                       THE BRAILLE MONITOR

                     August/September, 1995

                     Barbara Pierce, Editor


     Published in inkprint, Braille, on talking-book disc, 
                        and cassette by 


              THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND 
                     MARC MAURER, PRESIDENT 
 


                         National Office
                       1800 Johnson Street
                   Baltimore, Maryland 21230 

                             * * * *



           Letters to the President, address changes,
        subscription requests, orders for NFB literature,
       articles for the Monitor, and letters to the Editor
             should be sent to the National Office. 

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Monitor subscriptions cost the Federation about twenty-five 
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requested, to cover the subscription cost. Donations should be
made payable to National Federation of the Blind and sent to: 
 

                National Federation of the Blind
                       1800 Johnson Street
                   Baltimore, Maryland 21230 

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THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION
SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND--IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR THEMSELVES



ISSN 0006-8829THE BRAILLE MONITOR
A PUBLICATION OF THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

                                   AUGUST/SEPTEMBER, 1995

                            CONTENTS


1995 CONVENTION ROUNDUP
     by Barbara Pierce

PRESIDENTIAL REPORT
     by Marc Maurer

THE FUTURE OF CATEGORICAL SERVICES IN REHABILITATION
IN THE UNITED STATES
     by Fredric K. Schroeder

REPORT FROM THE OFFICE OF SPECIAL EDUCATION
AND REHABILITATIVE SERVICES
     by Judy Heumann

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND AWARDS FOR 1995

THE SCHOLARSHIP CLASS OF 1995

THE HERITAGE OF CONFLICT
     by Marc Maurer

BRAILLE LITERACY, BRAILLE TEXTS, AND BRAILLE BILLS

RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED BY THE ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
JULY, 1995
     by Ramona Walhof

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE
BLIND


       Copyright (c) 1995 National Federation of the Blind
[Lead #1 Caption: Hazel tenBroek, the first First Lady of the
National Federation of the Blind.]

[Lead #2 Caption: Kenneth Jernigan, President of the National
Federation of the Blind, 1968-1986.]

[Lead #3 Caption: Marc Maurer, President of the National
Federation of the Blind, 1986-present.]

[Lead #4 This is a picture of Amanda Jones and Dacia Luck.
Caption: The coming generation.]

[Photos #5, #6, #7 Captions: These were the children.]

[Photo #5 This is a picture of Colleen Salka sitting on the floor. Caption:
Colleen Salka]

[Photo #6 This is a picture of two little girls in a whirlpool. Caption:
Hailee Linhart and Briley Pollard]

[Photo #7 Niki White and Jeremy Lincicome are dancing together. Caption: Niki
White and Jeremy Lincicome]

[Photo #8 Kenneth Jernigan and twins, April and Amanda Jones, kneel on the
floor, comparing canes. Caption: Kenneth Jernigan and April and Amanda Jones
talk about travel techniques and do a little practice.]

[Photo #9 Caption: Four Maryland teenagers (left to right: Lydia Richardson,
Emine Watson, Ellen Nichols, and Tiffany Green) read at the Convention
Braille-a-thon.]

[Photo #10 Caption: Maria Morais from California shows Soo Kee Reed from
Alaska how to go down an escalator using a cane.]

[Photo #11 This is a picture of a child with a large stuffed turkey. Caption:
Children enjoyed the Sensory Safari.]

[Photo #12 A crowd of people in line for registration. Caption: Registration
on Sunday]

[Photo #13 Caption: Allen Harris, President of the National Federation of the
Blind of Michigan, presents the attendance banner (signifying the state with
the most people present) to Steve Benson, President of the National Federation
of the Blind of Illinois.]

[Photo #14 This is a picture of five Louisiana Center Players during a
particularly dramatic scene on the stage. Caption: The Louisiana Center
Players in action.]

[Photo #15 Three pipers and two drummers, in full Highland regalia, are
pictured here at the front of the convention hall playing their instruments.
Caption: The first general session of the 1995 NFB Convention began in style
with drum and pipe.]

[Photo #16 Caption: Alpedio Rolon, President of the National Federation of the
Blind of Puerto Rico]

[Photo #17 Caption: Robert Eschbach, newly appointed Director of Pennsylvania
State Services for the Blind]

[Photo #18 Caption: James Patterson, President of Times On-Line Services]

[Photo #19 Caption: Philippe Chazal, Director of the Vocational Training
Center for the Blind in Paris and Vice President of the Commission on
Vocational Training and Employment for the European Blind Union]

[Photo #20 Portrait Caption: Ray Raysor and Joie Stuart]

[Photo #21 Dr. Jernigan stands beside Alan Gartner, who has his arm around
Dorothy Kerzner Lipsky. Caption: Dorothy Kerzner Lipsky and Alan Gartner stand
on the platform with Kenneth Jernigan.]

[Photo #22 Caption: Tadeusz Madzia, President of the Polish Association of the
Blind, makes a presentation to President Maurer.]

[Photo #23 Caption: Craige Snader; Adela Snader; and Carolina, their deaf-
blind daughter.]

[Photo #24 Mrs. Jernigan, Mr. Cheadle, and Mrs. Dyer are shown walking through
a hallway carrying convention materials. Caption: Mary Ellen Jernigan
(center), John Cheadle, and Marsha Dyer busily work at the National
Convention.]

                     1995 CONVENTION ROUNDUP
                        by Barbara Pierce

     Those who attended the 1995 convention of the National
Federation of the Blind are still talking about the unforgettable
experiences we shared during the first week of July. The Chicago
Hilton and Towers provided an almost perfect setting for a
National Federation of the Blind convention: friendly and
competent staff, an elegant but uncomplicated facility, and a
stimulating host city in the nation's heartland. As each
convention closes and fades into memory, one is left with a few
indelible memories that forever after spring to mind each time
that convention is remembered--the skirling of bag pipes on the
convention floor, half a hundred blind children and their
families taking their rightful place in the Federation clan, the
hotel's television channel broadcasting Federation programming
all day every day, and a deaf-blind two-year-old showing off for
his parents and other adults by running in circles and signing
"funny!" These are a few of the pictures that will always color
my own memories of the 1995 convention of the National Federation
of the Blind.
     In many ways this was the convention of the children. Ninety
of them registered during the week at NFB Camp, the day camp for
kids conducted by Mary Willows and her crew of child care
workers--most of them volunteers. A number of other youngsters
remained with their parents or other care givers during
convention activities. But wherever the children were, learning
was taking place. A deaf-blind teen who had always been told that
bouncing on beds was "against the rules" was taught the joyful
art by an adult who recognized the importance of such harmless
pleasures. Sighted children begged for and sometimes got (for the
week at least) their own canes so they could be like everybody
else. Parents saw blind adults and even other blind children
engaging in independent activity that they had only dreamed of
for their own youngsters. And throughout the week blind adults
talked with parents, played and worked with their blind children,
and redoubled their determination to change what it will mean to
be blind for this generation of children.
     Saturday and Sunday were filled with pre-convention
activities--twenty-five on July 1 and eleven on July 2, not
counting repeat presentations of the Myna palm-top computer and
the Newsline (r) digitized newspaper service. In addition to a
morning-long seminar for parents of blind children, the National
Organization of Parents of Blind Children presented a series of
concurrent workshops and discussions throughout the afternoon.
Fifty-two blind and sighted children went for the day to
Kiddyland, a child-size amusement park while thirty-one more
enjoyed NFB Camp at the hotel. Blind teens took part in a hotel-
orientation session late on Saturday afternoon conducted by
Debbie Stein of Chicago and Rich Crawford of Iowa and staffed
largely by volunteers from the NFB adult orientation centers. It
was standing-room only when the teens met to get acquainted with
each other and the hotel. 
     With Sunday came the opening of convention registration, in
which a record-breaking 2,030 passed through the lines that day,
and the opening of the exhibit hall, which was actually two huge
rooms totaling 63,000 square feet of display space. Sixteen
affiliates, divisions, and committees staffed display tables
along with fifty-three other exhibitors. With that kind of crowd
the Braille and print guides to exhibiter locations, including
descriptions of each one's products and services, were a valuable
addition to the exhibit information table.
     One of the most important meetings on Sunday was that of the
Resolutions Committee. Fifteen resolutions were considered and
recommended to the convention for passage. The texts of the
resolutions that became Federation policy this year appear
elsewhere in this issue.
     Promptly at 9:00 a. m. on Monday, July 3, the annual meeting
of the Board of Directors was called to order. After a moment of
silence honoring members who had died during the past year,
President Maurer called the roll and explained that Board member
Dick Edlund was unable to attend the convention because of his
wife Eileen's critical illness. Sharon Gold then announced that
she would not seek reelection to the Board. Steve Benson,
President of the NFB of Illinois and member of the Board of
Directors, welcomed the convention to Chicago and made several
announcements. He concluded his remarks by presenting a check to
President Maurer in the amount of $35,000. It represented half of
a bequest that the Illinois affiliate had recently received.
President Maurer accepted the gift and announced that United
Parcel Service had contributed $10,000 to the Federation through
the Baltimore Chapter. David Ticchi, President of the Cambridge
Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind of Massachusetts,
presented a check for $500.
     Next B. J. Mcdonald, founder of the magazine The Cross
Stitcher, made a presentation of a beautiful framed cross stitch
sampler to the NFB. It was created at the request of a woman who
wanted to honor a blind man she knew with a sampler that would
incorporate Braille. The design created shows a cottage with
trees and sky. Above is the alphabet in print and Braille, and
there is also a verse from the Book of Job. The Braille is done
in gold beads, and the framed sampler measures nineteen inches
high and seventeen and a half inches wide. President Maurer
accepted the gift for display at the National Center.
     Jim Omvig of Arizona, Chairman of the Pre-authorized Check
(PAC) Committee, then announced that chapters boasting 100
percent participation in PAC by February 14, 1996, will receive
special recognition for having done so and will be given an NFB
mug with appropriate commendations. At the beginning of the
convention 1,325 people were contributing an annual total of
$306,012 to the PAC Plan.
     Two award presentations were made during the Board meeting.
Sharon Maneki, Chairperson of the Distinguished Educator of Blind
Children Award Committee, presented a plaque and check to Dr.
Hilda Caton, Director of the Braille Research Center. Steve
Benson, Chairperson of the Blind Educator of the Year Award
Committee, conferred that award on Bonnie Peterson, a professor
of communication at the University of Wisconsin, Parkside. A full
report of both these ceremonies appears elsewhere in this issue.
     Dr. Norman Gardner, who has been active in a number of fund-
raising activities for the Federation through the years, briefly
described Quorum International, a company offering Federationists
home-based business opportunities selling unique products. He
then introduced Martin Matthews, Executive Vice President for
Marketing at Quorum International. In addition to providing
excellent products of many kinds and exciting opportunities for
blind people and the NFB to earn money, Quorum has taken
seriously its responsibility to make its sales materials
accessible to blind sales representatives. Recorded and Braille
materials will be available early this fall. Those interested in
more information about Quorum International should contact Dr.
Norman Gardner, 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21230.
     Dr. Jernigan then reminded the audience that earlier this
year the Board of Directors decided to conduct a special drawing
during the convention for which only past NFB scholarship winners
registered at the convention would be eligible. The prize, which
would be drawn sometime late in the week during a general
convention session and for which the winner must be present to
collect, would be $1,000. He invited interested scholarship
winners from previous years to register with Peggy Elliott. 
     Twenty-five 1995 scholarship winners were introduced to the
convention at the Board meeting this year. Emily Ross, an
undergraduate biology major at Reed College in Oregon, was the
winner of the $10,000 scholarship this year. A full report on the
scholarship class of '95 and the awards they received at the
banquet appears elsewhere in this issue.
     The Board then turned its attention to the Associates
Program. Those recruited to become Members-at-large (Associates)
not only make contributions to the NFB but also become full-
fledged members. The top ten recruiters this year by number of
Associates and by dollar amount are as follows:

                        Top Ten in Number
                     of Associates Recruited

10. Frank Lee (Alabama), 61
 9. Kenneth Jernigan (Maryland), 61
 8. Verla Kirsch (Iowa), 63
 7. Gary Thompson (Nebraska), 66
 6. Beulah Sawyer (South Carolina), 78
 5. Toni Eames (California), 80
 4. Arthur Schreiber (New Mexico), 95
 3. Karen Mayry (South Dakota), 106
 2. Bill Isaacs (Illinois), 126
 1. Tom Stevens (Missouri), 183

                 Top Ten in Dollar Amount Raised

10. Toni Eames (California), $1,182
 9. Joe Ruffalo (New Jersey), $1,220
 8. Jim Salas (New Mexico), $1,433
 7. Marc Maurer (Maryland), $1,740
 6. Tom Stevens (Missouri), $2,112
 5. Bill Isaacs (Illinois), $2,298
 4. Mary Ellen Jernigan (Maryland), $2,387
 3. Karen Mayry (South Dakota), $3,379
 2. Duane Gerstenberger (Maryland), $3,940
 1. Kenneth Jernigan (Maryland), $13,517

     The Board meeting adjourned shortly before noon. Monday
afternoon and evening were filled with twenty-three different
meetings and workshops; a field trip for children, and It's a
Broken-Hearted River to Freedom, Mister John, an original play
written by Jerry Whittle and performed by the Louisiana Center
Players. Add to this array of activities the convention exhibit
hall and the finale of Chicago's "A Taste of Chicago" with its
spectacular fire works display, and the problem facing every
Federationist was how to fit in everything one wanted to sample.
     Tuesday morning at 9:45 the gavel fell, opening the 1995
convention of the National Federation of the Blind. Following the
invocation, President Maurer introduced Steve Benson to welcome
the convention. After warmly welcoming the crowd and making a few
announcements, Steve recalled Dr. Jernigan's statement that NFB
conventions are like the gathering of the Scottish clans, and no
such festivity is ever complete without the music of the
bagpipes. At that point in Steve's remarks the skirling of the
six bagpipes and two drums of the Glengael Pipe Band could be
heard in the distance. If you have ever had occasion to stand
close to a piper, you know how much volume the bagpipe produces.
The welcoming roar of the audience was so tumultuous that band
members later reported that their only problem marching through
the throng that suddenly surrounded them was that they had
difficulty hearing one another as they played. After the band
reached the platform, convention delegates stood in silent
tribute to those who had died during the previous year while one
piper played "Amazing Grace." Then the Douglas-plaid kilted
pipers retreated, leaving delight in their wake.
     Dr. Jernigan, who chairs our convention arrangements
activities, made several announcements of interest. Fifty-five
foreign guests attended this year's convention, including thirty-
four from Canada. Other countries represented were Argentina,
France, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Sweden, the United Arab
Emirates, and the United Kingdom. He also announced the
publication of two new books: the latest offering in the Kernel
Book series of paperbacks, Toothpaste and Railroad Tracks; and
The World under My Fingers, a collection of pieces on the
importance of Braille to blind students. Both are available
singly or in cases of fifty from the Materials Center, National
Federation of the Blind, 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland
21230, telephone (afternoons only) (410) 659-9314.
     A letter of welcome from the Mayor of Chicago and a
proclamation from his office were then read to the Convention: 

     Greetings:
          As Mayor and on behalf of the City of Chicago, I extend cordial
     greetings to the National Federation of the Blind of Illinois and all
     those attending its fifty-fifth Annual Convention. Chicagoans are both
     pleased and honored that you have chosen our city as the site of your
     gathering.
          Your visit is important to us, and we will do all we can to make
     your stay pleasant. Our vibrant city is sparkling with a diverse array
     of people, art, architecture, culture, and business. I encourage you to
     take some time out from your schedules to appreciate all that Chicago
     has to offer. We are delighted to open our world-class city to you.
          Best wishes for a successful, informative, and enjoyable
     convention.

