didn't assemble and label them in my living room. We did that on the
dining room table at Frank and Glenda Smith's home. (Frank Smith is the first
vice president of the NFB Parents of Blind Children Division. Glenda handles
the mailing list on her home computer. They also have six children, and a big
table.) Our NFB Western Chapter president was there to help, too. Between telephone
calls, sick kids, and babies with runny noses, we had the issue ready to mail
in two days.

From November 1981, to November 1984, the circulation of Future Reflections
has increased almost 2,000 percent. Originally a project of the NFB Parental
Concerns Committee, it is now published (like the Braille Monitor) by
our National Office. Currently, we are the largest publication for parents of
blind children in the nation. We are also the only magazine for parents of blind
children. There are two other national publications for parents of blind children.
One is a four-page quarterly newsletter put out by the International Institute
for the Visually Handicapped, 0-7, Inc. This group deals exclusively with pre-school
children. We have reprinted articles from this newsletter from time to time
in Future Reflections. The other newsletter is published by the National
Association of Parents of the Visually Impaired (NAPVI). This is the American
Foundation for the Blind parent group. Typically, the content reflects the AFB
attitudes about blindness. I have had parents tell me that there is no comparison
between Future Reflections and Awareness, the NAPVI newsletter. Future
Reflections is read from cover to cover and kept for reference. The NAPVI
newsletter gets a glance and is tossed aside.

Remarks about reading Future Reflections from cover to cover are common.
Some young mothers report locking themselves in the bathroom to read it as soon
as the issue arrives. (If you think that seems like a strange thing to do, then
you've never been a young mother. The bathroom is the only place I've found
where you can get a little privacy when you have small children in the house.)

The comment that best describes most parents' reactions came from a California
mother. She said, "This is the first time I have read your newsletter,
and I am delighted and excited to know it exists I found a wealth of information
THAT I CAN USE!"

Fathers read Future Reflections, too. "I gain so much from your
publication", was the brief but very much to the point note from one busy
father. Another parent from Hawaii wrote saying, "I am writing to you to
ask if you could send me your magazine, Future Reflections. I saw a copy
of your magazine and was really impressed by it. I have a son who is blind.
Your magazine really gave me some ideas on how to work with him, how to cope
with future problems I may have, and how to deal with Chris as a person. Also,
it could be used as a reference to more information I may need. I really feel
comfortable with your information." Parents aren't the only ones who read
and benefit from Future Reflections. Teachers frequently write requesting
subscriptions or expressing their appreciation. One teacher wrote in the spring
of 1984 saying, "As a teacher of visually impaired children, I was very
impressed with your new publication. Keep up the good work." Another teacher
from Georgia wrote, "As an educator, I do appreciate and learn from your
publication, Future Reflections. Thanks for a job well done. Other teachers
have commented on our professional quality.

It's very important that we continue to reach these teachers. Often, the
teacher for the visually impaired is the only contact parents have with someone
who has any knowledge about blindness at all. Parents and their blind child
can become very attached to and dependent upon this teacher. There are obviously
problems with that. Even some of the best teachers have little contact with
blind adults in general, and even less with the organized blind movement. Needless
to say, that seriously limits their understanding of blindness.

Colleges, universities, libraries, pre-school programs, schools for the blind,
hospitals, eye clinics, churches, and agencies for the blind are just some of
the institutions that subscribe to Future Reflections. Special education
professors distribute copies to their students. An ophthalmologist in California
keeps copies in his patients' waiting room. Our magazine is distributed and
used in college programs for preparation of teachers of the visually impaired.
Agencies for the blind, such as the Vision Foundation in Massachusetts, keep
multiple copies on hand to distribute in information packets to parents. Future
Reflections is quoted and used as a reference by educators, and top educational
administrators recommend and praise it to teachers and parents alike. The executive
director of the Royer-Greares School for the Blind in Pennsylvania sent us this
year a letter of appreciation on behalf of the teachers of this school for
multihandicapped blind boys and girls.Other representatives of institutions
have expressed similar feelings.

Future Reflections is also becoming known outside the United States.
We have a growing number of subscriptions from Canada. A teacher from the Hollywood
School, Metro Day Program for the Blind in Canada, called it an excellent magazine.
A teacher with the school for the blind in Gambia, West Africa, says that parents
especially respond to the NFB'sapproaches to blindness.

