An Address Delivered by
Mark A. Riccobono, President
At the Banquet of the Annual Convention
Of the National Federation of the Blind
Austin, Texas
July 8, 2026
Each of us gathered here tonight at the banquet of the National Federation of the Blind experienced some form of nursery rhymes in our early years. While the term nursery rhyme comes from eighteenth-century Britain, rhyming songs for young children are shared in cultures and languages across the world. Dozens of languages share the same nursery rhymes. One example that I feel confident every person here knows is "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." It is with this simple and familiar song, with its modern recording and lyrics dating back to 1881, that I would like to begin this evening.
As children, most of us learned to sing "Row Your Boat" in unison. However, the song is not intended to be performed that way. The song is meant to be sung in a round with one voice, or group of voices, beginning the song. Then another joins, then another, and then another. No one stops singing. No one gives up their melody. No voice disappears. Yet something larger emerges. Tonight, I would like to explore how this effect relates to the organized blind movement.
For centuries, society has defined blind people as one-dimensional. In musical terms, blind people have been thought of as a single note: one tragic, single note. Blindness is the only defining characteristic, one synonymous with incompetence, incapacity, and dependence on others. Even our creative talents have been reduced to some divine gift meant to compensate for our overwhelming deficiency. One single, tragic note written into classic literature, memorialized in song, and popularized as a trope. But as blind people, we know this is not the truth.
Consider a melody, a linear succession of musical tones that are perceived as a single, cohesive entity. Although different melodies may have similar notes, giving them common characteristics, each melody has beauty, character, and integrity on its own. Our lived experience as blind people demonstrates that we also have character that is far more dimensional than society has believed, far more elaborate than a single note. Each of us possesses talents, experiences, strengths, and aspirations. Blindness is merely one of our characteristics, not the entirety of our identity.
Furthermore, our experience is that being blind is not the tragic note that many fear, but it is an important tone that influences the beauty of our unique melody. However, all too often society has convinced blind people that our melody is broken, and systems have been established to fix us. You might say that the vision industrial complex is often to blind people what the misapplication of auto-tuning is to musical works of art.
Unfortunately, many newly blind people and families of blind children are only exposed to the misconceptions about blindness. They begin to internalize these negative messages, and that noise can interfere with their personal melody. In acoustics this is known as destructive interference—the effect of misaligned sound waves partially canceling one another. This is not a creative hypothetical. This was my life experience for much of my first twenty years.
On a daily basis, society reinforced for me the false notion that vision was a requirement for success. This noise prevented me from seeking the tools and techniques I needed, from building the creative capacity to minimize the destructive interference, and from exploring the composition of my melody. Does this resonate with any of you? This was true for me until I came to know blind people who were members of the National Federation of the Blind.
In acoustics, one vibrating object can cause another object to vibrate. One example is that a tuning fork struck near another tuning fork tuned to the same pitch can cause the second fork to begin vibrating. The second tuning fork already possessed the capacity to vibrate, but it needed the other tuning fork to awaken it. This is known as resonance, and the effect is similar to the experience that a blind person has when they encounter another who already knows the truth about blindness. Blind people who are living the lives they want, who believe in blind people and know that blindness is not the characteristic that defines us or our future, are tuned perfectly to awaken this understanding in other blind people.
This is the effect that occurs when a blind college student who is doubting their career aspiration meets a blind professional who has been working successfully in this area for more than a decade. This is the hope that is kindled when parents get to know blind role models for their blind child. This is what inspires newly blind older adults to continue living independently. The truth about blindness—that it is respectable to be blind—creates a resonance. The belief in blind people is awakened, internalized, and becomes an important part of the melody. This is one effect that comes from our work together in the National Federation of the Blind.
A primary force for creating resonance among the blind was Dr. Newel Perry, an educator and social organizer in the first half of the twentieth century. At the 1961 Convention of the National Federation of the Blind in Kansas City, the Federation's first vice president, Perry Sundquist, gave a memorial speech about Dr. Perry, who passed away in February of that year. Here is a small excerpt from that address:
"Out of his own rich, adventurous life and out of his many years of work with and association with other blind persons, Dr. Perry developed a practical philosophy. He believed that the way one learned to live without sight is through actually doing what one had previously thought impossible. After two or three experiences of this sort, one realized that very little was impossible."
Newel Perry had internalized the truth that has grown to be the theme of our movement.
Dr. Perry’s resonant effect on blind students from his forty-three years as an educator at the California School for the Blind would have been a significant melody on its own, but both the rest of his story and the melodies of his blind students are even more impressive. One of the most successful of his students was Jacobus tenBroek, who first came to the California School for the Blind in 1918.