                                                       Sincerely,
                                           Mayor Richard M. Daley

                          Proclamation

          WHEREAS, people with disabilities are our nation's largest
     minority, with 19 percent of all Americans having disabilities and over
     500,000 people with disabilities living in Chicago; and
          WHEREAS, the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities (MOPD) is
     working to make Chicago the most accessible city in the nation through
     advocacy, education, training, and direct services for people with
     disabilities of all ages in all aspects of life; and
          WHEREAS, the National Federation of the Blind will hold its fifty-
     fifth annual convention July 1-7, 1995, at the Chicago Hilton and Towers
     Hotel; and
          WHEREAS, founded in 1940, the Federation is the largest
     organization of persons who are blind in America with over 50,000
     members; and
          WHEREAS, the Federation's ultimate goal is the complete
     integration of people who are blind into society on a basis of equality;
     and
          WHEREAS, the Federation's objectives include the removal of legal,
     economic, and social discriminations; the education of the public to new
     concepts concerning blindness; and the achievements by all blind people
     of the right to exercise to the fullest their individual talents and
     capabilities; and
          WHEREAS, the Federation also provides programs which offer a
     common ground, a sense of participation, and a restoration of confidence
     for newly blinded persons;
          NOW, THEREFORE, I Richard M. Daley, Mayor of the City of Chicago,
     do hereby proclaim July 1-7, 1995, to be National Federation of the
     Blind Week in Chicago, and urge all Chicagoans, businesses, and
     organizations to celebrate and acknowledge the Federation's fifty-five
     years of service and accomplishment and to support its ongoing advocacy
     efforts for people with disabilities.
                       Dated this twenty-eighth day of June, 1995
                                          Richard M. Daley, Mayor

     The remainder of the morning session was devoted to the roll
call of states, in which each state's delegate told the chair his
or her name, the name of the alternate delegate, the name of the
person who would be serving on the Nominating Committee, the
dates and location of the state's next convention, and whether or
not a national representative had yet been assigned. In addition
we learned that Delaware and Mississippi had succeeded in passing
Braille bills in the past year. Alpedio Rolon, President of the
NFB of Puerto Rico, announced that the organization's White Cane
Legislation had just passed in the state house of representatives
and was headed for the conference committee between the state
senate and house. Ted Young, President of the NFB of
Pennsylvania, made the following announcement: 

     Mr. President, this is a special day for Pennsylvania, so I would like
     to make an announcement on it. For years I have stood in envy as my
     fellow state presidents have announced that they had the director of
     their state agency with them. Today, I am pleased to say, not only do we
     have the new director of our state agency with us, but he is a longtime
     Federationist known to you all, Bob Eschbach. [applause]

     The afternoon session began as usual with the 1995 Report by
President Maurer, giving a summary of the activities of the
National Federation of the Blind during the past year. The full
text of this important address appears elsewhere in this issue,
but here are President Maurer's concluding remarks: 

          Whether it is a vendor in Kentucky or a teacher in Connecticut, a
     Social Security recipient in Louisiana or a student in Alaska, we are
     the blind--organized and on the move. Our programs may be complex, but
     our goals are not--we seek independence and a full life for the blind.
     We ask only to be considered on the basis of our ability. The means for
     achieving this objective are within our own hands. They are our
     strength, our understanding, our commitment, our willingness to
     sacrifice, our imagination, and our courage. We have been fortunate; we
     have come to know the power of collective action. We must also
     demonstrate that we are worthy of the power we possess. But I have no
     doubt that we have the judgment to make those decisions and take those
     actions which will propel us the rest of the way to first-class
     citizenship. The Federation has many assets, but our essential being is
     the spirit that we bring to our daily endeavors--and that spirit is
     unstoppable. 
          In the coming year I, as President, will do the best that I know
     to make our Federation all that it can be--and I will not vacillate or
     waffle or compromise. But I will also expect you to do your part. I
     intend to ask each of you to contribute your effort, your energy, your
     resources, your initiative, and your boldness. I know the members of the
     National Federation of the Blind, and I have absolutely no doubt that we
     will meet the challenges of the years ahead. This is the commitment that
     we make to each other, to ourselves, to the blind who have gone before
     us, and to the generation still to come. We move to the year ahead with
     gladness and vigor. This is what I ask of myself; this is what I ask of
     you the members; and this is my report for 1995.

     The remainder of the afternoon was filled with interesting
presentations:
    "The Will to Succeed: a Blind Athlete Speaks," by Craig
     MacFarlane;
    "Aspects of Centralized Library Service," by Frank Kurt
     Cylke, Director of the National Library Service for the
     Blind and Physically Handicapped;
    "The Future of Categorical Services in Rehabilitation in the
     United States," by Dr. Fredric K. Schroeder (the full text
     of his remarks is printed elsewhere in this issue);
    "The Power of Public Speaking," by Dr. John W. Smith,
     Professor of Speech Communication, Ohio University;
    "Report from Recording for the Blind," by Ritchie Geisel,
     President and CEO.
     The Tuesday evening dance was filled with the big-band sound
provided by the Big Band Machine--one of Chicago's favorite
bands, with vocalists and the style and flare of the big-band
era.
     The Music Division's Showcase of Talent also took place
Tuesday evening. A number of Federationists took part in this
popular event. The winners in the Amateur Division were Johnna
Simmons (North Carolina), second place; and Don Galloway
(Washington, D.C.), first place. The winners in the Professional
Division were Dr. Nathaniel Brown (California) second place; and
Dr. John Smith (Ohio) first place.
     The first item on the Wednesday morning convention agenda
was the election of six Board members. Elected to two-year terms
were Donald Capps, South Carolina; Priscilla Ferris,
Massachusetts; Ed McDonald, West Virginia; Betty Niceley,
Kentucky; Joanne Wilson, Louisiana; and, for the first time,
Wayne Davis, Florida. Wayne is the President of the National
Federation of the Blind of Florida. Each newly elected Board
member thanked the Convention for the honor and the challenge
conferred by the office and pledged continued hard work on behalf
of the Federation and its goals. Perhaps the most touching of
these brief statements was made by Priscilla Ferris, who said:

     Mr. Maurer, Dr. Jernigan, fellow Federationists, I want to thank you for
     this honor. Twenty-two years ago, when I joined this organization, I
     thought it was just to go to monthly meetings, to sit around with some
     friends. But in twenty-two years I have learned differently. This is an
     organization of learning and sharing. We have good and bad times,
     failures and successes; but we work together. That's the important
     thing. I would like to share something with all of my Federation family.
     This morning I became the grandmother of an eight-pound, nine-ounce
     grandson. He was born at four o'clock, and his name is Ian Joseph. He,
     like his mother and the rest of my family, will be a member of this
     great organization of ours. Thank you very much.

     "The Power of the Computer in the Hands of the Blind:
Obstacles and Opportunities" was the title of the next convention
agenda item. Curtis Chong, President of the National Federation
of the Blind in Computer Science, discussed the problems and
possibilities in recent technological innovation.
     In a presentation titled "Newsline (r): A Nationwide Digital
Newspaper Network for the Blind," Dr. Jernigan and Jim Patterson,
President of Times On-Line Services, announced that The New York
Times will soon be joining USA Today as nationwide newspapers
available to blind people through the NFB's telephone-access
system. Dr. Jernigan also told the audience that earlier in the
week the Chicago Tribune had expressed interest in joining the
NFB system and was making a generous contribution to the project.
     The next agenda item was an address by the Honorable Luis
Gutierrez, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from
Chicago. His title was "Fairness in Government: Creating a
Climate for Full Participation by the Blind."
     At the conclusion of the morning session Mr. Philippe
Chazal, Director of the Vocational Training Center for the Blind
in Paris and Vice President of the Commission on Vocational
Training and Employment for the European Blind Union, spoke to
the convention about the situation of blind people in France.
Then Dr. Euclid Herie, Chief Operating Officer and President of
the Canadian National Institute for the Blind and Treasurer of
the World Blind Union, addressed the Convention briefly. At the
conclusion of his remarks the session adjourned.
     Wednesday afternoon and evening were filled with tours,
seminars, workshops, and committee meetings. As usual the
National Association of Blind Students sponsored its popular
Monte Carlo Night for all those who like playing various games
and having a good time.
     The Thursday morning convention session will go down in
Federation lore as the Marriage Mart. President Maurer began with
the announcement that Jason Farrar of Colorado and Kasondra Bair
of California had become engaged during the convention and
expected to be married in March. The morning program then began
with an address from James Gashel, NFB Director of Governmental
Affairs, titled "The Foundation of Independence: Education of
Blind Children."
     Following Mr. Gashel's remarks, Diane McGeorge was called
upon to give a door prize. This is what she said: 

     I have got to do a lot of things in the NFB, but I've never got to do
     the next thing I'm going to do. This note reads, "Special announcement
     with the door prize, Ray Raysor proposes marriage to Joie Stuart, both
     members of the DC Chapter. This $25 door prize is good even if she says,
     `No.'" [prolonged applause and laughter] "And the last sentence says Ray
     `hopes to be married in the fall.' So this prize comes from Ray Raysor.

     Mr. Maurer: There are all kinds of ways to propose. Often it is done in
     somewhat more secluded circumstances. Who won the door prize?

     President Maurer then returned to the morning's agenda with
a joint presentation titled "Inclusion for All: Building on the
Tools of Blindness." The speakers were Dr. Alan Gartner (Dean for
Research) and Dorothy Kerzner Lipsky (Director), of the National
Center on Educational Restructuring and Inclusion, Graduate
School and University, City University of New York. Dr. Gartner
and Ms. Lipsky have worked closely together for a number of years
and in their presentations drew on their experience in teaching
to show that full inclusion is a process, not a placement. 
     At the close of Ms. Lipsky's remarks she said: 

     In closing, I just want to say in the best tradition of what I see
     happening here--people are getting engaged and they're getting all sorts
     of incentives; so I want to end my presentation in that same tradition.
     I want to say that, if Alan Gartner will marry me, then I will give one
     hundred dollars to the National Federation of the Blind. [laughter]

     During the confusion that followed Diane McGeorge gave a
door prize, and then President Maurer broke in with:
     "Diane?" 
     "Yes, sir."
     "He accepts; he'll do it. [cheers and applause] Don't ever
think that things don't happen at these conventions!"
     After the tumult subsided, Dr. Ralph Bartley, Superintendent
of the Kentucky School for the Blind, delivered an address titled
"Striving for Excellence in a Residential School for the Blind."
Dr. Bartley discussed a number of obstacles to an excellent
residential school education and also a group of characteristics
that must be present if good education is to take place for blind
students.
     Attention next turned to "The Importance of Braille Literacy
in the Education of Blind Children." Dr. Sally Mangold, Professor
of Special Education at San Francisco State University, addressed
this vital subject. Dr. Jernigan next chaired a panel titled
"Braille Literacy, Braille Texts, and Braille Bills." The three
panel participants represented the Association of American
Publishers, Inc. This very important discussion appears in full
elsewhere in this issue.
     The final agenda item of the morning was presented by
Lawrence Thompson, Principal Deputy Commissioner, Social Security
Administration. His topic was "Disability Insurance and
Supplemental Security Income: Plans for Changes in Eligibility,
Work Incentives, and Claims Processing."
     The afternoon general session began with "A Report from
Poland" delivered by Tadeusz Madzia, President of the Polish
Association of the Blind. After reporting on the activities of
his organization, Mr. Madzia presented a beautiful Medieval-style
clock to President Maurer, who accepted it on behalf of the
National Federation of the Blind. Mr. Madzia also honored Dr.
Jernigan with the Polish Association of the Blind's highest
distinction, the Golden Sign, an order presented only to people
who have greatly contributed to the welfare, rehabilitation, and
social integration of the blind and who have also contributed to
cooperation between organizations of blind people. He went on to
say that he considered Dr. Jernigan a great friend of the Polish
blind people. In accepting the small golden medallion, Dr.
Jernigan expressed his gratitude and his hope that our two
organizations will continue to work together for the improvement
of the lives of blind people around the world.
     The next agenda item was one that is always popular. This
year it was titled "Productivity and Independence: The Blind Get
It Done." The participants were Steve Shelton, Senior Systems
Engineer for AllTEL Information Services in Oklahoma City; Debbie
Kent Stein, author of children's books, Chicago; and Noel
Nightingale, Attorney, Environmental Practice Group, Heller,
Ehrman, White, & McAuliffe, Seattle. All three talked about their
jobs and the ways in which their philosophy has shaped their
experience.
     Then Jarrel Boatright, Executive Director and Chief
Operating Officer of the Telephone Pioneers of America, delivered
to the Convention a "Report From the Telephone Pioneers of
America." "A Report From the American Foundation for the Blind"
was the final agenda item of the afternoon. It was delivered by
Carl Augusto, President of the American Foundation for the Blind.
     The Thursday evening banquet was, as usual, the highlight of
the convention. President Maurer's address, "The Heritage of
Conflict," was simultaneously stirring, humorous, and thought-
provoking. The text of the entire address is printed elsewhere in
this issue, but the following excerpt suggests its flavor: 

     As everybody knows, we live in a time of turmoil. The federal government
     is re-examining its role in programs for the blind, and the state
     governments are doing the same. So is the private sector, and so are we.
     A few years ago many of the groups of the disabled (including some of
     the blind) seemed to think that the Americans With Disabilities Act
     would solve all (or, at least, most) of our problems--but we in the
     Federation never felt that way--and we don't feel that way now. Whether
     the restructuring of public buildings, the redesigning of the workplace,
     and the reconfiguration of the environment mandated by the ADA are a
     good or a bad thing is not pertinent to what I am saying tonight. What
     is pertinent is this: Ultimately government cannot make us free, cannot
     make us equal participants in society. Business cannot do it; the press
     cannot do it; the public at large cannot do it; and the agencies for the
     blind cannot do it. We will either do it for ourselves, or it will not
     be done. Others can help (and certainly they can hinder)--but in the
     total scheme of things they cannot give us freedom, and they cannot keep
     us from having it. We have come too far for that. We are too strong, too
     determined, too well organized, too knowledgeable about our own needs
     and strengths, and too close to the final goal to allow it to happen.

