Presidential Report '99

Presidential Report '99

PRESIDENTIAL

REPORT

National

Federation of the Blind

July 3, 1999

by Marc

Maurer

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Dr. Maurer delivers

the 1999 Presidential Report]

The National Federation

of the Blind is today what the founders of our movement hoped and dreamed it

could become at the time of our beginning in 1940—the most vital force

in promoting opportunity for the blind that has ever existed. As we come to

this convention, our brilliant long-time leader, Dr. Kenneth Jernigan, is no

longer with us. He and I talked about the health of the Federation before he

died, and we recognized that the organized blind movement has never been stronger

or more active or more unified.

Dr. Jernigan's life has

come to a close, but his spirit lives, and we dedicate this convention to him.

The past and the future converge in this present moment. At this convention

we will record the things we have done, and we will dream of the things we plan

to accomplish. Our longtime leader is gone, but our direction and purpose are

as firm as they have ever been. We promised him that we would carry on, and

we have kept that promise. The heart of the Federation is determined, and our

strength lies in the people of the movement—in our hopes and dreams, in

our courage and determination, in our innate capacity and willingness to work,

in the bond and commitment we share with each other.

One of the most successful

initiatives we have ever undertaken is the creation of the Kernel Books—a

body of literature that explains blindness in simple, straightforward terms.

To those without experience and understanding, blindness can be mysterious and

fearful. However, our books are eliminating the mystery and dread. The first

of these books, What Color Is the Sun?, was published in 1991. Two volumes

have appeared each year thereafter, and 1999 will be no exception. The sixteenth

book, Remember to Feed the Kittens, is available at this convention;

and the seventeenth, Reflecting the Flame, will be released later this

year. As in the past these books contain an editor's introduction and a number

of first-person accounts of the experiences of blind people.

Dr. Jernigan edited the

first fifteen, and I have tried my hand at volumes sixteen and seventeen. The

title of number sixteen, Remember to Feed the Kittens, comes from reflections

of my own about the life and spirit of Dr. Jernigan. Readers of the Kernel Books

have come to know Dr. Jernigan through his writings, and I thought they might

like to learn about the relationship that I, as an individual, and that we,

as an organization, have had with him.

The seventeenth Kernel

Book, Reflecting the Flame, takes its title from experiences that span

the decades. Dr. Jernigan taught me to barbecue over an open fire in 1969, and

I shared the same experience with a number of Federation leaders in 1999, using,

incidentally, a barbecue grill Dr. Jernigan had designed himself. Kindling and

maintaining a flame—whether it is in a barbecue pit or the mind of a student—demands

certain elements. We in the Federation possess them all, and this Kernel Book

describes the method for getting results from the hottest fire or the brightest

idea. The responses we continue to receive from the Kernel Books indicate a

growing recognition of our work in the Federation and an increased acceptance

of blind people as normal, contributing members of society. Although Dr. Jernigan

will no longer be editing the Kernel Books, they will continue to be published,

and they will continue to contain the spirit which caused them to be written

in the first place.

Dr. Jernigan wrote thoughtful

and inspiring prose throughout all of his long career. Many of his earlier writings

are contained in a volume by Dr. Floyd Matson entitled Walking Alone and

Marching Together: A History of the Organized Blind Movement in the United States

1940-1990. However, the body of Dr. Jernigan's thought which was committed

to paper after the publication of Dr. Matson's book is now being presented.

Much of this body of material has been incorporated in a volume entitled Kenneth

Jernigan: the Master, the Mission, the Movement, which will be released

later during this convention. Dr. Jernigan is the most profound scholar and

the most stimulating author in the field of work with the blind of the latter

part of the twentieth century. His beliefs and patterns of thought changed forever

the perspectives of administrators of programs for the blind and the expectations

and activities of blind people themselves. The teachings in this book deal largely

with blindness, but the lessons are equally applicable to the sighted.

The spirit of the man is

reflected in his writing, but it is also recorded in the public presentations

he made—so very many of which occurred at conventions of the National Federation

of the Blind. We have created a videotape of segments of those presentations

entitled The Future Is Ours/ Kenneth Jernigan: Builder of the Organized Blind

Movement. This video shows him in action, and it portrays one aspect in

the life of the Federation which is difficult to comprehend in any other way.