Dr. Jacobus tenBroek used the resonance found in his relationship with Dr. Perry and other blind leaders in California to build and execute a plan to organize the National Federation of the Blind in November 1940. At that time, the system of charitable agencies for the blind dictated what happened with and for blind people, creating an overwhelming amount of destructive interference.
Blind people were isolated from one another, denied opportunities to shape their own future, and repeatedly told what they could not do. In founding the National Federation of the Blind, Dr. tenBroek set in motion more than a vehicle for collective action. In keeping with our musical theme tonight, he created a vehicle for constructive interference.
In acoustics, constructive interference occurs when sound waves align and reinforce one another, producing a stronger signal than either could create alone. Constructive interference is what happens when blind people stop merely inspiring one another and begin amplifying one another. Confidence reinforces confidence. High expectations encourage high expectations.
Creativity inspires creativity. One blind person's success is another blind person's aspiration. The newly formed Federation amplified one consistent and powerful principle that changed society forever: we are not an organization speaking for the blind, we are the blind speaking for ourselves. But the National Federation of the Blind has not settled for amplification. We have created something even more powerful—a counterpoint.
A round like "Row Your Boat" allows multiple voices to sing the same melody at different times. Counterpoint goes much further. In counterpoint, each voice carries its own melody, its own character, and its own direction, yet all of the voices fit together to create something more beautiful and more powerful than anyone could create alone.
That is what the founders of the National Federation of the Blind set in motion. They did not seek to have blind people think alike, live alike, or follow a single path. They sought to build a movement in which blind people from every walk of life could bring their own experiences, talents, and dreams into relationship with one another, creating a chorus that was stronger than any individual voice could ever be.
Let me take a moment to clearly emphasize the importance of this point. There are those who share the misconception that in order to be a member of the National Federation of the Blind you have to fit a certain mold. But the collection of human experience in this room tonight is living proof that our movement relies on diversity, not on uniformity. Our membership is a composition of different characteristics, including race, creed, color, religion, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, national origin, citizenship, marital status, age, genetic information, disability, political affiliation, professional status—literally hundreds of intersecting characteristics.
Each of us remains distinct even as we learn from the wisdom of others and apply our experiences to something larger than ourselves. Unity does not require uniformity. Unity does require a shared commitment to work together, to compromise for the greater good, to listen to each other, and to create space for all to be welcomed. As our nation celebrates its 250th anniversary, I believe our movement has a lot to teach others about the difference between uniformity and unity.
As blind people, our experience is enriched by learning from others in our movement, and those interactions give us greater resistance to the destructive interference we face in society. This is because blind people are creative. While some of us are naturally creative, all blind people need to cultivate some form of creative problem-solving to live the lives we want. This is what we teach in programs of the National Federation of the Blind. It starts with believing in yourself as a blind person—believing that you are not broken and that you belong in the world. We then teach the techniques that blind people have found to be successful.
One of the most effective teachers of these concepts was Kenneth Jernigan, a mentee of Dr. tenBroek and the second long-term President of the National Federation of the Blind. Dr. Jernigan added to the counterpoint by taking the ideas generated by the Federation and putting them to the test in rehabilitation programs. If something worked, he did more of it. If something was not effective, he learned from the experience and tried something different. Most significantly, when he came across a problem he did not know how to solve, he did not let it persist as a barrier for long. He engaged within the Federation to get the creative insight and strength he needed to solve the problem.
After meeting the Federation, Dr. Jernigan went to Iowa, built one of the most successful agencies for the blind in history, and pursued other creative collaborations fueled by his active participation in the organized blind movement. Dr. Jernigan was a creative in his words and his actions. His resonance is the inspiration for our research and training institute in Baltimore. The NFB Jernigan Institute is just one of the creative means we have used to develop programming to raise expectations among blind people.
Without a doubt, the National Federation of the Blind is a creative space, providing a wealth of mentors and life hackers who are ready to collaborate and iterate with other blind people to overcome barriers and test the limits—a space where we can share with each other the barriers we face and receive constructive, crowdsourced ideas to help overcome them. Often there is not one obvious solution to the problems we encounter. Not only do we benefit from the security in knowing that other blind people have our back; we benefit from creative, collaborative solutions to obstacles and opportunities that may be new to us all.
Most of us do not think of ourselves as creatives. We are simply doing what is needed to overcome barriers and live our lives. But being a creative is a critical means to constructive interference, and the blind are creative.