     Two awards were presented during the banquet. Joyce and Tom
Scanlan jointly received the Jacobus tenBroek Award, and Tom
Curley, President and Publisher of USA Today, received the NFB's
Distinguished Service Award. Both presentations are reported
fully elsewhere in this issue.
     The general session on Friday began with the joyful
announcement that Eileen Edlund was well enough that day for Dick
to slip away from home long enough to look in on the convention.
As usual, the Friday session was devoted to organizational
business. Jim Gashel made an excellent Washington report, and
fifteen resolutions were discussed and voted upon. The closing
figures for the Pre-authorized Check (PAC) Plan program as
reported by Chairman Jim Omvig were encouraging. The number of
people contributing on PAC rose from 1,325 to 1,415, and they
will be contributing $331,170 in the coming year. Gary Wunder,
Chairman of the SUN Committee, reported that 858 Shares Unlimited
in NFB had been sold during the convention, raising $8,580 for
the organization. In the scholarship-winner drawing for $1,000
the name of Brian Buhrow, class of '88, was drawn.
     So ended the 1995 convention of the National Federation of
the Blind. Filled with energy and promise for the future, we
turned homeward determined that the coming year will witness
accelerating change in public attitudes about blindness. Each of
us has work to do if measurable progress is to be made. In the
months ahead, thousands of people will be told that they are
becoming blind; parents will learn that their children will never
see. We must be ready with hope and solutions, understanding and
encouragement. We left Chicago energized for the challenges ahead
and counting the weeks to the 1996 convention in Anaheim,
California.


[Photo #25 Caption: President Marc Maurer delivers his annual report to the
members of the National Federation of the Blind, Hilton and Towers Hotel,
Chicago, Illinois, Tuesday afternoon, July 4, 1995.]

[Photo #26 A number of conventioneers stand clapping and cheering.  The
Michigan delegation particularly shows. Caption: More the 2500 Federationists
gave a standing ovation to Marc Maurer at the conclusion of his presidential
report on Tuesday afternoon, July 4, 1995.]

                       PRESIDENTIAL REPORT
                NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
                        CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
                          JULY 4, 1995

     The activities of the past twelve months have signified
growth and change for the National Federation of the Blind
although the solid substance of our organization and our enduring
purpose have not altered in the slightest. Our representative
character as the voice of the nation's blind and our paramount
objective to serve as the vehicle for collective action by the
blind and by the parents of blind children remain the
fundamentals on which we have built the organized blind movement.
All that we have done, all the programs that we have built, all
the recognition that we have achieved must be understood in this
perspective.
     Blind sheltered shop workers, blind teachers, blind
students, blind parents, blind people in the professions, the
parents of blind children, blind scientists, professionals in the
field of work with the blind, the blind from every cultural
setting, those with disabilities in addition to blindness, those
who have recently become blind, those who are older and those who
are not, those with education and those without it--the blind--
this is what we are and why we have the strength that we have. We
have one overriding goal, to respond to the needs of the blind--
and we will not permit differences of style or training or
background to divert us from serving that end. This unwillingness
to be sidetracked by unimportant details gives us the unity, the
harmony, the single-mindedness, and the force of will that
constitute the essence of the National Federation of the Blind.
     On television and radio, in newspapers and magazines, in
public meetings and private gatherings, the work of the
Federation is becoming ever more widely known. Our former first
lady, Mrs. Barbara Bush, published in 1994 the memoirs of her
years in Washington. Contained among her recollections is a
description of a visit to the White House by several members of
the National Federation of the Blind. Mrs. Bush was particularly
impressed by Second Vice President Peggy Elliott. Although Mrs.
Bush had other duties to perform on the day of our visit, the
work of the Federation was of such interest to her that she took
additional time to devote to us. This is what she says about the
Federation:

     I was trying hard to keep up my regular schedule. One
     morning in early January, for example, I met with members of
     the National Federation of the Blind. They were so
     fascinating I visited with them much longer than scheduled.
     Their spokesperson was a young blind woman who was a Yale
     Law School graduate and a court trial lawyer. She showed me
     how she took notes with a pocket Braille device that looked
     like a ruler. They told me that only 25 percent of our blind
     children are taught Braille; the other 75 percent are locked
     into second-class citizenry. The group was petitioning to
     have Braille education made available to all children. I had
     never thought about this before, but everyone must know how
     to read--whether it is by sight or by feel.