The video will also be released later during this convention.

Last summer Dr. Jernigan

planned for the construction of the National Research and Training Institute

for the Blind, which will stand on the southwest corner of the city block that

presently holds the National Center for the Blind. The new building will be

connected with, and will become a part of, the National Center. There is currently

a comparatively small one-story building on that corner, which has never been

remodeled and which must be removed to make way for the facilities that are

needed in the years to come. We will erect a five-story building. The first

and second floors will comprise a parking garage. The third floor will be devoted

to offices and classroom space. The fourth floor will contain the Jacobus tenBroek

Library, which will collect all material on blindness from anywhere in the world

and make it available to scholars for research, teaching, and experimentation.

The fifth floor of the building will be meeting space, substantial enough to

accommodate classes, symposia, technical gatherings, and other meetings—perhaps

as large as the convention of the National Federation of the Blind.

During the past decade

we in the Federation have talked about the need for additional research and

training facilities for teachers, researchers, and others in the field of work

with the blind. We have felt that such a new facility would be essential in

the development and expansion of our movement—that we would gain the capacity

to conduct research from the point of view of the blind consumer, and that this

would give altered perspective to the study of blindness. The question has been

not whether we should build the facility but when the time would be right and

the urgency sufficient to make it necessary. Dr. Jernigan felt late last summer

that the time had come, and I concurred with his assessment.

We have established the

National Center for the Blind to serve as a focal point in matters dealing with

blindness. Programs we operate there belong to us and are conducted from the

point of view of the blind consumer. What makes these programs different from

others is that we control them and that they contain the spirit of the blind—our

spirit. We are the people who dream of a day which has never before been imagined—the

people who take the risks to give that day form and shape. We are the people

who believe that whatever we imagine we can build—that whatever we want

which is right and fair can become our own. We are the people who will never

quit until we have found a way to give every blind person a chance for freedom

with the power to make it stick.

The techniques and systems

used to train the blind in the United States need massive overhaul, and we must

find a way to establish training programs that will teach the professors who

will teach the teachers who will teach the blind, and we must do it so that

the blind themselves are a vital part of the teaching process. We must find

a way to address the needs of older blind Americans. We must also insist that

innovative solutions to the unsolved problems be sought. Much research has been

done about the blind, but rarely have the blind themselves formulated the programs,

established the research parameters, and directed the study. Who is better positioned

to examine the realities of blindness than the organized blind movement? Who

is better positioned to take the risks? Who has more to gain (and, for that

matter, more to lose) than we? There are those who would tell us that the problems

are solved and that we enjoy today all that the blind can ever hope to expect.

But we know better, and we are not prepared to accept the status quo. We will

conduct our own research, and we will set the standard of excellence. We will

do it in the best research and training center ever created to serve the blind.

We have continued to exercise

leadership in programs for the blind. Late last summer Dr. Jernigan conducted

a seminar for officers of the National Council of State Agencies for the Blind,

the organization consisting of administrators of state agencies for the blind.

In December I addressed the executive committee of this organization on the

topic of leadership at its meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. This spring I

spoke to the entire organization on the subject of the relationship which should

exist between the organized blind movement and state agencies established to

serve the blind.

There have been attacks

on agencies for the blind in a number of states. Last summer, after the convention

of the National Federation of the Blind, a bill was introduced in the North

Carolina legislature to abolish separate programs for the blind. The legislator

who introduced the bill said she was not interested in hearing from a few obnoxious

blind people, and she shut off her telephone answering machine. We wrote press

releases, organized a march on the Capitol, and invited members of the press

to a rally. When the votes were counted, the proposal to abolish separate programs

for the blind lost by two votes. But there is talk about raising the question

again in the North Carolina legislature.

In Texas the results are

not as satisfactory. The legislature decided to eliminate the Texas Commission

for the Blind and to amalgamate services for the blind within a super-department.

Services for the blind will inevitably suffer because of this change. However,

we are not prepared for blindness programs in Texas to be buried so deeply in

the bureaucracy that they lose all effectiveness, and we will be back to insist

that they be re-established. As we have so often said, we sometimes lose skirmishes,

and we occasionally lose battles. But we never lose wars because the war is

never over until we win.