We often like to say in the Federation that it is respectable to be blind.
One of the most exciting things about the magazine is that it is helping to
make that statement a reality for thousands of blind children. Most of the time
we will never know what impact an article or issue will have on any individual
parent, child, or teacher. But we do know this: Future Reflections is
respected and valued by thousands of parents and teachers nationally. Since
Future Reflections is published by the National Federation of the Blind
by BLIND people it is only logical and inevitable that these parents and teachers
now have more respect for blind people than they had three years ago. And you
don't discriminate against, coddle, or treat as inferiors those you respect.

There is another aspect to the influence of Future Reflections that
reminds me of the nursery rhyme, The House that Jack Built. The
rhyme links all kinds of events and relationships together. A rat is killed,
a cow tramples a dog, a maiden is kissed and wed, and a farmer sows his corn
violence, murder, romance, and re-birth all because Jack built a house!
Future Reflections did not arise out of a vacuum. Long before the
magazine became a reality we had Doris Willoughby demonstrating how Federation
philosophy can work in the education of blind children. Susan Ford was an early
leader in the formation of the parental concerns committee. She is the current
president of the Parents of Blind Children Division and sets an example for
other parents with her own down to earth wisdom and savvy about rearing children.
Marc Maurer in the Student Division helped demonstrate how dynamic our national
divisions and committees can be. The NFB has accumulated over the years a library
of literature and information that provides the best, most accurate insights
about blindness anywhere in the nation, or world for that matter. And it all
goes back to 1940 when Dr. Jacobus tenBroek and blind representatives from seven
states met and laid the philosophical and organizational foundation for our
house—the NFB.

The philosophical foundations are, of
course, the reason we
succeed
where the American Council of the Blind cannot. We were not
the first to
attempt to publish a newsletter for parents of blind
children.
The ACB tried to but their circulation never reached
beyond about
300 and finally their newsletter folded. Unlike the
NFB, the ACB
does not have a unifying goal, philosophy, and
purpose.
That's why we succeed where they fail.

Just as the success of Future Reflections has been influenced by the
work of Federationists in years past, so has the magazine been influencing the
growth of the Federation in some rather surprising and unlikely ways. Here's
an example.

Shortly after we started publication, I
began collecting
names and
addresses of visually impaired teachers from the various
states. (We
now have such lists from over two-thirds of the fifty
states plus
D.C. We would like to get the other one-third also, so
write and
let us know if you would like to help in that effort.)

One state president was really on the
ball and was among the
first to get
such a list from her department of education. A year
later that
state president called me and said, Guess what? Future Reflections just
helped us set up a new NFB chapter.She
and an
organizing
team had gone into a new community to organize a chapter
but weren't
having much success finding blind folks. She did have
the name of
a teacher of the visually impaired, so she called her
The teacher
was ecstatic when she heard that they were with the
NFB.
I just got my latest issue of your magazine
for parents of
blind
children this morning,she said.
I read it from cover to
cover. It's
a wonderful magazine. Of course, I'll help you. The
town soon
had a new chapter, and that teacher was one of its
charter
members.

There are so many possibilities. We can
use Future Reflections
to educate, to increase membership, to raise funds, to
improve job
opportunities for the blind, and more. But it can be
effective
only if WE promote it and use it. Marc Maurer recently
used Future Reflections to get a donation for the NFB from a
service
club. It wasn't hard to do. People are happy to donate their money
when they know it is going to be helping blind children
right in
their own communities. But how many of us have thought to
do that?
Time and priorities surely have something to do with it,
and perhaps
simply a lack of knowledge about the effectiveness of
Future Reflections a problem I hope this article will help take
care of.

There is an interesting phenomenon about
the reactions of
sighted
members of the public and blind Federationists after they
have read
their first issue. Both are often surprised. About two
years ago a
high school journalism teacher (who was going to do
some
volunteer typing for us) took her first look at an issue and
exclaimed,
Hey, this ain't no rag.
At first I thought it was
because of
me. Maybe no one expected a homemaker and mother working
out of her
own home to be the editor of a first-class publication.
But as
incident after incident occurred, I wondered if it wasn't
something
else.

Not long ago a Federationist, who had
just read an issue,
remarked to
my husband with shock in his voice,It
was really
good!
This came just after I had had a talk with a
Federation
leader who
wanted me to speak at a state NFB seminar for parents of
blind
children. It didn't look as if I could go, and she was
worried. She
didn't think she knew enough about raising and
educating
blind children. Well,
I said, "Why do you think I know
more than
you? I'm the parent of a blind child. Do you think that
makes me
more qualified than you?"
Well, no, she said.