This is the description of the Federation contained in the
memoirs of former first lady Barbara Bush. Our name and the work
we are doing are being distributed throughout the United States
and the world.
     It is not only in the memoirs of our nation's leaders that
the Federation is being recognized. Paul Nelson and Judy Pearson
are the authors of a book entitled Confidence in Public Speaking,
6th edition. This text incorporates quotations from the 1989
National Federation of the Blind banquet address "Language and
the Future of the Blind." Not only is the talent for public
speaking commended, but the purpose for doing the speaking, the
need for blind people to achieve freedom, is acknowledged as
well.
     Our public service announcements, which depict the innate
normality of the blind, also continue to be broadly circulated.
During the past year our message appeared in all of the top ten
television markets and on over 200 superstations, cable systems,
and local television channels throughout the nation.
     Late last summer the CBS television network featured the
National Federation of the Blind on its overnight news program.
The subject being discussed was the installation of detectable
warnings on subway platforms. Certain uninformed people believe
that bumpy surfaces should be installed along the edges of these
platforms to warn blind pedestrians of danger. When the blind
feel the bumps, these people say, the platform edge is close at
hand. Unless the blind feel the bumps, they add, they will not
know about the edge until it is too late.
     These uninformed people demanded that the Washington
Metropolitan Area Transit Authority install the bumps along the
platform edges in all of its seventy-four rail stations--a
distance of eighteen miles--at an estimated cost of thirty
million dollars. The bumps were required (they said) to make
these rail stations accessible to the blind in accordance with
the Americans With Disabilities Act.
     The National Federation of the Blind has opposed
installation of these bumpy surfaces. Our experience indicates
that they are not necessary, and in certain instances they are
actually hazardous. Those who want them installed say that many
blind people have not been trained to travel safely. Failing to
install the bumps (they say) will keep such untrained people from
riding the subway. Putting the bumps underfoot would make it
possible (they argue) for everybody to ride--especially the blind
who have never learned how.
     We responded to this specious line of reasoning on the CBS
television network. Installing the bumps does not ensure that
those who are blind will not fall. In fact, it is very likely to
be precisely the opposite. If the installation of these bumpy
surfaces will encourage untrained blind people to think that
injuries cannot occur in the subway, these people will take fewer
precautions than are advisable in the circumstances. Furthermore,
the irregular surface underfoot will increase the instability of
pedestrians and heighten the danger. With all of these factors in
mind, we oppose the installation of the detectable warnings.
     I am pleased to be able to report to you that this spring
the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (with our
assistance) came to an agreement with the Department of
Transportation that the installation of the detectable warnings
will not be required. Officials of the transit system agreed to
install an experimental electronic warning system, and they have
asked us to help design it. We will be working closely with them
and with the Sensory Engineering Center and the Applied Physics
Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University to produce it.
     Last fall Dr. Kenneth Jernigan, President Emeritus of the
National Federation of the Blind, provided staff training to
counselors and others who work at the New York Commission for the
Blind. This initial training session demonstrated that the
collective experience of the organized blind movement can provide
a kind of background and comprehension which is not available
from other sources.
     The government of Bermuda last fall invited Dr. Jernigan to
make presentations regarding the ability of the disabled to the
educational community, the government, and the public-at-large of
Bermuda. The training program lasted a full week and included
groups ranging from grade school children to news media
representatives to the Governor General. Our message of
independence for blind people was enthusiastically received.
     Dr. Jernigan continues to serve as the president of the
North America/Caribbean Region of the World Blind Union. As an
officer of the world organization and a representative of the
blind of this continent, he traveled last fall to Amman, Jordan,
to participate in policy discussions and to study programs for
the blind in that country; and this spring he visited Caracas,
Venezuela, for meetings with leaders among blindness
organizations from throughout the world.
     This coming August Dr. Jernigan will be leading a delegation
to Toronto to help plan for the 1996 quadrennial convention of
the World Blind Union, which will be held there. The 1996 World
Blind Union convention will bring together delegates from all
parts of the world, and we of the National Federation of the
Blind will be there to make new friends and to continue our work
with those we have already come to know. Our interaction with
blind individuals and organizations from throughout the world has
given us a level of understanding and a perspective that have
helped to enhance our ability to bring independence to the blind
of our own country.
     During the past year we have provided background and
knowledge to a number of visitors to the National Center for the
Blind. They came from Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Great
Britain, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Japan, Korea, Morocco,
New Zealand, Nepal, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden,
Thailand, Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates.
     The World Blind Union technology committee, chaired by
Ruperto Ponz Lazaro of Spain, chose as its meeting place in 1995
the National Center for the Blind. One segment of the meeting
consisted of a tour and hands-on demonstration in the
International Braille and Technology Center for the Blind.
     The International Braille and Technology Center for the
Blind, as Federationists know, houses the most extensive
collection of technology for the blind in the world. In addition
to raised-line-drawing equipment and other specialized machines,
there is at least one of every kind of device of which we are
aware now being produced anywhere in the world (along with the
programs and accessories to operate them) for producing
information from computer equipment in speech, in Braille, and in
refreshable Braille. Our commitment, made when the International
Braille and Technology Center was opened in 1990, is to maintain
the collection of equipment and to acquire all useful machines
for the blind that become available. During the past year we have
obtained or upgraded four Braille embossers, four Braille
translation programs, one refreshable Braille display, eight DOS-
based screen review programs, three Windows-based screen review
programs, five Windows-based Braille translation programs, six
speech synthesizers, two stand-alone reading machines, four PC-
based reading systems, five portable note-takers, and one
telecommunications device for the deaf-blind. We purchased five
Pentium computers, two 486 laptops, and a number of other
machines, accessories, and software.
     We published one major review of PC-based reading systems,
and we are currently completing two additional documents that
analyze computer programs and hardware. The first is a
comparative examination of screen reading programs. The second
analyzes the performance of Braille printing machines. This means
that we have written evaluations of the performance criteria of
most of the products now in the International Braille and
Technology Center for the Blind. The writing of these evaluations
covers hundreds of pages of print. Nobody else in the world has
ever attempted a comparison of this scope, and nobody else has
the array of products that would make such an effort possible.
     One element of the International Braille and Technology
Center for the Blind is our computer bulletin board, NFB NET.
Because of the continued growth of this service, we have added an
additional telephone line and installed state-of-the-art high-
speed modems. In addition to a substantial body of NFB
literature, we have added programs of interest to blind computer
users, electronic texts, and the resources of a CD-ROM shareware
collection. There are presently more than 10,000 files on the
bulletin board. If you were using the fastest modem, with
absolutely perfect conditions for transferring information, it
would take a solid week, twenty-four hours a day, to get
everything from our computer bulletin board. While you were
loading that information, we would have added still more.
     Within the last few months the National Federation of the
Blind has established an Internet site, which is part of the
worldwide computer communications system known as the World Wide
Web. The address for our site is "nfb.org" or "blind.org." Those
who seek knowledge on the Information Superhighway will be able
to learn the real meaning of blindness. We have already placed on
the Internet our Kernel Books, our magazines, and other
informational documents; and we are also offering the
Rehabilitation Act, the Americans With Disabilities Act, the
model Braille bill, Braille translation software, Social Security
information, a compilation of computer resource information, and
much more.
     Our Coordinator of Public Information, my wife Patricia
Maurer, who serves as a full-time volunteer, is selecting items
to be included in the body of literature available on the
Internet. Our objective in establishing this Internet site is to
provide all useful information about blindness. The problem with
most research libraries dealing with the blind is that they have
incorporated into their collections the negative viewpoint that
blindness is necessarily a disastrous deprivation while failing
to present the more realistic view that blindness is merely one
of many characteristics--a tragedy only if society and the
individual make it a tragedy. We intend to use the Internet to
correct this one-sided presentation. We will not attempt to
restrict the distribution of the views of others about blindness,
but the experiences of the blind must also be distributed on the
Information Superhighway. The establishment of this site has cost
us many thousands of dollars, and maintaining it will be an
ongoing expense, costing many thousands more. However, we will be
reaching many millions of people, and the education we provide
will change forever the negative attitude about blindness. The
Internet is one more mechanism for us to use to bring real
opportunity to the lives of the blind.
     The development of computer technology has in the past two
decades been of considerable benefit to the blind. More
information has become available through speech output devices
and Braille printers than ever before. However, current trends
indicate that ready access to information for the blind from
computers is in danger. Computers formerly produced information
in text format. The new machines are making the same information
available in pictographs. Synthesized speech software and Braille
translation programs cannot easily translate these pictures into
words.
     Therefore, in February of this year we invited individuals
with knowledge about developing computer technology and
programming for the blind to attend a Conference on Technology
for Standardization of Information Interchange for Persons with
Disabilities. The purpose of the conference was to identify a
standard information transfer method that would let the blind get
at the information. Will the telephone have a computer screen?
Will the person making a call need to see the screen to
understand what information is being transmitted? Will shopping
be done by seeing images on a television and touching the image
which is to be purchased? How can the blind use such devices?
These and related questions were considered at the conference.
Participants included representatives from computer companies
such as IBM and Microsoft, scientists doing computer research and
programming for the blind, individuals from government purchasing
departments, and members of the organized blind.
     Shortly before this convention Congress considered and
adopted amendments to the Telecommunications Act. Part of the
legislation is a requirement that communications devices be
accessible to the disabled. The understandings we reached in our
conference should be a tremendous advantage in implementing these
amendments.
     As the Information Age advances, it is of vital importance
that the blind be able to reach the sources of that information
with ease. We are committed to ensuring that this will happen. We
will be participating later this summer in a top-level meeting at
Microsoft headquarters to discuss information access for the
blind and other disabled persons using the newest computer
operating systems and applications programs. As it is with so
many of our other activities, so it is with computer technology.
We believe that the blind will be a part of the Information Age,
and we the National Federation of the Blind are committed to
seeing that it happens.
     One of our most powerful initiatives this year, which will
be considered at length later during the convention, is the
development of the first nationwide talking newspaper service for
the blind. This service, called Newsline for the Blind, takes
the text of newspapers by telephone and transforms it into
computerized speech, which can then be read by a blind individual
using a touch-tone telephone. The advantage of full automation is
that the service is extremely fast, low in cost, and high in
quality. The first newspaper to join with us in providing this
service is USA Today, which has now been a part of Newsline for
the Blind for almost a year. Within the next few weeks The New
York Times will become a part of the service. The pilot project
to test the concept of the digital newspaper has been a
resounding success. We are now seeking funding to establish this
service in cities throughout the country. Our objective is to
make the newspaper available to all blind people nationwide.
     The Braille literacy campaign we initiated several years ago
continues to be a top priority. Our new videotape, "That the
Blind May Read," presents in graphic form the value of reading
for the blind and the severe damage caused by the lack of
literacy. This videotape has already been broadcast on television
in dozens of markets and distributed to libraries and schools
throughout the country. In the few short months since its
release, this video program has been acquired by almost a
thousand institutions. We have faith that, when the public, the
governmental officials, and the educators come to understand the
importance of literacy for the blind, they will teach what blind
people need to learn. "That the Blind May Read" is among the most
succinct and powerful vehicles for creating the climate for
literacy for the blind.
     Braille bills, which we drafted, have now been adopted in
well over 50 percent of the states, and proposals for such
legislation are actively being pursued in a number of others. The
heart of the Braille bill is the policy that, if a blind student
is to be taught to read and if the teacher or the parents want
Braille to be taught, it will be taught. We have proposed that
this policy be incorporated in the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act, which is scheduled to come before the Congress
later this year. We have been assured that a Braille literacy
provision will be part of the legislation. The members of this
organization have already submitted more than 1,500 letters to
members of Congress urging that this provision be adopted.
Because of the urgent necessity for the blind to be literate, we
must ensure that such a proposal is incorporated in the Act. We
who are blind intend to be able to learn to read.
     Several years ago, before we began our work to promote the
adoption of Braille bills, we attempted to discuss with the
publishers of textbooks the need for their materials to be
available in forms the blind could use. Each of the people with
whom we spoke thought that we had a good idea but that it was
somebody else's responsibility. The publishers took no action,
and the Braille textbooks were still as scarce and limited as
ever. Then we visited the legislatures, and the Braille bills
became a reality.
     I am pleased to report that we have now formed a tentative
working relationship with the Association of American Publishers,
the group of companies that produce textbooks for use in primary
and secondary schools. The publishers, who will be making a
presentation at this convention, indicate that they are spending
several million dollars a year to produce electronic texts that
can be used to print Braille. They recognize that the days of no
Braille books are gone. They also have come to understand that
working with the National Federation of the Blind will be much
better than meeting us before legislative committees. Our
developing relationship with the publishers is likely to result
in an increased number of Braille texts for blind students, as
well as streamlined operation and economy for the publishers.
     Braille (we are repeatedly told) is difficult, bulky, and
slow. If those who are expected to teach Braille believe that the
end result will be mediocre at best, the effort to do the
teaching will not be great. With ineffective teaching the
inefficiency of Braille becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
However, we can do something about it. We have assisted with some
of the teaching ourselves. Sharon Maneki, President of the
National Federation of the Blind of Maryland, co-authored an
article with Barry B. Frieman, Professor of Early Childhood
Education at Towson State University, which appeared in the
Childhood Education magazine. In this article teachers are urged
to give lessons in Braille to sighted students. Third graders
(the article suggests) learn Braille with ease. They use the
system to pass secret notes to one another, and they take the
skill of reading for blind people as a matter of course. Sighted
teachers who have blind students in the classroom are also much
more readily able to give support to those students if they have
an understanding of Braille. Braille must be regarded not as
special but ordinary; not as unusual but part of the regular
educational process; not as atypical but as an expected part of
the routine for the blind. When this happens, literacy for blind
students will be achieved, and literacy is exactly what we want.
     In the spring of 1995 the Braille Research Center, an
independent organization conducting research dealing with