The innovative programs

of the National Federation of the Blind continue to receive recognition. On

September 14, 1998, Dr. Kenneth Jernigan, our long-time leader and President

Emeritus, received the Winston Gordon Award from the Canadian National Institute

for the Blind for his pioneering work developing the Newsline® for the Blind

Network and for related technological innovations. Dr. Jernigan traveled to

the Canadian Embassy in Washington D.C. to accept the award, a solid gold medal

and a check for fifteen thousand Canadian dollars.

Last December the governor

of Maryland convened a technology showcase to bring together manufacturers of

high-tech products in the state. Over six hundred delegates attended the opening

breakfast, and I was asked to make a presentation regarding the work of the

National Federation of the Blind. Following my remarks, the National Federation

of the Blind was named the non-profit organization of the year for innovative

development of technology.

Challenges to the priority

for the blind granted under the Randolph-Sheppard Act have been coming from

the Department of Defense. The United States Army, which operates the Redstone

Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, terminated the contract of a blind vendor named

Robert Kelly for food service in the Redstone mess hall. Negotiations had no

impact on the Army, so the National Federation of the Blind and the Alabama

state licensing agency took the matter to federal court. The Redstone case is

one of the shortest in our history. The judge said that the termination of the

contract was a violation of the law, and Robert Kelly is still serving food

to the troops.

Charles Allen, a blind

vendor living in Kentucky, is one of our long-time leaders. The Army notified

the state licensing agency in Kentucky that food service provided in the mess

hall at Fort Knox would not be a part of the program. We filed a protest, and

the decision has been changed. Charles Allen knows the power of the organized

blind; he is the manager of food service in the mess hall at Fort Knox.

Our work with the Postal

Service is one of the promising developments in the Randolph-Sheppard Program.

On a periodic basis we meet with officials of the property-managing arm of the

Postal Service to promote understanding and increase opportunities for blind

vendors. A number of new vending locations have become a part of the program

as a result, and procedures have been established to ensure that every state

licensing agency receives early notification of plans to create new postal facilities,

with the opportunity to discuss the details for including Randolph-Sheppard

vending locations at the planning stage.

While I am discussing relations

with the Postal Service, I should mention that our work with the Director of

Corporate Personnel, Stephen Leavey, has been cordial and productive. A postal

worker, Waverly Evans, who lives in the Washington, D.C., area, became blind.

Because of his blindness Mr. Evans was forced to quit his job at the Southern

Maryland Processing and Distribution Center. He had been working there for nineteen

years. At our urging the director of corporate personnel for the Postal Service

reconsidered the matter, and Waverly Evans is back at work. It would not have

happened without the efforts of the National Federation of the Blind.

On July 1, 1998, one of

our members living in the Washington, D.C., area started looking for work in

the clerical field. She applied for a job at a temporary agency and asked for

the opportunity to take the necessary examinations. To assist with these, she

brought a screen-enlarging device for the typing test, but she was told that

she would not be permitted to use it. Instead, she was sent away and told to

come back another day. The weeks became months. She called the agency repeatedly

to ask for an appointment, but there was never time for her. Then she learned

of the existence of the National Federation of the Blind and asked for our help.

The settlement says we may not disclose the details, so the applicant's name

and the name of the company are being withheld. However, you will want to know

that the lady in question has received a check from the employer who refused

to take her application. Furthermore, she has been interviewed for other employment

and is expected to begin work within the next few weeks.

Monica Stugelmeyer lives

in Spokane, Washington, and works for the Spokesman/Review newspaper.

Her job assignment is to stack sections of the newspaper where they can be assembled

and packaged for distribution. In the same area where she works, there is a

higher paying job, which requires the employee to put sections of the newspaper

into inserting machines so that each paper will have all of its component parts.

Monica Stugelmeyer applied for the higher paying job. However, the newspaper

refused the request for promotion, saying that operating the inserting equipment

is too dangerous for a blind person. With our help Monica Stugelmeyer filed

a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Lawyers for the

newspaper tried to convince the EEOC that no discrimination had occurred, saying

they were keeping Monica Stugelmeyer from operating the equipment for her own

safety. However, Monica Stugelmeyer had already operated the equipment without

injury to herself, without damage to property, without endangering anybody else,

and without slowing the production process. Consequently, the EEOC was unimpressed

by the argument.