All right, I said. I have completed one half of a college education program
for the preparation of teachers of the visually impaired. Does that make me
more knowledgeable than you?

She laughed (she knew what college I was
talking about). No!
she said.

You're a mother,
I said. You were a blind child, and even
more
important, you're a knowledgeable member and leader of the
NFB. Where
do you think I learned about blindness? From you and
from the
thousands of other Federationists who have directly or
indirectly
taught me everything I know. You're the real 'experts'
about
blindness.

I wonder how many of us still secretly
believe that the
professionals
know something that we don't.

Future Reflections is a first-class publication.
It's
first-class
because the National Federation of the Blind is
first-class;
because blind people are first-class. Let's use it,
distribute
it, and promote it with pride.

Passport to Freedom
An increasing number of us are living our Federationism on a daily basis,
knowing it to be our passport to freedom. We must finish our march to acceptance
and full membership in society. Our heritage requires it; our purpose proclaims
it; our humanity demands it. This cause of ours is a sacred trust. It is worthy
of all that we have or can ever hope to be and we shall not fail.

So spoke the President of the National Federation of the Blind at the banquet
of the National Convention in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1984. The twelve months just
ended had been one of the most successful times in the organization's history,
and the convention was a celebration of that fact but it was more. It was a
time to review the problems and triumphs of the past year and to chart the course
for the year ahead. In his report to the members at the convention President
Jernigan said:

One way to measure our progress during the past year is by the increasing
amount of recognition we have received from public officials throughout the
country. This year more governors declared National Federation of the Blind
Month, Week, or Day in their states than ever before in history. Last year a
number of us went to Vice President Bush's office to talk with him about issues
affecting the blind. This year we met with President Reagan in the Oval Office
at the White House.

During the past year, President Jernigan
continued, we have
made greater
progress than ever before in getting our message to
the public
through the media. The October 1, 1983, issue of Vital
Speeches
carried the 1983 banquet speech Blindness: The Other Half
of Inertia. Vital Speeches goes to every
college and university in
the country
and to many of the nation's high schools. Our spots now
saturate the
airwaves. Not only are our messages used on local
stations but
they are also carried by most of the networks. On
November 30
Peggy Pinder and Barbara Pierce appeared for an
eight-minute
segment on the television program "Hour Magazine". Used
by 160
television stations, this is one of the most popular daytime
TV shows in
the country. On April 13 of this year we were featured
on the "Today"
show. We had eleven minutes to tell our story to one
of the
largest television audiences in the nation.

In the rest of his 1984 report President
Jernigan detailed a
variety of
problems and triumphs. Then, he said in conclusion:
When you
look back over the past year, you cannot help but feel joy
and
satisfaction at what we have accomplished. Yes, there have been
problems and
battles, but what an absolutely wonderful year we have
had! We have
kept the faith with Dr. tenBroek and the other
founders of
our movement, and we have kept the faith with
ourselves.
We have lived the dream and fulfilled the promise.

As always, the banquet was the climax of
the convention; and
when
President Jernigan rose to make his banquet address, he talked
of the
damage which sophistry had done to the blind:

The clever and plausible but false and
misleading arguments
(the propositions
which put us down and keep us out) are temptingly
easy to
accept and believe, he said. With respect to the blind the
message is
clear and uncomplicated: The blind lack eyesight. Other
people have
it. Sight is important. Therefore, the blind are
inferior. We
are unable to compete. We must be taken care of. We
cannot hold
jobs not, that is, unless the work is very simple, very
repetitive,
and very subsidized. We cannot raise children, travel
independently,
or manage our own lives. This is the traditional
norm, the
time-honored belief; and if it is true, we should face
it, not
fight or deny it. But, of course, this is not the way it
is, he said
to a roaring response from his audience; and no
sophistry on
earth can make it that way.

The text of the 1984 banquet speech follows: BLINDNESS:
THE CIRCLE OF SOPHISTRY

Philosophy in Action

In 1985 at the annual convention banquet
Kenneth Jernigan
delivered
what was to be his penultimate address as the
Federation's
President. Speaking on the topic, "Blindness: The
Pattern of
Freedom," Jernigan drew the attention of
his audience to
the
parallels between the civil rights struggle of the 1960s,
involving
the rising demands of blacks for freedom, and the civil
rights
battle of the eighties, involving the rising demands of the
blind for
freedom. It was, he said, in both cases, the same pattern
of freedom.
With regard to the black movement,As
long as the law
made it
impossible for them to buy or rent certain property,
required
them to attend segregated schools, made them ride at the
back of the
bus, and even said they must use separate water
fountains
and toilets, all of the self-belief and public education
in the world
would not be sufficient. They had to change the laws
and the
interpretation of the laws, and they did change them.