Braille, moved its location to the National Center for the Blind.
Dr. Hilda Caton, who is the director of this Center, has
extensive experience in dealing with educational materials for
blind children. Ruby Ryles, the assistant director, is well known
to Federation members from her position of leadership in the
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children. The Braille
Research Center will be receiving its space at the National
Center for the Blind without charge for the first few months, and
the National Federation of the Blind has provided a grant to
cover costs of the transition, but the ongoing financing of the
corporation will be handled by the Braille Research Center.
Because Braille literacy for the blind is of central importance
to us and because those directing the Braille Research Center are
so well qualified, we are pleased to be working closely with
them.
     In the mid-1960's the National Accreditation Council for
Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC) was
organized. This agency sought to gain control of programs for the
blind and, thereby, control of the lives and activities of the
blind. NAC, as part of its effort to achieve widespread
recognition among agencies for the blind, officials in the field
of education, and representatives of the government, requested
that it be placed on the list of recognized accrediting bodies of
the United States Department of Education. NAC has for all of its
existence been controversial at best and sometimes unscrupulous
in its behavior. NAC accreditation has often been a shield for
shabby practices--or worse--by agencies for the blind. Because of
its behavior the organized blind had no choice but to oppose it.
     In the spring of 1994 we requested that the Secretary of
Education remove NAC from the list of accrediting agencies. I am
pleased to report that United States Education Secretary Richard
Riley has responded. The letter to NAC is clear. Recognition of
NAC as an accrediting agency of the Department of Education has
been withdrawn.
     We have assisted a number of blind people with legal cases
during the year. Barbara Kreisberg is a licensed nursing home
administrator in North Carolina. A year ago she was supervising a
nursing home for the Britthaven Corporation. Late last summer
Barbara Kreisberg lost a substantial portion of her sight. With
her own money she purchased magnifiers and hired readers, and she
continued to administer the nursing home. Then she was ordered by
her employer to stop using the readers and the magnifiers. As you
might expect, without using these techniques she could not read,
and she could not do the work. Barbara Kreisberg was terminated.
Officials of the Britthaven Corporation will not spell out the
reason for the firing, but before they imposed the arbitrary rule
that techniques used by blind people were prohibited, Barbara
Kreisberg was doing her work and doing it well. The reason for
her termination is clear. It would not have happened if she had
been able to see. She was dismissed because she is blind.
However, such action is a violation of the law, and we are
assisting with the lawsuit. I predict that before we are
finished, Barbara Kreisberg will be back on the job at the
Britthaven nursing home. Blindness cannot stop her, and we are
not prepared to let her employer use phony excuses to stop her.
     Wiscraft Industries, located in Milwaukee, is a sheltered
shop for the blind. Two of the workers, George Washington and
Verne Lind, sought help from the National Federation of the Blind
earlier this year. Both blind employees were being paid between
$1.00 and $2.00 an hour--less than half of the minimum wage.
However, when sighted people were hired to work alongside the
blind at Wiscraft, their pay was $5.50 an hour--$1.25 above the
minimum wage.
     With help from Scott LaBarre, George Washington and Verne
Lind have filed complaints with the Wisconsin Equal Rights
Division. When the National Federation of the Blind became
involved, the managers of the workshop began to take the blind
employees more seriously. Although the formal investigation has
not been concluded, conditions for George Washington and Verne
Lind have already begun to change. Both of them are now being
paid at least the minimum wage--or better. It is worth being
active in the National Federation of the Blind. Ask George
Washington and Verne Lind. They have evidence in their pay
envelopes.
     Corally Littrell and Sandra Rowley-Goldstein are blind
special education teachers in the Long Meadow School Department
in Massachusetts. Corally Littrell had been teaching a multiply-
disabled blind child. When this student was transferred to a new
school, problems occurred. The principal (unfamiliar with
blindness and the capacity of a blind teacher) insisted that
Corally Littrell could not continue to provide services to the
child without a full-time sighted monitor. It is not reported
whether the principal intended to protect the blind student from
the blind teacher, the blind teacher from the blind student, or
both of them from each other. Finally, Corally Littrell was
removed from her teaching assignment altogether.
     The principal at the school must have been astonished when
the new special education teacher arrived. Her name is Sandra
Rowley-Goldstein, and she is also blind. Once again, the
principal insisted that a sighted person must be present during
the lessons at all times. Such practices are, of course,
discriminatory. Consequently we have become involved. A hearing
was held before the Massachusetts Commission Against
Discrimination only a few days ago, and we expect a decision
shortly. Blindness does not prevent us from performing the duties
required of special education teachers, and the fear and
misunderstanding about blindness by officials at the Long Meadow
School Department must not be permitted to bar us from the
profession. We in the National Federation of the Blind intend to
help Corally Littrell and Sandra Rowley-Goldstein resume their
special education duties. We believe that this is a part of the
special education program that we should provide to the Long
Meadow School Department.
     Barbara Braun is a blind person living in Eugene, Oregon.
About ten years ago she began working in the accounting
department of the Fred Meyers Corporation, which operates a large
chain of retail stores. For ten years Barbara Braun performed her
duties satisfactorily. Then, when the company changed to a new
computer system, her duties could no longer be done without
computer access technology. Rather than acquiring this
technology, company officials circulated a rumor to other
employees that accommodations for Barbara Braun would cost
$200,000 and would reduce the end-of-the-year bonuses that might
otherwise be paid. Imagine how popular that made Barbara Braun.
She was forced to leave, and we are helping with the complaints--
a workers' compensation claim and an employment discrimination
action. Although we are not finished with the Barbara Braun
matter, part of it has been completed. In the workers'
compensation action a cash settlement has been paid, and we
expect to win the discrimination case as well.
     There have also been a number of Social Security cases this
year. Harvey Heagy lives in New Orleans. He came to the National
Federation of the Blind several years ago with notices from the
Social Security Administration which claimed that he had received
almost $20,000 more in disability benefits than he should have.
Furthermore, his monthly checks were terminated even though he
earned a small enough amount to remain qualified.
     Appropriate appeals and a new claim for benefits were filed.
When the payments were reinstated, Harvey Heagy began receiving
an amount twice as high as the benefit that he had been getting
before the termination. But that is not all. The claim that there
was an overpayment has also been settled. Harvey Heagy will not
be required to repay the $20,000, but he will be receiving an
additional check from Social Security for $8,000.
     Janet and Joe Triplett, who live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, have
been active leaders of the National Federation of the Blind for
many years. Joe Triplett was elected this spring to serve as
President of the National Federation of the Blind of Oklahoma.
The Social Security Administration has been attempting to require
Janet Triplett to repay over $10,000 in benefits. Earlier this
year we challenged the overpayment claim. The decision of the
hearing officer was unequivocal and immediate. Janet Triplett
owes the Social Security Administration not one penny, but she
will be receiving several thousand dollars in back benefits.
     Charles Allen of Louisville, Kentucky, is the able President
of the Merchants Division of the National Federation of the
Blind. As a vendor in the Kentucky Business Enterprise Program
Charles Allen has been faced with the practice of splitting
vending facilities. If a particular vending location can generate
enough income for one vendor (agency officials say), it can
probably generate enough for two. The Kentucky Business
Enterprise Program has made a practice of assigning a second
vendor to the location and splitting the income--although, I
should parenthetically insert, the program officials have not
been willing to practice what they preach. That is, the business
enterprise supervisors have not been willing to reduce
unemployment and help the economy by lowering their income and
splitting their salaries with the less fortunate.
     Several years ago Charles Allen requested the opportunity to
run his own business, but the Kentucky agency refused. There was
a hearing and later an arbitration. The matter has now been
resolved. The State of Kentucky has agreed that Charles Allen
will operate his own business, and his income will not be split.
Our assistance in eliminating the multiple vendor policy has been
effective, and the earnings of blind vendors in Kentucky show it.
     Carolyn Dodd is a long-time teacher in Hartford,
Connecticut, and the sister of United States Senator Christopher
Dodd. In the last few years she has lost much of her sight; and
despite her continued effectiveness as a teacher, school board
officials decided that she could not teach Montessori classes.
They did not want a blind person teaching the sighted although
they would have permitted her to teach the blind. Carolyn Dodd
does not have extensive experience dealing with discrimination or
blindness, but she has become a member of the National Federation
of the Blind, and she requested our help.
     Homer Page (President of the National Federation of the
Blind of Colorado, Commissioner of Boulder County, and Chairman
of the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind), at the request of
the National Office, met with Carolyn Dodd about her situation
and agreed to make a presentation on her behalf to school board
officials. The message of the presentation was delivered with
courtesy and tact, but it was unmistakable--either Carolyn Dodd
would cease to be a victim of discrimination or the Federation
would take a hand. The school board thought the matter over.
Within a week it had come to a decision. Carolyn Dodd was offered
a contract, and she has been teaching Montessori classes
throughout the school year.
     Robert Holt is a blind man living in Roseville, California.
Three months ago he tried to buy a car from the Ford dealership
in his area. The sales personnel at the dealership declined to
sell it to him because, as they put it, such a sale might violate
the law. Robert Holt explained that he wasn't planning to drive
the car. He just wanted to buy it. But the Ford people said:
nothing doing. So Robert Holt called the National Federation of
the Blind. We explained to the manager of the Ford dealership
that the color of our money is just as green as it is for the
sighted and that the law does not prohibit sales of automobiles
to blind people but the exact opposite. Refusing to sell cars
because the potential purchaser is blind is discriminatory.
Robert Holt paid his money and got the keys.
     It is necessary for the organized blind to become familiar
with leaders in the business community. We need to provide
information about the capacity of blind people, and we need to
learn how business reacts to us. To expand our public education
campaign, we have been working with senior management officials
of the Kaman Corporation, a manufacturer of helicopters, and we
have discussed literacy for blind children with Chip Mason, the
president of the Legg Mason brokerage house, one of the largest
in Baltimore. Mr. Mason has promised to make a substantial
contribution to support the establishment of our digital
newspaper service. The business perspective that these leaders
bring to our work is invigorating, and the suggestions they have
will expand our interaction with the business world and broaden
the opportunities available to the blind.
     In addition to the innovative efforts of the Federation in
the last year, we have continued our ongoing activities. Bringing
in new members is one of the most important things we do. Shortly
before this convention the fiftieth chapter of the National
Federation of the Blind of South Carolina was organized. This
affiliate has the largest number of local chapters of any state
in the nation. Six new statewide Parents of Blind Children
Divisions have been formed, bringing the number of state parents'
organizations to twenty-eight. And we have also conducted state
seminars, built chapters, and strengthened affiliates throughout
the country.
     Although the major remodeling at the National Center for the
Blind has been completed, we have modified our headquarters and
performed necessary maintenance during the past year. For
example, air conditioning equipment which had been in a
mechanical room on the fourth floor has been moved to the roof,
and this room has been restructured to serve as an office. A
large area on the second floor has been divided to create more
offices there. A portion of the wooden floor on the ground level
in the Johnson Street wing has been removed and replaced with
concrete. This was necessary because the crawl space beneath that
floor often contained standing ground water, which was causing
the floor to deteriorate. In the process of remodeling, the crawl
space has been drained. Before we poured the concrete, we filled
this space with 27,000 cubic feet (sixteen hundred tons) of
crushed rock.
     We have distributed our literature to more parts of the
world this year than ever before--ninety-nine nations outside the
United States--precisely a hundred, including our own country. We
continue to produce approximately 35,000 issues of our monthly
magazine, the Braille Monitor; over 10,000 copies of our magazine
for parents and educators of blind children, Future Reflections;
and more than 110,000 copies of the Voice of the Diabetic. There
are more than four hundred aids and appliances available from our
Materials Center as well as more than a thousand different
publications. The total number of separate items that we have
shipped from the Materials Center this year is two million.
     There are now eight books in the Kernel Book series, and
this year we have published a volume about the history and the
use of Braille, entitled The World Under My Fingers. Including
our quick reference guide to matters dealing with blindness,
entitled If Blindness Comes, we have distributed this year more
than 67,000 books from the Materials Center.
     We continue to record, reproduce, and circulate to the blind
Job Opportunities for the Blind Bulletins, Presidential Releases,
The American Bar Association Journal, and a number of other
publications and books. More than 75,000 tape recordings were
duplicated and mailed from our headquarters. And of course we
receive information as well. The mail continues to arrive in
large bundles, and our telephone lines--all twenty-eight of them-
-bring us information, requests, and suggestions in a constant
stream--not to mention the data transmission lines, fax machines,
and modem connections.
     The intricacy of our organization and the diversity of our
efforts indicate substantial growth. However, our effectiveness
must be measured by the benefit that comes to the individual
blind person. Our Federation is a people's movement created by
the blind to be used by the blind. A letter came to me shortly
before the convention from a young blind woman in Alaska named
Soo Kee Reed. She indicated that she is a member of the National
Federation of the Blind. She had become blind at the age of three
because of a serious case of measles. Her parents did not know
what to do or where to turn. Then they met a member of the
National Federation of the Blind who encouraged their daughter to
explore the world around her and to study Braille. This
Federationist introduced Soo Kee to the techniques used by blind
people in cooking, in shopping, and in traveling. But even more
important she was given hope and encouragement. In grade school
Soo Kee was told that she could not study in the regular
classroom, but she and her parents objected. Science, they were
told, was too difficult for the blind, but they had the example
of the Federation to follow. They demanded that Soo Kee be given
a chance. "My first year in science," she says, "I got a B, and I
was satisfied with myself. My parents asked me to give all their
thanks to the NFB for the encouragement in raising a blind
child."
     Whether it is a vendor in Kentucky or a teacher in
Connecticut, a Social Security recipient in Louisiana or a
student in Alaska, we are the blind--organized and on the move.
Our programs may be complex, but our goals are not--we seek
independence and a full life for the blind. We ask only to be
considered on the basis of our ability. The means for achieving
this objective is within our own hands. It is our strength, our
understanding, our commitment, our willingness to sacrifice, our
imagination, and our courage. We have been fortunate; we have
come to know the power of collective action. We must also
demonstrate that we are worthy of the power we possess. But I
have no doubt that we have the judgment to make those decisions
and take those actions which will propel us the rest of the way
to first-class citizenship. The Federation has many assets, but
our essential being is the spirit that we bring to our daily
endeavors--and that spirit is unstoppable.
     In the coming year I, as President, will do the best that I
know to make our Federation all that it can be--and I will not
vacillate, or waffle, or compromise. But I will also expect you
to do your part. I intend to ask each of you to contribute your
effort, your energy, your resources, your initiative, and your
boldness. I know the members of the National Federation of the
Blind, and I have absolutely no doubt that we will meet the
challenges of the years ahead. This is the commitment that we
make to each other, to ourselves, to the blind who have gone
before us, and to the generation still to come. We move to the
year ahead with gladness and vigor. This is what I ask of myself;
this is what I ask of you the members; and this is my report for
1995.

