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This book tells a story as true as it is dramatic that has never been told
before. It is a story of the epochal struggle and ultimate triumph of a singular
American social movement, that of the organized blind, which evolved over the
space of half a century from a small vanguard of visionary men and women, no
more than a handful in a scattering of states, into a nationwide community of
fifty thousand members the National Federation of the Blind recognized throughout
the world as a major force and revolutionary figure in the field of blindness.

Unlike previous histories of blindness and the blind, which have dealt almost
entirely with the work of benefactors and agencies for the blind, this magisterial
study by a distinguished cultural historian Floyd Matson breaks new ground in
focusing upon the actions and aspirations of the organized blind themselves.
We follow the progress of the movement from its historical origins in the remote
past to the pioneering adventure of its founding in 1940 by a little band of
willful men, and thence through the early years of lonely struggle for the right
of the blind to organize (indelibly associated with the name of John F. Kennedy).
Then we see the turmoil of civil war, followed by renewed harmony, and explosive
growth in both size and stature as symbolized by the multi-faceted National
Center for the Blind in Baltimore, Maryland, established in 1978 and greatly
expanded through the decade of the eighties.

And through it all, through the first fifty years of Federationism, we meet
a remarkable group of leaders the blind who lead the blind beginning with the
movement's founding father, Jacobus tenBroek, an acclaimed constitutional scholar
of commanding presence and broad philosophical grasp; followed by his successor
as NFB President and prime mover, the brilliant and charismatic Kenneth Jernigan,
whose personal magnetism drew together the separate state affiliates with their
isolated local chapters, and welded them into a powerful unitary force for recognition
and reform; and finally, with the coming of the third generation, the energetic
and resourceful new President, trained in the law and schooled in the movement:
Marc Maurer.

Side by side with these successive commanders in chief, marching shoulder to
shoulder in the ranks through the years and down the generations, were a goodly
company of other blind men and women (leaders at national, state, and chapter
levels) who also contributed mightily to the evolution of the National Federation
of the Blind, making it into a genuine People's Movement. We meet someof them,
too, in these pages along with others not so illustrious but scarcely less crucial
to the narrative of their own collective history: the epic story of the organized
blind movement in the United States.

About the Author:

Floyd Matson is the co-author, with Jacobus tenBroek, of Hope Deferred: Public
Welfare and the Blind (1959). He also collaborated with tenBroek on the award-winning Prejudice, War, and the Constitution (1959). Professor Matson, who teaches American
Studies at the University of Hawaii, has written widely in the fields of history,
politics, and social thought.
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