Then the lawyers tried

to backdoor the process by bringing political pressure on the EEOC. They wrote

to United States Senator Slade Gorton to ask that he intervene and give them

what they wanted. But this transparent effort also failed. However, the lawyers

for the newspaper have not been able to recognize the facts and treat Monica

Stugelmeyer with decency. The president of the National Association of Blind

Lawyers, Scott LaBarre, is representing her, and the matter is headed for the

federal court. The evidence of discrimination is clear, and we intend to win.

Priscilla Jones is a blind

woman who lives in Aurora, Colorado. For the last fifteen years she has been

involved in the childcare business. In 1997 the Aurora Public Schools hired

her to be a paraprofessional four in charge of a room of toddlers. At the end

of the 1997-98 school year she received a very good performance review. In particular

the review noted that Priscilla Jones was very conscientious about safety.

For the 1998-99 school

year Priscilla Jones had a new supervisor, and the school district's attitude

about her work changed. In October of 1998 the Aurora Public Schools forced

Priscilla Jones to take involuntary administrative leave. The school district

said that Priscilla Jones could not safely observe and monitor the children

in her care because of her blindness. When she pressed them for any specific

incidents in which she had fallen short of her responsibilities, district officials

were unable to identify any.

Priscilla Jones got in

touch with the National Federation of the Blind. We introduced the district

to vocational experts from the Colorado Center for the Blind who visited the

job site and reviewed the responsibilities of a paraprofessional four. The experts

found that blindness does not prevent a person from competently performing the

job. However, officials of the school district wouldn't believe it. They said

they would be happy to find another job in the district for Priscilla Jones,

such as baking assistant. We are helping her fight the discrimination. A lawsuit

has been filed in federal court in Denver, and we will ensure that Priscilla

Jones gets a chance to use the training and talent she has.

Several years ago the administrators

of the Rehabilitation Services for the Blind in Missouri decided to take punitive

action against the National Federation of the Blind. They said that (with rare

exceptions) literature about the Federation could not be distributed to clients

of the rehabilitation system, that any discussion about membership or the value

of reading Federation literature was prohibited, and that no blind client could

be referred to programs in the Federation (no matter what their content or usefulness)

without first receiving permission in writing from the client. Joint programs

with other organizations were permitted, but not with the Federation. They went

so far (if you can believe it) as to ask us if we would rewrite our literature

to remove all references to the National Federation of the Blind. If we took

our name out of our literature, they said they would be pleased to distribute

it to the clients.

Of course, such actions

challenge the right of blind people (both clients and employees of the agency)

to participate in organizations of their own choosing, inhibiting freedom of

association and violating the Constitution of the United States. So we brought

suit in the United States Federal Court, but the decision of the trial judge

found in favor of the agency. Prejudice against the blind is no less a part

of the mindset of the federal judiciary than it is of the public at large. One

of the prejudices that we often face is the one which declares that the agency

administrators appointed to take charge of programs for the blind are also appointed

to take charge of us—to speak for us and interpret our needs. If (according

to this thinking) the agency has decided a matter, it is settled. The blind

should be content.

But we decided long ago

that we would speak for ourselves in our own voice and in our own way, and we

are not prepared to accept the opinion of a federal judge who decides that we

do not have the power, the right, or the need to represent the blind. We have

filed an appeal with the Federal Court in the Eighth Circuit, and hearings have

taken place earlier this spring. The blind have a right, indeed a responsibility,

to observe and comment on the actions of programs for the blind, and we will

not let officials of those programs intimidate us or seek to diminish voluntary

membership in the Federation because of the power they wield. We expect to win

this case, but if we don't, we will carry it to the Supreme Court. And make

no mistake, if the judiciary of the United States tells us that the blind have

no protection against the power of the agencies—if they say the laws permit

intimidation of the blind by state government officials—we will change

the laws. We will call upon elected officials to ensure that the blind have

the same freedoms in this nation possessed by everybody else, and we will not

rest until we get it done.

Beulah and Joe Hulsey,

two blind people who live in Klamath Falls, Oregon, were married a year ago.

Joe had been a construction worker and manager of construction projects until

he contracted meningitis and became totally blind. When he became blind, his

previous wife departed without ceremony, leaving him with three small children.