                      ____________________
     If you or a friend would like to remember the National
Federation of the Blind in your will, you can do so by employing
the following language:

     "I give, devise, and bequeath unto the National Federation
of the Blind, 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21230, a
District of Columbia nonprofit corporation, the sum of
$__________(or "______ percent of my net estate" or "The
following stocks and bonds: ________") to be used for its worthy
purposes on behalf of blind persons."
                      ____________________


[Photo #27 Caption: Fred Schroeder, Commissioner of the Rehabilitation
Services Administration]

      THE FUTURE OF CATEGORICAL SERVICES IN REHABILITATION
                      IN THE UNITED STATES
                     by Fredric K. Schroeder

     From the Editor: On Tuesday afternoon, July 4, Dr. Fred
Schroeder, Commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services
Administration, addressed the convention. Categorical services,
rehabilitation and training especially suited to the problems
posed by the individual's disability, are in serious trouble in
the Congress. Dr. Schroeder reported on his first year as RSA
Commissioner and on the current legislative situation. This is
what he had to say:

     Let me begin by saying that this afternoon, as I listened to
the Presidential Report, I was struck by the concept of
collective action that you referred to early in your presentation
as you recounted the successes we have had in the past year.
Collective action really does sum up what we are all about. It
explains our success as a movement. Collective action is the
combination of the individual efforts of fifty thousand blind
people from throughout the United States. But the individual
effort of fifty thousand blind people must be coordinated, and to
coordinate it requires leadership. The presentation you made this
afternoon is a tribute to our individual efforts, but, Mr.
President, it is also a tribute to your leadership.
     In 1994 the National Council on Disability commissioned a
Lou Harris Poll which showed that two-thirds of people with
disabilities in our country are unemployed. Among individuals
with disabilities from minority backgrounds the rate of
unemployment is nearer 80 percent. As we know, our best estimates
are that blind people are unemployed at a rate somewhere between
70 and 80 percent. These statistics paint a dramatic picture of
the terrible cost which blind and other people with disabilities
bear in both economic hardship and social isolation as a result
of institutionalized prejudice in our society.
     Each year the federal government expends in excess of two
billion dollars to support the public vocational rehabilitation
program for the purpose of helping blind and other people with
disabilities secure employment. All states have a vocational
rehabilitation agency, and in twenty-five states there are
separate agencies which serve only the blind. Regardless of the
structure (a combined agency or a separate agency for the blind),
state rehabilitation agencies are charged with implementing
services authorized under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as
amended.
     And what are these services? The Act provides that
vocational rehabilitation services are any goods or services
necessary to render an individual with a disability employable,
including but not limited to counseling, guidance, and work-
related placement services; vocational and other training
services; physical and mental restoration services; maintenance
for additional costs incurred while participating in
rehabilitation; interpreter services for the deaf and reader
services for the blind; rehabilitation teaching services and
orientation and mobility services; occupational licenses, tools,
equipment, and initial stocks and supplies; transportation in
connection with the rendering of any vocational rehabilitation
service; telecommunications, sensory, and other technological
aids and devices; and rehabilitation technology services. Blind
people need services. We need the training to be able to travel
independently. We need competent instruction in Braille reading
and writing to be competitive in an economy driven substantially
by information. We need vocational training to prepare us for
specific occupations. All of these services are authorized under
the Act.
     Nevertheless, the provision of services represents only half
of the equation, half the solution, for true and effective
integration. As Dr. Jernigan has taught us, the real problem of
blindness is not simply the lack of eyesight, but public
misunderstanding about blindness. Society does not assume for us
a role of equal partnership, but in fact takes for granted that
the blind will naturally assume a role of nominal participation.
The problem of unemployment for blind people must, therefore, be
viewed both as a problem of public attitudes toward blindness and
as a challenge for better training, better services, and better
technology.
     In 1992, when the Rehabilitation Act was reauthorized, it
contained a number of striking changes. Perhaps the most powerful
was its emphasis on client choice, initiated and fought for by
the National Federation of the Blind. Specifically, the Act
provides for client choice and increased control in determining
vocational rehabilitation goals and objectives; in the selection
of vocational rehabilitation services and the entities providing
such services; and in the methods used to provide or procure such
services. But the choice provisions go beyond simply the right of
a client to be actively involved in the selection of a service
provider. The Act also broadens a client's participation in the
selection of a vocational goal. With the '92 amendments an agency
must consider an individual's "unique strengths, resources,
priorities, concerns, and capabilities" in the selection of an
employment outcome.
     In this way the Congress made a clear statement that the
purpose of the vocational rehabilitation program is, not simply
to find a person a job, but to find a good job with a promising
future that will allow the individual to raise him- or herself
out of poverty and live a life of real dignity. Additionally,
this point was emphasized by the explicit statement that the
purpose of the Act was to "empower individuals with disabilities
to maximize employment, economic self-sufficiency, independence,
and inclusion and integration into society." As stated in both
the House and Senate Committee reports, "It is the Committee's
intent that these principles guide the policies, practices, and
procedures developed under all titles of the Act."
     Client choice presumes a highly individualized process of
negotiation. It is premised on the idea of collaboration between
the client and the rehabilitation counselor. Choice presumes
that, given the right information, an individual will be able to
select the services and service providers best able to meet his
or her needs. Yet I believe that real choice--meaningful choice--
requires more than just information.
     Last July, when I began my work at the Rehabilitation
Services Administration, I was required to complete the
considerable volume of paperwork necessary to instate me as a
bona fide federal employee. After I filled out the required
documentation, the personnel specialist with whom I was working
asked if I would be interested in the government's health
insurance plan. When I indicated that I was, she told me that
there were a number of plans from which I could choose. She took
me to a room and began giving me brochures explaining the various
options and suggested that I read each one and let her know which
plan I wished to select.
     I was surprised to find that there were perhaps fifteen or
twenty different plans from which to choose, each with a detailed
brochure explaining its individual provisions. Some that required
a lower biweekly fee provided less coverage or higher copayments.
Some had networks of doctors; others allowed you to visit any
doctor you wished. Some offered a list of doctors for whom you
would pay less, but gave the option of paying more and seeing
someone outside of its program. Some were HMO's, and others were
traditional eighty/twenty plans. Some were hybrids offering
various features of both. When I returned to my office, I began
wading through the various materials and soon became overwhelmed
by the quantity of information and the difficulty of finding
common characteristics to use for comparison. Finally, in
frustration I got up from my desk and went out into the outer
office. There I stopped an RSA employee who happened to be handy
and asked, "Do you have the government health insurance?" He
replied that he did. I asked, "What plan do you have?" He told me
he had Blue Cross. I said, "Do you like it?"
     He said, "Yes, it's fine."
     "Great," I said. "I'm getting Blue Cross." Later I weighed
the brochures I had been given and found that I had thirteen
pounds of printed material explaining my various options.
     I had choice in selecting my health plan. I had all the
information an individual could ever want. But my ability to
exercise choice was limited, not by the lack of information, but
by the lack of useful information. I had choice, but what allowed
me to exercise my choice was contact with someone else who had
real-life experience. As we look at defining choice for clients
of the vocational rehabilitation program, I believe we should
begin with an understanding that choice is more than lists, more
than data, more than volumes of printed information. Real choice,
the kind that people want, must include contact with others who
can translate options into real-life experiences.
     This is why the Federation's training centers have been so
effective. Because they provide services in an environment where
a blind person becomes a part of a community of other blind
people, the individual acquires skills and the self-confidence
necessary to put those skills into action. The blind person
develops a sense of him- or herself as a whole person with the
right of first-class status in society and the capacity to make
that right a reality. To have choice, we must have perspective.
We must have a clear vision of what is possible for us as blind
people. To have this perspective, we must work actively to
reshape our own assumptions about blindness into a broader
conception integrating our own experiences with the achievements
and experiences of others.
     If we are to make a difference in the terribly high
unemployment rate among the blind and other people with
disabilities, we must integrate real choice into our systems, and
we must ensure that our systems have the flexibility and
responsiveness necessary to allow clients to move through the
system quickly and efficiently. The Rehabilitation Services
Administration is deeply committed to working with state agencies
to streamline their processes. Through a regional forum the RSA
Region X office in Seattle has critiqued proposed state agency
streamlining plans and provided technical assistance. The plans
eliminated many layers of administrative approvals, supervisory
clearances, and overlap.
     Since then each state agency has established streamlining
workgroups and is implementing the results of the regional forum
as well as its own ideas. In our Dallas Region state agency
directors and RSA have jointly worked on a streamlining effort.
This effort consisted of an in-depth review of agency processes
for administrative and program operations. Similar activities are
underway in other regions, and we intend to encourage and support
these efforts strongly.
     We are also involved in a process to help measure the
success of the VR agencies through the development of evaluation
standards and performance indicators. We are revising our Title I
standards and indicators based upon 165 written comments received
on the draft indicators issue paper disseminated in November,
1994. Our main goals for revising the standards and indicators
are to simplify and streamline the indicators and to focus more
clearly on outcome measures.
     If we are to hold agencies accountable for placing
increasing numbers of people in jobs, The Rehabilitation Services
Administration must make sure that rehabilitation personnel have
the expertise necessary to work effectively with clients. For
blind people the need for good information about the most up-to-
date technology is vital to expanding employment opportunities.
To help meet this need, the National Federation of the Blind has
been awarded a three-year RSA grant to assist blind clients to
enter the job market by training rehabilitation personnel to
enable them to address information-access issues they encounter
in dealing with clients and potential employers. This project
will draw from the extensive expertise of the Federation's
International Braille and Technology Center for the Blind to
develop new, consumer-based training approaches to meet these
needs.
     As you may be aware, there are a number of proposals
currently before the Congress to reorganize rehabilitation
services nationally. On the Senate side Senator Nancy Kassebaum
of Kansas has introduced S. 143, which would consolidate numerous
job-training programs under a block grant proposal. S. 143 would
create one-stop-shopping job training programs within each State.
Recognizing the specialized nature of vocational rehabilitation,
Senator Kassebaum does not propose merging vocational
rehabilitation into the generic one-stop program. Alternatively,
S. 143 would create certain linkages between VR and the generic
system which would expedite the exchange of important data and
referral information. In this way the specialized services which
blind and other people with disabilities need would continue to
be delivered through a state agency system while simultaneously
tapping into the generic system's expertise in areas such as
employment-trend data as well as specific job listings. We
believe that Title IV of S. 143 is a well-reasoned approach to
linking the rehabilitation system more closely to the generic
job-training system. Presently, approximately ten state agencies
are participating in greater or lesser degrees with one-stop
shopping job-training efforts in their states. S. 143 would build
upon this experience and, we believe, offer expanded employment
opportunities for blind and other VR clients throughout the
country.
     On the House side Congressman Howard "Buck" McKeon of
California has introduced H.R. 1617. This proposal would also
consolidate numerous job training programs; however, it differs
dramatically from Senator Kassebaum's proposal in the way it
approaches the provision of rehabilitation services. Congressman
McKeon proposes a system of local workforce development boards
comprised primarily of representatives of business and industry
to administer all job training, including rehabilitation.
     Under this proposal services would be administered by a
generic job-training program which would differ substantially
from community to community. The state agency system would be
effectively dismantled, and in its place would be an unknown
system premised on the concept of privatization and the use of
vouchers. It is unclear who would determine what voucher a client
would receive; the amount of the voucher; the nature and scope of
services to be provided; and, perhaps most important, what would
happen if an individual spends his or her voucher and is still
unable to get work. Presumably the generic system will base
eligibility on unemployment. What happens to upward mobility?
What happens to services aimed at preserving employment for a
person who becomes blind or whose vision becomes worse? There are
many unanswered questions. What happens if the individual has a
training need and no service provider is available to meet it? In
twenty-one of the states and territories there are no private
service providers of any kind to serve the blind. Even if you
live in a state that has some services, what happens if the
individual has a training need and the only vendor willing to
accept the voucher provides poor quality services?
     Clearly there is a role for vouchers in the delivery of
certain VR services. Traditionally the voucher concept has been
used extensively to provide reader services for the blind, and
more recently we are using vouchers in the provision of personal
assistance services for people with physical disabilities.
Additionally, under our demonstration authority, we currently
have seven grants targeted toward developing new and better ways
of integrating the use of vouchers to enhance client choice. We
are not against vouchers, but we are deeply troubled at the
prospect of dismantling the current system without any indication
that the private sector has the capacity or expertise to meet the
needs of blind and other people with disabilities. The
Rehabilitation Act will be reauthorized in 1997, and we believe
this is the appropriate vehicle for having a national discussion
on possible improvements to the Rehabilitation Program. We do not
believe that our nation's VR system should be dramatically
restructured without a single public hearing or any meaningful
method for involving blind people and others with disabilities in
the process.
     In conclusion, we believe that the mission of the public
vocational rehabilitation program is to assist blind people and
others with disabilities in securing jobs. We believe these must
be good jobs with good salaries, good benefits, and good upward
mobility potential. We believe that employment is the cornerstone
to meaningful integration. To help the individual become
employed, the system must meet the individual's training needs,
but, equally important, it must assist the individual in
reshaping his or her beliefs and attitudes about disability.
     As Dr. Jernigan has told us, it is the combination of
training and attitudes that allows a blind person to reach his or
her highest potential. The provision of services is in many
respects the easier part of the rehabilitation process to
understand and to deliver. We know how to provide training. We
know how to provide adaptive technology, but, for our services to
be effective, we must win the battle of helping the individual
reshape his or her conception of blindness. To accomplish this
requires training within the context of a positive view of
blindness, a view of blindness premised on the assumption of the
right of first-class status in society. This is the reason that
client choice is such a key provision of the 1992 Amendments.
This is the reason why we are experimenting with better use of
vouchers, and this is the reason we oppose the categorical
dismantling of the state agency system in favor of a system
designed to do nothing more than dispense services without
helping the individual reshape his or her attitudes about
disability.
     Finally, we believe that the tax dollars devoted to
vocational rehabilitation should be wisely spent. We believe in
simplifying regulatory and reporting requirements for state
agencies and other grantees to reduce unnecessary administrative
burden. We are working with state agencies in simplifying their
own processes to allow them to provide better, more responsive
services to clients. And we are developing evaluation standards
and performance indicators to be able to demonstrate to our
clients and to the public the value they are receiving for the
tax dollars we are expending.
     These are the things we as a federal agency can put into
place, but if we are to have a meaningful and lasting legacy, it
will be through strengthening the role that blind people and
others with disabilities play in controlling the direction of
their own rehabilitation. The blind have been working steadily
toward this end for at least the past fifty-five years. In 1992
the Congress recognized the wisdom of this principle and
translated it into public policy through amendments to the
Rehabilitation Act, and we at the Rehabilitation Services
Administration intend to see that it is fully implemented.


           REPORT FROM THE OFFICE OF SPECIAL EDUCATION
                   AND REHABILITATIVE SERVICES
                         by Judy Heumann

     From the Editor: On Thursday afternoon, July 6, Judy
Heumann, Assistant Secretary for Special Education and
Rehabilitative Services, U.S. Department of Education, was
scheduled to address the convention. Unfortunately, Ms. Heumann
was called into budget meetings with the Secretary and was,
therefore, unable to leave Washington. Following is the text of
the address she would have delivered if she had been able to join
us:

     It's a great honor to be here, because the National
Federation of the Blind is one of the major organizations leading
the nation in the fight for full access to our society for blind
people. You are helping the nation understand that by accepting
the contributions that can be made by blind people, America will
become stronger.
     In the words of my good friend and colleague Fred Schroeder,
"The NFB represents a new and positive philosophy of blindness
premised on the principle of self-determination. . . . The blind
are not deficient sighted people, but whole and complete blind
people." I am grateful for the leadership of the NFB because your
work has helped my work--and the work of many others--who are
advocates for equal rights for disabled people.
     Together we have made many gains. We have won the Americans
with Disabilities Act, the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act, and other laws that affirm that the right to equal
protection guaranteed by the United States Constitution extends
to people with disabilities. Today--thankfully--our laws affirm
that we as disabled people have as a matter of right full
equality of opportunity and access to the same choices and
opportunities as nondisabled persons. We now have laws on the
books of the federal government and of many state governments
that establish once and for all that barriers to that right must
come down!
     As you know, we in the Office of Special Education and
Rehabilitative Services are now working with legislative and
oversight committees on both sides of the Hill and with public
and private agencies of all sorts to re-examine the programs
OSERS administers, the funds we distribute, and--most important--
the laws we oversee. These discussions are part of the great
debate that is now taking place in Washington.
     On the one side are those who say that the government can't
really do anything to solve our problems, so the most important
thing to do is to balance the budget as quickly as possible
without regard to the consequences. On the other side are those
of us who say, "Of course government can help people. In fact,
government is the only institution the American people as a whole
control. It is our government, elected by us. Through it we can
help solve the problems that face us."
     The President says, and I agree, that, if we create a budget
that does not facilitate the ability of people to contribute to
our society, our nation will not be able to successfully compete
in today's growing global economy. If we create a budget that
does not give people the resources they need to make the
contributions they can, our nation will be sowing the seeds of a
bleak economic future.
     In the past our nation's prosperity was insured by her rich
natural resources, her industrial prowess, and her military
might. Today these are not enough to guarantee our future. Today
the only constant in the world is change. Industries are born and
die in the time it takes to market a new technology. The nature
of any given job changes in the blink of a microchip. Today the
only way for America to safeguard her future is to make sure that
Americans have the knowledge and skills they need to adapt and
adjust to rapid changes.
     That's one reason that OSERS spends many, many millions of
dollars a year helping to finance vocational rehabilitation
services and research to make vocational rehabilitation services
better. Today OSERS is working hard to sustain and expand
bipartisan support being built in Congress to maintain the
integrity of our vocational rehabilitation programs and to
preserve funding levels.
     In the past there has always been bipartisan support for the
program. Today we are fighting to maintain that support as some
in Congress are proposing measures we believe would erode it and
result in poorer services for disabled people. Without a doubt
Jim Gashel has been a leader in the fight to assure that we do
not destroy the system.
     The measure is part of a proposal to include the Vocational
Rehabilitation program in a broader consolidation of adult job
training and literacy programs. The Senate version would preserve
the one-stop shopping aspect of services for disabled people that
we in OSERS support. These services would remain under the
authority of people trained specifically in service delivery to
disabled individuals. But--again, led by Jim Gashel--OSERS and
advocacy groups are working to insure needed levels of funding.
     On the other hand, the House version of the voc rehab
measure, as it stands today, could very well undercut services
for disabled people. Although the latest version of the House
bill would keep 1996 funding at the levels requested by the
President, there is not enough accountability for the quality of
services.
     We remain concerned that any block grant of job training
programs by the present Congress could mean as much as a 15-20
percent reduction in overall funding for vocational
rehabilitation. Many individuals served by the VR program need
specialized services from well-trained personnel before they can
benefit from employment training. I am worried that the service
delivery strategies identified in the House provisions affecting
rehabilitation will not ensure that individuals with significant
disabilities will be able to get the specialized services they
need from people who are trained to deliver them.
     I am the first to admit that the current system for service
delivery that is administered by the federal government is far
from perfect. It must be improved, and we are working to improve
it now. But the answer to current problems is not and cannot be
to throw services for disabled people into a state-run patchwork
that would probably put such services at the bottom of their
priority list.
     On the other hand, I firmly believe we must work to
strengthen the Federal/State partnership of vocational
rehabilitation programs. State rehabilitation programs can and
should work closely with other state programs to provide
employment opportunities. The vast majority of disabled people
are those with moderate to mild disabilities. These individuals
should be able to benefit from state rehabilitation programs, and
the federal Vocational Rehabilitation program can help provide
technical assistance to assure that states do this well.
     As part of this effort, we are seeking to identify those
successful strategies states have already initiated to
incorporate VR into their one-stop shopping models. The changes
my office is proposing must be in the context of improvements to
the Rehabilitation Act. We must not allow the dismemberment of
what most individuals already identify as a block-grant or
one-stop authority for individuals with disabilities. We must not
throw out the baby with the bath water.
     Speaking of throwing out the baby with the bath water, there
are those in Washington today who would eliminate the Department
of Education. In my opinion this would take America back to the
bad old days when education was not seen as a top priority in
this nation and when educational concerns were buried in another
Department. It was only after the Department of Education was
created that the movement for educational reform took front and
center position in America's political debates.
     Once again I want to thank Jim Gashel and the Department of
Education for leading the fight to save the DOE. The NFB was
among the first constituent groups to support the Department's
continuation. You should be very proud of your organization. I
am.
     June 30, Rep. Dale Kildee introduced a proposal for
reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act. The bill was the result of a year and a half of careful
study, thorough re-examination, and intense analysis, carried out
by OSERS in consultation with groups across the nation.
     Now IDEA has proven to be extremely effective since its
passage in 1975. A recent Louis Harris survey on disabilities
shows that: "Largely due to the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act, the gap in education (between the disabled and
non-disabled) is beginning to close. More youth with disabilities
are entering postsecondary education; youth with sensory
impairments enroll in postsecondary education at the same rates
as the general population. The percentage of students with
disabilities who graduated from high school or received a
completion certificate rose from 55 percent in 1984-85 to 64
percent in 1991-92. More than 44 percent of college-age disabled
students attended at least some postsecondary education in
1991-92, up from just 29 percent in 1984-85. Among the nation's
college freshmen those reporting disabilities have more than
tripled since 1978, growing from 2.6 percent to 8.8 percent.
     Are we satisfied? No! We should continually raise our
expectations for improved educational outcomes in the support of
special education. We can and should adjust the IDEA to meet the
changing needs of the twenty-first century. It is twenty years
old; it's time for a tune-up.
     Our vision for improvements in the IDEA is based on six key
principles that clearly define our mission to improve results for
students with disabilities, beginning as early as possible in the
child's life. These principles are:
    Align the IDEA with state and local education
     improvement efforts so students with disabilities can
     benefit from them.
    Improve results for students with disabilities through
     higher expectations and meaningful access to the
     general curriculum, to the maximum extent appropriate.
    Address individual needs in the least restrictive
     environment for the student.
    Provide families and teachers--those closest to
     students--with the knowledge and training to
     effectively support students' learning.
    Focus on teaching and learning.
    Strengthen early intervention to help insure that every
     child starts school ready to learn.