And Jernigan went on to declare:
Our situation is parallel.
We must
fight in the courts and the Congress. Judges order children
to be taken
from blind parents on the ground that the blind cannot
raise them;
airline officials tell us we cannot occupy exit row
seats and
that we must sit on blankets for fear we cannot control
our
bladders; insurance companies deny us coverage; amusement parks
refuse to
let us ride; health clubs decline to let us in; and
employers
routinely discriminate. Unless we can move toward equal
treatment
under the law, self-belief and public education will not
be
sufficient and cannot be sustained.And
he pointed out that the
changes in
the law could not be accomplished without confrontation.

President Jernigan's banquet address
spelled out the full
context
legal, moral, and political within which certain basic
rights were
then being debated and would be decided: the right to
fly, the
right to a chance for a decent education, the right to
bear and
raise children, the right to receive training with the
special
tools and techniques needed by the blind, the right to
equal
opportunity to employment, and the right to be recognized and
accepted as
normal human beings. It was truly a civil rights speech
in the great
tradition of such orations and in that sense it evoked
and embodied
the essential keynote of the organized blind movement.
It
summarized the philosophy of freedom in practical terms
delineating
the steps essential to the integration of a minority
into the
broader society. It called for action, and demanded that
the
philosophy of equality be made real. The keynote was freedom
and not
merely in theory. Freedom means power to do specific things
power to be
left alone, power to travel, power to sit where one
chooses, and
power to become an element within the overall pattern
of freedom.

Following is the text of the 1985 convention banquet address: BLINDNESS:
THE PATTERN OF FREEDOM

Departure and the Coming of the Third Generation

Presidential terms are for two years in the National Federation of the Blind.
In 1984 President Jernigan had told the delegates that while he intended to
stand for election that year, he would definitely not be a candidate in 1990.
He left open the question as to whether he would stand for election in 1988
or even 1986. In 1985 he told the convention that he would not be a candidate
in 1986. He said he felt that many organizations destroyed themselves by not
planning for an orderly succession to their top offices and, particularly, by
not allowing for a long enough period of transition in the change of executives.

This was a subject which Jernigan had been discussing at the leadership seminars
from the time of the mid-seventies. He felt that he should step aside as President
some time during the mid-eighties and then assist in the training of a new leader.
The membership repeatedly and overwhelmingly expressed its wish that he continue
as President, but in 1985 he announced that a new President must be elected
in 1986.

He told the convention delegates that he intended to support Marc Maurer
for the presidency in 1986 and that he was making his feelings known so that
anyone who had other ideas would have time and opportunity to promote other
candidates. In 1986 Maurer was unanimously elected, and the Jernigan presidency
ended. Shortly thereafter, Jernigan accepted the unsalaried position of Executive
Director of the Federation, working through the remainder of the decade to assist
the new President in the duties of the office.

At the 1986 convention, one year after describing the "Pattern of Freedom",
Kenneth Jernigan made his final banquet speech as President to the convention
of the National Federation of the Blind. This final summation, entitled, "Blindness:
The Coming of the Third Generation," spoke of the urgent need for self
expression of the blind in the context of the fourth dimension time. The striving
of blind people to make themselves heard through the organized blind movement
had been proceeding for forty-six years. How could the spirit of independence
and the urgency and immediacy of the need be kept alive and poignant for the
decades ahead? What could be expected to be built on the solid and substantial
foundation of philosophy and practice developed in the Federation from its beginning?
These questions were central to the final banquet address of the Jernigan presidency,
delivered in Kansas City, Missouri, on July 3, 1986.

Many organizations (and some countries) have ceased to be significant because
their leaders have failed to consider the effects of time. But in the Federation
plans had been made for the third generation, the fourth generation, and the
fourth dimension. The maturity of the organized blind movement can be seen by
the degree of care that it gave in planning for the decades to come. As Jernigan
said, "The progress of a people toward civilization can probably best be
measured by the degree to which it is concerned with time."
The 1986 banquet speech follows: BLINDNESS:
THE COMING OF THE THIRD GENERATION
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