Being newly blinded, without a job and without a spouse, Joe Hulsey began trying

to build a new life. Within a few months he met Beulah. They were married just

two years after Joe had become blind.

Because Beulah had never

raised children, she thought it would be useful to ask if the Oregon Department

of Services to Children and Families had any suggestions, and she requested

help. The result of this request was devastating. The Oregon Department of Services

to Children and Families came to the house and took the children. Why was this

drastic action taken? Because the Hulseys are blind. What was the evidence that

the home was unsafe? Department officials were unable to produce any. When pressed

for an explanation, they said that the Hulseys had knickknacks on the table

within the reach of the children, that there was a pen and pencil set that the

toddlers could get, that one of the children had used a stool instead of the

steps to climb onto a kiddy slide, and that Joe played with his two-and a-half-year-old

daughter by having her slide down his back while he held her hands. That is

all; there is nothing else. The judgment of the Department of Services for Children

and Families is that blind parents cannot manage their own children. On such

flimsy so-called evidence they broke up the family.

However, we of the National

Federation of the Blind learned of the tragedy, and we combined our forces to

take action. Carla McQuillan, the President of the National Federation of the

Blind of Oregon, herself a blind mother and the owner and administrator of a

school to instruct small children, working with me in the National Office, demanded

a hearing to determine whether the Department of Services to Children and Families

should be held to account for violating the most sacred of human relationships.

The department began to

dodge and weave. As a justification for its actions department officials argued

that the children had experienced problems while they were in the home of a

foster family. This (according to them) demonstrated that the Hulseys (who are

blind after all and obviously less capable than the foster parents) could not

manage the children. When the fallacy of this argument was made clear, department

officials changed their story. They said that Mr. and Mrs. Hulsey had not received

training in the alternative techniques used by the blind and that seizing their

children had occurred only for their safety. But we know better. Blind parents

are as capable, as caring, and as safe as anybody else, and we presented our

evidence in the court.

Today the custody battle

is at an end. Joe and Beulah Hulsey have been reunited with their children,

and they will soon be receiving orientation training from the Colorado Center

for the Blind. The behavior of the Oregon Department of Services to Children

and Families is intolerable. However, we the great family of the Federation

have taken action. The Hulseys did not know where to turn, but they have met

the Federation, and they are with us at this convention today, and so are their

children. This too is the power of the National Federation of the Blind.

We also continue to assist

people with Social Security cases. In 1995 Marion Feustel, a person who lives

in Florida, experienced a sudden and significant loss of vision, but nobody

could tell her why. She applied for Social Security disability benefits, but

her application was denied. Marion Feustel knew little about her rights, but

she had heard of the National Federation of the Blind, and we helped her with

an appeal. In February, 1999, an administrative law judge ordered Social Security

to pay disability benefits retroactive to November, 1995.

Verna Kerley, a blind vendor

living in Tennessee, was notified in 1996 by the Social Security Administration

that she would be required to repay $35,923 because she had been working in

her vending facility. However, our analysis indicated that no overpayment had

occurred. When the appeal was concluded, the facts disclosed that Verna Kerley

does not owe Social Security $35,923. Instead, she will be receiving back benefits

wrongfully withheld from her in the amount of $21,548.30.

The America's Jobline®

service, which we have developed through our work in technology, is currently

operating in five states: Maryland, Minnesota, California, Pennsylvania, and

New Jersey. This system provides convenient touch-tone telephone access to the

largest, most comprehensive compilation of job announcements anywhere in the

world. Each Jobline® site can handle up to 70,000 calls per month or 840,000

calls per year. The number of job listings available exceeds 400,000. Each day

we transmit more than 30,000 new job announcements to each Jobline site. Last

year at our convention the United States Secretary of Labor announced a partnership

with us to assure that America's Jobline® is established in at least forty

locations. This system provides access to employment listings not only to blind

individuals but to the sighted as well. No computer is needed to retrieve this

information. All that is required is a touch-tone telephone and the desire to

look for work. This technological advancement has occurred because of the efforts

of the National Federation of the Blind.

During the past year we

have expanded our NEWSLINE® for the Blind Network from forty-three to fifty-nine

sites. Five new local service centers have been established in Michigan, five

have been installed in Tennessee, and additional sites have been put into operation

in Ohio, Delaware, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Nebraska. NEWSLINE®

currently exists in twenty-six of the fifty states. In addition to the seven

national newspapers on NEWSLINE®, there are more than twenty local papers.