     To implement these goals, our IDEA reauthorization proposal
stresses recruitment and training of educational personnel,
greater involvement of the family, and strengthening of the
process by which Individualized Education Programs are created
and carried out. Our IDEA reauthorization package calls for top-
notch training for personnel who work with blind children and
with disabled children.
     Furthermore, training for educators that work with low-
incidence populations is not only preserved in our proposal; it
is given greater emphasis. Under the new IDEA as proposed, more
federal funds would be shifted to training programs for educators
working with low incidence populations, which means that there
would need to be less reliance on the vicissitudes of state
programs and politics.
     Aside from teacher training, the most important strategies
included in our IDEA reauthorization package are strengthening
the IEP process and the early and continuous involvement of
parents. Under our IDEA proposal parents would be a part of a
child's placement team. Parents would be periodically given truly
meaningful assessments of their child's progress in order to be
able to judge whether their child's IEP is working or not,
whether or not some aspect of their child's program should be
modified, and what modification must be made to improve learning.
That means we must continue to develop effective, accurate,
appropriate methods of evaluation with the ability to make
recommendations on effective methods for teaching the child and
on ways to facilitate quality learning and improve outcome.
     Under our IDEA reauthorization proposal students must be
taught to the general curriculum, or parents must know why not.
Our goal in proposing this is to help disabled students meet the
same challenging standards established for all children. I want
to note that access to general curriculum does not necessarily
require that a student be located in a regular classroom. In
fact, by emphasizing educational outcomes, our IDEA
reauthorization package firmly reinforces OSERS' conviction that
"inclusion is a process--not a place."
     I believe that our society should provide the resources
necessary to allow each individual blind child to succeed in
school and prepare for a productive, fulfilling life. The
specific resources needed--and the combination in which the
resources are needed--will be different for each child, because
each child is different.
     In one way, however, all children are the same. They all
need help in developing and maintaining a strong, positive self
image. Not because they don't start out with strong self-images--
I am convinced they do--but because too often adults, even well-
meaning, loving adults, tend to undermine a child's self-
confidence.
     For example, about ten years ago Edwina Trish Franchild
wrote that when she was a child she assumed it was perfectly
natural for her to sense her surroundings in ways that were
different from others. It was not until her parents--out of love
no doubt--continually took her to doctors to try to change her
into a seeing person and continually talked behind her back about
her problem that Edwina became convinced something was wrong
about herself. This conviction had disastrous affects upon her
later on in life.
     I know that, if the National Federation of the Blind has
anything to do with it, blind and visually impaired children
would never again have to suffer the same types of self-doubt.
And I know that, if the National Federation of the Blind has
anything to do with it, every blind child in America would
graduate from school knowing in their heart and soul that the
sky's the limit. I applaud your good work, and I urge you to keep
on working.
     During the coming time period Congress will be making
decisions that could permanently affect policies and programs
impacting on all disabled Americans. I am convinced the blind
community must become even more effectively involved in the
electoral process than it already is. Representatives of the
blind community should work--and work hard--within whichever
political party they belong to, to insure that their concerns are
placed on the agenda for national debate. The challenge is clear:
we must work to protect the laws that protect our rights at the
same time as we work to reform and improve them. I look forward
to working with you.

[Photo #28 Caption: Dr. Hilda Caton, Distinguished Educator of Blind Children]


[Photo #29 Caption: Bonnie Peterson, Blind Educator of the Year]

[Photo #30 Caption: Joyce and Tom Scanlan receive the Jacobus tenBroek award.]

[Photo #31 Caption: Thomas Curley, President and Publisher of USA Today]

                NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
                         AWARDS FOR 1995

     National Federation of the Blind awards are not bestowed
lightly. If an appropriate recipient does not emerge from the
pool of candidates for a particular award, it is simply not
presented. At this year's convention four presentations were
made:

                   The Distinguished Educator
                     of Blind Children Award

     At the Monday morning Board of Directors meeting Sharon
Maneki, President of the National Federation of the Blind of
Maryland and Chairwoman of the Distinguished Educator of Blind
Children Selection Committee, presented that award. She said:

     Good morning, President Maurer and fellow Federationists.
The committee of Jacquilyn Billey, Joyce Scanlan, Alan Harris,
and I truly have a distinguished educator of blind children to
present to you this morning. She has taught on every level,
students from first to twelfth grade. She taught as an itinerant
teacher in a resource room and for a time at the Florida School
for the Blind. She has a master's degree from Peabody College and
a doctorate from the University of Kentucky. Her influence knows
no bounds. As a professor she is responsible for many vision
teachers' knowing Braille--what a unique thing that is! She
taught at the University of Louisville from 1976 to 1992. She is
also responsible for many, many blind children's having the
opportunity to become literate through the development of
Patterns Pre-Braille Program, Patterns: Primary Braille Program,
and Patterns: English and Spelling Braille Program. She is also
responsible for students who are visually impaired having the
opportunity--and we hope continuing to have the opportunity for
many more years--to learn both print and Braille because of the
development of her book, Print and Braille Literacy: Selecting
the Appropriate Media.
     This individual learned the importance of Braille and fought
for it before it became fashionable to do so. She took and
continues to take her lead from consumers in her current position
as Director of the Braille Research Center. I'm sure that there's
no doubt in anyone's mind that I'm speaking of Dr. Hilda Caton.
[applause]

     This is what Dr. Caton said:

     Thank you very much, Sharon. I just have a very brief
statement. I'm having a little trouble with this. I once told a
dear friend, student, colleague, and mother of my godchild that
you shouldn't cry in public, so I'm going to try not to do that.
It really is difficult for me to say to you what this means to
me. As Mrs. Maneki said, I have been in the field for a long
time--thirty-two years to be exact. I have been a teacher of
blind children. I've worked with some very talented and dedicated
colleagues on development of materials for the blind. During
those years I did try to focus on the needs of the blind children
and adults I was working for, not on what other people told me I
should focus on. To get this award now from those very people
really means more than I could possibly tell you. I thank you all
from the bottom of my heart. I think that with NFB's philosophy,
there's strength, vision for the future, so deep within me and
part of me and you too. I know there is just no limit to what we
can do to promote literacy and use of Braille among blind people
all over the world, not just this country. Thank you very much.
[applause]

     Sharon Maneki continued by saying:

     I'd like to read the plaque that Dr. Caton has just
received:

            DISTINGUISHED EDUCATOR OF BLIND CHILDREN
              The National Federation of the Blind
                             honors
                         Dr. Hilda Caton
                For your creativity and ingenuity
                 in developing teaching methods
            to enable young readers to learn Braille;
           For vigorously advocating Braille literacy
           and promoting the teaching of both Braille
            and print to visually impaired students;
                       For your leadership
                  in establishing and directing
                  the Braille Research Center.
               Our colleague, our friend, our ally
                       on the barricades.
                   You champion our movement,
                    you strengthen our hopes,
                      you share our dreams.
                           July, 1995

     Congratulations. [applause]

                Blind Educator of the Year Award

     Steve Benson, Chairman of the Blind Educator of the Year
Committee and President of the National Federation of the Blind
of Illinois, came to the podium during the meeting of the Board
of Directors to present this award. Here is what he said:

     Recipients of the Blind Educator of the Year Award must have
demonstrated leadership and mastery of the art of teaching. They
must also have taken up the torch of Federationism and shared it
with our blind brothers and sisters. They must have reached out
to the public and taught by example that blind people have the
capacity, the energy, and the desire to compete on terms of
equality with our sighted neighbors and our colleagues. In 1995
the Blind Educator of the Year Award recipient is a woman who has
advocated vigorously and well for the right of blind children to
learn Braille. She has articulated the Federation's philosophy
and policies as clearly and as forcefully as anyone could. As she
works with parents of blind children, she emphasizes the absolute
necessity of having high expectations for blind children, the
same as for sighted children.
     While this year's recipient has devoted time, energy, and
means to working with blind children and their parents, she is,
in fact, a university teacher. She has high expectations for her
students. She gives them a superb education. The award committee
(Homer Page, Patricia Munson, Judy Sanders, Adelmo Vigil)
believes this year's recipient is worthy of the very high
recognition our Blind Educator of the Year Award conveys. This
teacher fully understands the lasting impact of the effort of a
skillful teacher. She also has an enormous appreciation of the
work of the teachers before her, Dr. tenBroek and Dr. Jernigan.
The recipient of this year's Blind Educator of the Year Award is
Bonnie Peterson. [applause] Bonnie Peterson is President of our
Wisconsin affiliate. She teaches communication at the University
of Wisconsin, Parkside. Bonnie, here is a plaque and a check for
$500, and the plaque reads:

                         BLIND EDUCATOR
                        OF THE YEAR AWARD
                National Federation of the Blind
                          Presented to
                         Bonnie Peterson
                        in recognition of
                   outstanding accomplishments
                   in the teaching profession.
                 You have enhanced the present.
                  You inspire your colleagues.
                      You build the future.
                          July 3, 1995

     When Bonnie Peterson came to the microphone, this is what
she had to say:

     I am a speech teacher who is speechless. This is really
quite an honor. I thank the Committee. (All of the techniques
that I teach my students not to use, I'm using right now!) Now,
don't ever let anyone hear this tape. I want this whole part
erased. I thank you very very much. Obviously I care deeply about
this, and the appreciation of my peers in this organization is
quite humbling. Thank you.[applause]

                   The Jacobus tenBroek Award

     Early in the banquet proceedings on Thursday evening, Ramona
Walhof, Chairperson of the Jacobus tenBroek Award Committee, came
to the podium to present that award. This is what she said:

     The Jacobus tenBroek Award is presented only as often as we
have one of our members outstanding and appropriate to receive
it. It is not done every year. This year's recipients (we have
two recipients this year) have been outstanding, have met the
standards set by our founder, Jacobus tenBroek. Joyce and Tom
Scanlan are our 1995 Jacobus tenBroek Award recipients.
[applause]
     Joyce Scanlan first joined the National Federation of the
Blind in 1970 when she attended our National Convention, which
was held in her home city of Minneapolis. Tom joined the state
organization, the National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota,
about the same time. Both immediately moved into positions of
leadership. Joyce was elected President of the NFB of Minnesota
in 1973 and has been re-elected ten times since that time, each
for a two-year term.[applause] Of the currently serving state
presidents, Joyce Scanlan has served the longest, twenty-two
years in that position. She was elected to the Board of Directors
of the National Federation of the Blind in 1974 and re-elected
six more times to that position. In 1988 she was elected
Secretary, and in 1992 she was elected First Vice President and
was again re-elected in 1994.
     Tom Scanlan has also been a leader since the early 1970's.
In Minnesota he has held office, and he has been helpful
throughout the country in working with computers and blind
computer users. Tom Scanlan is currently employed in one of the
very top positions in the Department of Administration in the
State of Minnesota, and he shares his time and his knowledge with
blind persons throughout the Federation and throughout the
country.
     Joyce and Tom are tough. Many of us remember in the early
1980's when they led the battle with the Minneapolis
Society.[applause] That battle seems long ago, but there is no
question who won it. Those who don't remember can read about it.
It's written up. In 1988 Joyce Scanlan became the Director of one
of the three National Federation of the Blind centers, BLIND,
Inc., (Blindness Learning in New Dimensions, Inc.) It has become
one of the facilities that offer the best quality training blind
people can get in this country. Last fall I was privileged to
attend the open house at the newly remodeled Pillsbury Mansion,
now the headquarters for BLIND, Inc. Not only was the building
impressive, but we also had the opportunity to meet and talk with
the students who had received the training and who were going to
work and coming back to work with other students who followed
them. Neither Joyce nor Tom Scanlan requires attention or
recognition. We all depend on both of them for the things that
they give, and I can name a whole list.
     This is very important to all of us throughout the
organization, and we take this occasion to present our Jacobus
tenBroek Award to Joyce and Tom Scanlan.
     I'm going to give Joyce this plaque, and I ask you to hold
it up so people can see it. It's a great big walnut plaque with a
brass plate and black lettering, which reads:

                     JACOBUS tenBROEK AWARD
                National Federation of the Blind
                          Presented to
                      Joyce and Tom Scanlan
         For your dedication, sacrifice, and commitment
             on behalf of the blind of this nation.
    Your contribution is measured not in steps but in miles,
        not by individual experiences but by your impact
            on the lives of the blind of the nation.
           Whenever we have asked, you have answered.
            We call you our colleagues with respect.
               We call you our friends with love.
                          July 6, 1995

     Now I'm sure that this audience wants to hear from you.

     When Joyce Scanlan came to the microphone, this is what she
said:

     This is just too much! I think my face is the same color as
my dress, and I'm trembling in my boots, and I'm in tears. I'm
almost speechless. I know that's hard to believe in Minnesota. I
think, like all Federationists we do our work, and we don't
expect a lot of recognition or thanks. We just do it because it's
important to all of us. It's this kind of thing that is just
really hard to respond to.
     It was the Federation that brought Tom and me together in
the first place. It's kind of handy when you are the President
and the Treasurer is your husband. You can fight about Federation
money, and that saves you from fighting about your own personal
money. I'm sure that both of us, although we've been in the
Federation now for twenty-five years, hope we have twenty-five
more or fifty, or a hundred more years because this organization
means so much to both of us. We thank you so much for this
award.[applause] And I want to thank everybody for the support
that we have had throughout the years in our work in the
Federation, and especially Dr. Jernigan. I do remember the gates.
Thank you.