Here are some examples of creative problem-solving that I recently crowdsourced from blind people: building a personal network of drivers to solve transportation barriers; innovating techniques for overcoming handwritten materials; devising workarounds to deal with the inaccessibility of complex collaboration tools in the workplace; testing tactile methods for exploring surfaces that cannot be touched by the hand directly; creating accessibility features in off-the-shelf games so they can be played with the whole family; developing nonvisual techniques for teaching and participating in a wide range of activities including music, fishing, building with LEGOS, and trail running; and inventing a convertible car seat and stroller combination allowing parents to travel more independently with their children and their stuff (this last one comes about twelve years too late for my own family).
To quote one blind person who answered my query, "If the system doesn’t work for you, you build one that does—and then you make it repeatable." Yes, we are creative. Even as we advocate for equal access in society, our commitment to take equal responsibility requires us to be creative in the moment. Sometimes those solutions are unique, and sometimes they are built upon the experience of others. When we bring that creativity to our movement, it is amplified and creates something even more powerful.
However, it is not only the blind who are creative. Discrimination is also creative, and it is a significant destructive interference in our lives. Discrimination comes in many different forms, although the most persistent is low expectations—the misconception that we are destined to be limited to that one single, tragic note. While we are creative and find new ways to address discrimination, it continues to find creative ways to obscure our individual melodies. All blind people are well acquainted with the creativity of discrimination. Here are just a few real examples.
A blind professional is required to go to the courthouse on a weekly basis to participate in hearings where she is considered authorized personnel. Similar to many public places, the courthouse uses different entry procedures for authorized personnel as compared to the general public. The blind person reports that every week a kind member of the general public advises them they are going the wrong way when they head to the employee entrance.
They further report that, without fail, a friendly statement that assistance is not required is only met with a more insistent move by the Good Samaritan to help divert the blind person to the wrong entrance. While a courthouse employee will ultimately step in and advise the member of the public that the blind person knows what they are doing, consider the destructive interference of being treated like you do not belong when you are headed into an important meeting.
Another blind person shared that when she and her husband, who is also blind, were attempting to buy their first house, their competitive offer was dismissed because of their blindness. Although they made a fair offer for the property, the seller’s agent informed the couple’s agent that the offer could not be accepted because they were concerned that the blind couple would back out or would not understand what they were signing. The couple ultimately purchased the home after doing some educating.
Although this happened many years ago, the same blind person said it came to mind when they recently went to a new dental specialist for treatment. The doctor told the blind person that his manager was researching whether she could sign for treatment—they were concerned that she would not understand what she was signing. The blind person worked it out, but I am sure this added to the unpleasant experience of receiving dental treatment. This blind woman marvels at how creative people can be, based on the assumption that the only way to comprehend a document is to read it in print.
A blind mom notes that she regularly picks her son up from daycare or meets him and her husband at the playground after running errands. She reports that, without fail, as she is walking into the playground, she is greeted with: "Miss, Miss, stop! You’re going into a playground." She reports that the alert human is always shocked when she shares she is there to meet her son who is playing. She tries to imagine to herself what they believe she mistook this noisy environment of children to be, if not a playground. Maybe the local daycare for competent blind parents? I will interject that many blind parents have also had the experience of overhearing people discussing their amazement about how blind people are able to physically produce children.
Recently my wife Melissa and I traveled to a seminar hosted by our national student division. At the end of the event, we planned to take the hotel shuttle to the airport. I left my suitcase at the rear of the bus with the driver and proceeded to the front of the bus to find the door—there were no people or obstacles in my path of travel. As I approached the door of the bus, the driver sprinted to me, firmly grabbed my arm, and began steering me. I kindly asked that he not grab me and confidently shared that I did not require assistance. Early in the ride, the driver asked if he could pose a question to me. Although I was tired from the weekend, I politely agreed, knowing that there could only be one subject he wanted to discuss—blindness.
He then asked me why I had a problem with being grabbed. He went on to say that I was the second blind person to make that request of him on that day. I attempted to explain why it was useful to not assume help was needed but more important to inquire whether a person needed help before invading their personal space and putting your hands on them. As an example, I pointed out that he respectfully asked me if he could take my bag rather than just grabbing it. I appreciated his inquiry as I had hoped it would help other blind people in the future. But to our amazement, he proceeded to tell me why my answer to his question was wrong.
Furthermore, he informed me that clearly I was "a mean-spirited person" for not accepting his unwanted physical handling with anything less than heartfelt gratitude. He explained that kind people have a duty and, furthermore, a right to grab people and help them. Having traveled on buses, trains, planes, and other forms of transportation across this nation and in many others, being grabbed without notice is not new to me, and I have successfully dealt with it in a positive manner most of the time. However, this was certainly a creative approach to discrimination that I had previously never encountered. I have often been treated like a piece of luggage, but this was the first time I was treated worse than my luggage.