Some of those added this year are the Boston Globe, the Cleveland

Plain Dealer, the Detroit Free Press, the Huntington Herald Dispatch,

the Idaho Statesman, and the Naperville Daily Herald. NEWSLINE®

provides a greater volume of information to the blind than has ever before been

available. We who are blind have been information-deprived, but with NEWSLINE®

we are closing the gap. Indeed, in a very real sense those of us who have NEWSLINE®

in our hometowns have an advantage over the sighted—we have several newspapers—sighted

people usually have only one.

We have been represented

this year on the Microsoft Accessibility Advisory Council, which encourages

the improvement of accessibility to Microsoft products. And we have participated

in the Electronic and Information Technology Access Advisory Committee of the

Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board. Amendments to the

Rehabilitation Act, which we helped to draft and which are modeled after the

state technology bills we have written, require the board to issue guidelines

to ensure that electronic products purchased by the federal government are accessible

to disabled people. This committee submitted a report setting forth the standards

we recommend to assure nonvisual access to technology. There will be public

hearings before these standards are adopted as part of the federal procurement

procedures, and there may be arguments against accepting these recommendations.

However, we will insist that the policy be implemented to give full scope to

the equal-access provisions of the law.

We have continued to maintain

the International Braille and Technology Center for the Blind as the only comprehensive

center which contains at least one of every access device manufactured anywhere

in the world to provide information to the blind. During the past twelve months

we have acquired two new Pentium II 450 megahertz computers with scanners, two

CD-ROM tutorials for the Windows operating system, one single-sided Braille

embosser, four refreshable Braille displays, one screen reader for Windows NT,

one Roadrunner hand-held electronic text reading device, one stand-alone reading

machine, one software speech synthesizer, twenty computer games for the blind,

one optical Braille recognition software program which converts Braille into

electronic text, one IBM homepage reader for use with the World Wide Web, two

different barcode reading and identification systems, and numerous software

upgrades for the latest technology-access systems.

The number of training

programs conducted in conjunction with the International Braille and Technology

Center has increased. We have taught eight information access technology training

classes for the Job Opportunities for the Blind program, two comprehensive technology

training classes, one Johns Hopkins University course for teachers of the blind,

and two In-Touch workshops on technology for parents and teachers of blind children.

In addition to these, hundreds of other blind people have visited the National

Center for the Blind to learn about technology, and we have accepted questions

by telephone from thousands of others.

At our convention last

year in Dallas the United States Secretary of Labor announced a grant for an

experimental training and placement initiative which extended and expanded the

Job Opportunities for the Blind program. This experimental effort began immediately

with plans for training classes. Fifty-three blind people have received this

training, and twenty-five percent of these have entered the workforce. A number

of others are proceeding through the interview process. From our interaction

with applicants in the Job Opportunities for the Blind program this year, it

is evident that many blind people seeking employment need additional training.

Consequently the Job Opportunities for the Blind program is being modified to

combine the best training features of rehabilitation programs operated within

the Federation with training efforts conducted at the National Center for the

Blind. Not only will we be training individual blind people in the Job Opportunities

for the Blind program, but we will also be offering consultation to employers

in the proper technology to give equal access to blind employees.

One component of our effort

to improve Braille literacy instruction is the publication of our new book,

Braille: A Code for Success. This is a self-study tutorial to prepare

teachers and others to take the National Literary Braille Competency Test. This

book is available at this convention.

To continue the vital work

of the Federation in promoting Braille literacy, we have, shortly before this

convention, been awarded a new five-year grant by the Rehabilitation Services

Administration to offer assistance to counselors and teachers of the blind in

matters dealing with Braille and classes in the technology to produce Braille.

We have continued to maintain

the National Center for the Blind, replacing an air conditioning system that

had been in operation for twenty years and taking other steps to ensure that

the center is in tiptop shape. In preparation for constructing the National

Research and Training Institute for the Blind, plans have been made to move

the maintenance shop from the central courtyard building to the Barney Street

wing of the main building. In the process electrical service must be shifted

and an upgraded ventilation system installed. A very large overhead door will

be needed to permit access to the shop. In addition we will add a paint room,

a tool room, and office space.

The ongoing activities

of the Federation continue to expand. Our Aids, Appliances, and Materials Center

has filled almost six thousand orders this year, and we have distributed almost

30,000 copies of our small reference book, If Blindness Comes. The first

fifteen of our Kernel Books are available in print, in Braille, and on cassette.

The most recent of these to be released is To Touch the Untouchable Dream,

which became available last fall. We have published and we are distributing

a book by Doris Willoughby and Sharon Monthei entitled Modular Instruction

for Independent Travel for Students Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired: From

Preschool through High School. Learning to travel with a cane is of vital

importance to the independence of the blind, and this book is a guide that will

answer questions about this skill. Working along with our division for the senior

blind, we have produced a new general information brochure for older blind people

called "Aging and Vision Loss." We have increased the amount of literature

in Spanish available on cassette to eleven titles. And we continue to distribute

approximately two million aids, appliances, and pieces of literature each year

from the Materials Center.

More people have visited

the National Center for the Blind in the past twelve months than ever before

in history. Among them were a number of business leaders, many public officials,

and several members of Congress. The number of visitors this year is one thousand

eight hundred and one.

We are continuing to develop

the library of Federation material available on the Internet. More than twenty-five

hundred files are now on our Web site, and we have provided information to individuals

in seventy-three countries this year. The magazine produced by the Diabetes

Action Network, our diabetics division, continues to grow. This publication

is now being circulated to just over a quarter of a million people each quarter.

We continue to publish the Braille Monitor with a circulation of 35,000

copies per month; the presidential releases; the recorded edition of the American

Bar Association Journal; Future Reflections, the magazine for parents

and educators of blind children; and a number of other national, state, and

local magazines.

The influence of the Federation

may be measured in part by the sheer volume of our activity, but this is not

the only way to comprehend it. A letter from the President of the Federation

of the Blind of Turkey dated February 21, 1999, says in part:

We have found out the death

of Dr. Jernigan with deep sorrow. He died in October, but it took more than

three months to reach us because we receive the Braille Monitor by surface

mail.

Dr. Jernigan was a fighter—a

fighter for the rights of the blind on one side—and a fighter for making

the blind come to themselves for first-class citizenship in society on the other

side. His teachings reached even the blind living in the countries like Turkey,

thousands of miles away from his own country. The blind here were very influenced

by his teachings and his moral support.

His philosophy and struggle

guided us to get out of difficulties we experienced on our way to building a

strong organization.

With these feelings and

thoughts, we extend warm greetings of the Turkish blind to the brothers and

sisters at the National Federation of the Blind of the United States. In your

name we wish all our brothers and sisters happiness and success! Yours sincerely,

Turhan Icli, President,

National Federation of the Blind of Turkey.

The programs we conduct

and the materials we publish offer hope to the blind both in our country and

in other lands as well. Sometimes we touch the heart of a blind child, and sometimes

we speak to the listening spirit of an adult or a teacher or a parent. The Federation

engages in many activities, but the thing we do best is to offer a new way of

life.

We in the National Federation

of the Blind hold a sacred trust that demands from us faith in ourselves and

the willingness to believe in each other. Those who have preceded us in the

Federation understood the demands of this trust; they sacrificed to give us

opportunity that they never knew. We, in our turn, must build for tomorrow and

make the sacrifices for ourselves and those who come after us. Our history as

a movement contains many triumphs, and if we keep faith with our heritage, there

will be many more. However, there have also been sorrows. We must learn from

these and gain from them strength and determination.

If we are satisfied with

conditions as they are, if we become complacent, if we are not prepared to put

our energy and our resources and our imaginative effort on the line, the vitality

of our movement will sink into obscurity and cease to be. But it will never

happen because we will not permit it. Whatever the risks, we will take them.

Whatever the challenges, we will meet them. Whatever the obstacles, we will

surmount them. For our movement there are only two alternatives: build for the

future or falter in our progress. But we will not falter; we will find the courage;

we will give all that is good within us; and we will prevail! I know this with

absolute certainty, for I have met the mind and spirit of the members of the

Federation, and there can be no other response. The future belongs to us, and

we go to meet it with joy! This is the National Federation of the Blind, and

this is my report for 1999.