Here is one more example. A member of the Federation reports that one year, during our national convention, a group went to Johnny Rockets—an establishment known especially for its outstanding milkshakes. The group included both blind and nonblind people. The group was promptly seated, and they ordered their drinks without any concern. When the drinks were delivered, there was a distinct difference at the table: the blind people received their drinks in Styrofoam cups with lids while the nonblind people received their drinks in tall glasses. Being Federationists, they were naturally curious, so they asked why there was a difference.
The wait staff explained that it was so the blind people already had their "to-go" cups when it was time to leave. The nonblind members of the group were upset that they did not receive equal treatment—why could they not take their drinks to go? Was it assumed that they had nowhere else to be? That they could not be trusted to simultaneously walk and drink their milkshakes? Discrimination is creative, and its effects reach far beyond blind people.
You can find countless examples of creative discrimination in the daily lives of blind people. This destructive interference obscures the beauty present in our melodies. It threatens to hold us back. However, we have a counterpoint—the National Federation of the Blind.
A single melody can be overlooked, and noise can obscure a single voice—just as blind people can be held back by low expectations and creative discrimination. But we have organized to ensure that blind people's lives can be heard clearly. Our movement does not give blind people beauty and power; we come to the movement with these qualities even if we have not yet fully discovered them ourselves. Our shared movement amplifies confidence, creates new opportunities, and raises expectations. It transforms isolated experiences into shared strength. It creates a counterpoint that has limitless possibilities.
There is one final musical idea that is useful in understanding the power of our movement across generations. It is called a fugue. In a fugue, a musical theme is introduced by one voice and then taken up by another, and then another, and then another. Each voice develops the theme in its own way, but the original idea remains recognizable throughout the composition. The National Federation of the Blind has functioned in this manner for more than eighty-five years. The theme that blindness need not define or limit us has been carried from mentor to student, from parent to child, from leader to leader, and from generation to generation. Each voice has added something new, but the theme remains unmistakable.
This theme was picked up by the third generation of the Federation, which was led by our longest-serving President, Marc Maurer. During that generation, we added new programs, new services, and new approaches to amplifying the lives of blind people and eliminating destructive interference. The creative work of the organized blind movement is now with those of us in the next generation. We have the challenge and the opportunity to extend the theme further than ever before.
Our success depends on adding more voices, bringing in more creative ideas, and engaging new blind people to innovate shared responses to the creative discrimination we face. Each and every blind person must believe in themselves as a creative and contribute their unique voice to our unified theme. A theme that boldly rings out with the truth that, while we are not defined by a single note, we are proud to share the tune that it is respectable to be blind. We are proud of who we are, and we are proud to contribute our unique perspectives to make the world better for everyone. But we need even more voices to drown out the noise that tries to hold us back.
For eighty-five years, blind people have carried that theme into classrooms, workplaces, homes, legislatures, research laboratories, boardrooms, and communities across the world. In fact, we have also used it as inspiration to create songs for our movement. One voice became many voices. Many voices became a movement. And that movement continues to write new variations on an enduring theme: that it is respectable to be blind, that blind people can live the lives we want, and that we must speak and act for ourselves. We now seek new creative ways to bring the beauty of every blind person into our movement so that our symphony cancels the destructive interference and becomes an enduring masterpiece of hope and influence the world over.
My Federation family, let us be proud of the blind movement we share through the generations. Centuries of misunderstanding created a destructive interference that has reduced our melodies to one single, tragic note: the presumption that blindness limits us in every aspect of life. We found resonance in blind people who broke through the noise by believing in blind people and creatively breaking down barriers. We organized and created the counterpoint that has grown through the generations into an unstoppable force.
Under no circumstances will we allow the creativity of discrimination to obscure the full beauty of who we are, and under no circumstances will we cease welcoming new voices into our blind-centered composition. Every day we struggle against creative low expectations, but we do so with hope and our theme of truth that it is respectable to be blind. But equality in society is not yet ours. We deserve a world where every heart and mind knows the depth of our melodies. While a single melody may be discounted, a rich counterpoint of thousands of blind lives becomes impossible to ignore.
The only way we can get to that future is together, through the courage, determination, and creativity of a diverse, shared movement. This is the commitment we make to each other. This is the love, hope, and determination felt in our movement. This is the bond of faith that fuels our hope for our tomorrows. Let us go together to find those blind people who have not yet discovered the power of their melody. Let us show that we belong in the world and that we make it better. Let us create a symphony of constructive interference that will amplify the spirit we share. Let us go build the National Federation of the Blind.