     Tom then came to the microphone, and here is what he said:

     By nature I am always a very quiet, shy person, sort of a
typical Minnesotan--just get in there and get the job done. But I
remember my first convention in 1970 when I walked into that
convention, and the blind man presiding demonstrated no image of
blind people I had ever seen before. Dr. Jernigan has had a
tremendous impact on my life and this whole organization. Thank
you very much.

     Dr. Jernigan then came to the podium and said:

     When Joyce first became President, I had to teach (and
sometimes I thought I had to learn) her a little about politics.
She always wanted to get into a fight with people about whether
they should have a gate at the old Minnesota Home for the Blind.
She was about to split the outfit up on doctrinaire notions. And
I said, "For God's sake, let them have the gate or not. In the
long run you will be able to do what you want to, but you can't
do it that way." She always reminds me that I taught her about
the gates up there. I said, "By and by you won't have a home for
the blind; just get in there and consolidate."

                   Distinguished Service Award

     Near the close of the banquet, Dr. Jernigan made the
following presentation:
     As the members of this audience know, 1995 marks the
occasion of a monumental change in the lives of the blind. For
the first time in history there is the very real opportunity for
every blind person in the United States who wants to read a
regular daily newspaper to have the means to do it--and not just
when somebody else is available for the reading but any time the
need arises or the desire dictates.
     The new era was ushered in when USA Today and the National
Federation of the Blind teamed up to create National Newsline for
the Blind. As our network of local service centers expands, any
blind person in the nation can read the morning newspaper by
telephone, either at home or when traveling. The system allows
scanning, skipping articles, going back to read again, and
reading fast or slow--in short, the same ability to interact with
the newspaper that sighted people have had for more than a
century--something the blind have never had.
     It's a wonderful feeling, and the man who has ultimately
played perhaps the key role in helping make it happen is this
year's recipient of our Distinguished Service Award. He is Thomas
Curley, President and Publisher of USA Today.
     Mr. Curley was the original news staffer on the project that
led to the creation of USA Today. He was assigned in 1979 by then
Gannett chairman Al Neuharth to study the feasibility of a
national newspaper. He later worked in every department of USA
Today. In 1986 he became the newspaper's sixth president and in
1991 added the title of publisher. USA Today circulation under
Tom Curley has grown to more than 2,000,000 a day, the nation's
largest.
     Mr. Curley began his journalism career at age fifteen,
covering high school basketball for his hometown newspaper, the
Easton, Pennsylvania, Express. He continued working for
newspapers during college and joined Gannett's Rochester, New
York, Times-Union in 1972 as night city/suburban editor. He
became director of information for Gannett in 1976 and began
coordinating Gannett's newspaper research projects, which
produced more than 50,000 interviews on media use. He became
editor of Gannett's Norwich, Connecticut, Bulletin in 1982;
publisher of The Courier-News at Bridgewater, New Jersey, in
1983; and returned to USA Today in 1985.
     He was born July 6, 1948, so tonight is a special occasion
for him. It is his birthday. We are glad he came to share it with
us.
     Mr. Curley's wife Marsha is a free-lance writer. He has two
daughters, Laura and Melinda. His brother John is chairman and
CEO of Gannett. Mr. Curley has a B.A. in political science from
La Salle University in Philadelphia, and he has an M.B.A. from
the Rochester Institute of Technology.
     But the statistics and the facts don't tell the story. When
I called Mr. Curley one afternoon about two weeks ago, he was
immediately available and easy to talk to. It has always been
that way when any of us have called him. It was my first contact
with him, but I am sure it won't be my last.
     Mr. Curley, we are choosy about who gets our awards, and we
are stingy with them. We don't give them every year, only when we
think they are deserved. This one is.
     As I told you two weeks ago, I am a good deal older than you
are, but this is the first time in my life that I have ever had
the opportunity to read and interact with a newspaper on a daily
basis whenever and wherever I wanted to do it. That is a major
milestone in my life and in the lives of increasing numbers of
other blind people, and you deserve much of the credit for it.
There has never been anything like the National Newsline Network
we are establishing.
     Again I say: The accomplishment is monumental, and you have
been key in making it happen. Therefore, it is with gratitude and
respect that I present to you this plaque. It contains our logo
and says:

                   DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD
                National Federation of the Blind
                          Presented to
                          Thomas Curley
                     President and Publisher
                            USA Today
       For exceptional service to the blind of the nation
                The banner you carry is learning
                The cause you espouse is fairness
                The power you wield is knowledge
                          July 6, 1995

     Thomas Curley: Thank you very much, Dr. Jernigan. I was
feeling extremely honored just thinking about being here, and
then I heard President Maurer's speech, and I must say that, as
he wound through that, I was scared to death. I was counting the
pages, and all I can think about now is whether some fool back
home has hired the guy who wrote the Macaroni-Kid story.
[applause and laughter]
     This really is very moving and wonderful in many ways. I
have learned so much being with you in a short period of time. I
agree with what President Maurer has said. This is about freedom,
not just the freedom of the members of the National Federation of
the Blind, but freedom for all Americans. To the extent that we
can take this at least small step, our society in general will be
much stronger, and our democracy will be served because perhaps
hundreds of thousands of Americans will have some more access to
news they want when they want it.[applause]
     We hope as we learn how to do this that we can roll out more
of this kind of information and then, listening to you, make the
adjustments that you feel are appropriate. There is one thing
that I can guarantee you: as long as we do something, the rest of
the industry will be quick to follow.[applause]
     More than a hundred years ago a New York editor, Horace
Greeley, said that the duty of the newspaper is to print the
truth and raise hell. As I was listening to President Maurer's
speech, it occurred to me that we do about half of it right. I
hope, as you read our newspaper and experience it and experience
other journals that will quickly follow us in this area, that you
are touched the way that all of us are--in some ways provoked, in
some ways saddened, and in other ways rejoiced, but in all ways
feeling more informed as citizens and more willing to take up all
the causes that are necessary to make this democracy even
stronger. I thank you so much for honoring us, and I wish you the
best of luck.


[Photo #32 Caption: 1995 Scholarship Winners (Left to right, front row:
Michael Graham, Stephen Bugner, Tim Cordes, Mark Truman, Carolyn Provenzano,
Eddie Bell, Emily Ross, and Krista Oliver. Middle row: Cynthia Simon, Juliana
Raiche, Sheila Koenig, Lilia Silva, Jeanine Lineback, Melissa Orsick, Angela
Howard, Sharon Goto, and Buna Dahal. Back row: Jeff Dittel, Christopher Moore,
Kenneth Pendleton, Carlos Servan, George Mayes, Bonnie Davis, Mark
Adelsberger, and Elizabeth Bearden.)]

[Photo #33 Caption: Emily Ross stands on the platform with Marc Maurer at the
banquet of the 1995 National Federation of the Blind Convention at the Hilton
and Towers Hotel in Chicago, Illinois.]

[Photo #34 Caption: Carlos Servan proudly holds his baby son Carlos Mario.]

                  THE SCHOLARSHIP CLASS OF 1995

     From the Editor: Twenty-five men and women from Hawaii to
Rhode Island arrived at the Hilton and Towers Hotel as members of
the National Federation of the Blind scholarship class of 1995.
Not counting their expense-paid trips to the convention, this
year the class divided $85,000 in scholarship awards, which were
made at the close of the Thursday evening banquet. This year's
class is a remarkable group of students--bright, energetic, and
eager to change the world. They met the full convention during
the meeting of the Board of Directors on Monday morning. Peggy
Elliott, Chairman of the Scholarship Committee, introduced each
of them. This is what they said:

     Mark Adelsberger: I'm Mark Adelsberger. I'm from St. Louis,
Missouri. I'll be going to the University of Missouri at Rolla
next year to study computer science and hopefully in five years
will have a master's degree to enter a field relating to computer
programming, although I'm not entirely sure what specific field.
     Elizabeth Bearden: I'm Elizabeth Bearden. I'm from Winston-
Salem, North Carolina. I'll be a sophomore at Princeton
University in the fall. I plan to become an international lawyer
or diplomat.
     Eddie Bell: I'm attending college in California, going for a
degree in psychology to hopefully open my own practice in family
or marriage counseling.
     Stephen Bugner: My name is Stephen Bugner. I'm from North
Providence, Rhode Island. I go to Providence College. I will be a
sophomore in the fall. I'm an education major. I am looking
forward to learning more about the NFB. I'm a new member, and
this is my first convention. I look forward to coming to many
more, becoming a better traveler. This is my first time traveling
like this, but I'm getting used to it, and I'm happy to be here.
Thank you.
     Tim Cordes: I'm Tim Cordes. I'm from the State of Iowa, and
I currently attend the University of Notre Dame. I plan to go on
to conduct biomedical research. Thanks.
     Buna Dahal: We are having the best convention that we ever
had. Is that right? [applause and laughter] I'm from Illinois. I
live right here in Chicago. I go to the community college. It's
called College of Dupage. In the spring I will start going to the
University of Illinois, Jane Adams Social Work School. My major
is social work. Let me tell you from my heart, it's a great honor
to be an NFB scholarship winner. Thank you.
     Bonnie Davis: I'm Bonnie Davis from East Liverpool, Ohio. I
am currently enrolled at Ohio University. I'm studying business,
working towards my bachelor's degree. I hope to teach some day
and write creative stories and work with the Federation of the
Blind. Thank you.
     Jeff Dittel: My name is Jeff Dittel. I live in New Haven,
Connecticut, and am a graduate student at the University of New
Haven in computer science. I am one that likes computers.
     Sharon Goto: I'm Sharon Goto from the State of Hawaii. I'm
an M.B.A. student. I'm going to be a student at Chaminade
University, and I'd like to further my career in federal
procurement. I'm a recent member of the Hawaii Chapter of the
Federation of the Blind.
     Mike Graham: I'm originally from the State of Montana, and
I'm presently in the State of Colorado. In the fall I'm attending
the University of Northern Colorado for a second year of a
doctoral program in special education in the field of blindness.
As to my vocational objective, I hate to mention a specific job.
I'm interested in systems change--to change the service delivery
system so that blind students and adults get more out of
resources and programs now available. Thank you.
     Angela Howard: My name is Angela Howard. I'm from Louisiana.
I'm currently a student at the Louisiana Center for the Blind,
which is one of our NFB training centers. I will be attending
Gilford College in the fall, double majoring in education and
women's studies. I'm not quite sure what I want to do with that
yet, but hopefully I'll figure it out. Thank you.
     Sheila Koenig: My name is Sheila Koenig. Next year I'll be a
senior at Cardinal Stritch College in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I
chose to enter the profession of teaching Spanish or English
because I want to share with my students the beauty and power of
language. I'm eager to embrace this power to educate and
challenge, not only their ideas about literature, but also their
preconceptions of blindness. Thank you for this honor.
     Jeanine Lineback: It's great to be here in Chicago at our
1995 convention. I am Jeanine Lineback. Many of you know me as
Jenny. I'm from the State of Colorado. I'll be attending in the
fall the University of Colorado at Denver, studying social
sciences with an emphasis on policy development in
administration. I hope to hold a position in which I can help
develop policies that will influence the attitudes about
blindness and change what it means to be blind. I really want to
thank the scholarship committee and all of my friends for
supporting me and making me a winner of the 1995 scholarship
class.
     George Mayes: My name is George Mayes. I'm from Reno,
Nevada, originally from Louisville, Kentucky. I am called the
trouble-maker preacher, but I'm glad to be here, and I want to
thank the Committee for this opportunity. The most important
thing we have as blind people is attitude. When we wake up in the
morning, we can have a good day or a bad day. I intend on having
a good day. Thank you.
     Christopher Moore: This is Christopher Moore, formerly from
Nebraska. I recently transferred to Nashville, Tennessee, where I
will be attending Tennessee State University in the fall,
continuing to work on my bachelor's degree in culinary arts and
food service management. My vocational goal is eventually, in a
couple years, to open my own restaurant. It is an honor to be
here, and I thank you again for having me.
     Krista Oliver: I'm Krista Oliver, and I'm originally from
Michigan. I received my bachelor's degree in psychology from
Albion College and my master's degree in clinical psychology from
the University of Missouri in Columbia. I am currently working on
my Ph.D. in clinical psychology. I'm not exactly sure what I want
to do with my degree--clinical work for sure and possibly some
research as well. Thanks.
     Melissa Orsick: My name is Melissa Orsick. I'm from North
Carolina. I am currently a post-graduate student at North
Carolina State University in veterinary epidemiology, which is
the study of diseases in populations and their distribution. I
would eventually like to work with the USDA or the CDC in
infectious diseases and food safety. Thank you.
     Ken Pendleton: My name is Ken Pendleton. I am currently
writing my dissertation in social philosophy at the University of
Oregon. I hope to stay cloistered away in academia for a long
time.
     Carolyn Provenzano: Thank you, Peggy. First of all I want to
say it's wonderful to be in Chicago for the 1995 National
Federation of the Blind Convention. My name is Carolyn
Provenzano. I'm from Louisville, Kentucky. I am seeking a two-
fold degree--an MSW, a master's degree in social work, that will
go right into a clinical psychology degree. I have two missions
in life: within the next three years I plan to be a licensed
clinical psychologist in private practice and also to be a leader
in the National Federation of the Blind. Thank you.
     Juliana Raiche: My name is Juliana Raiche, and I'm from the
State of Virginia. I am planning to go to Virginia Commonwealth
University in Richmond. I will be a freshman studying music. My
dream is to earn a Ph.D. in Renaissance music, I think right now.
(That might change.) Also I would like to be a classical
guitarist and teach all over the world. I would really like to
thank the Federation for this wonderful opportunity, because I
was told that I couldn't teach guitar because I couldn't see. I
always knew way down deep inside that I could. So thank you very,
very much.
     Emily Ross: I'm Em Ross. I'm from Oregon. I'm a junior at
Reed College in Portland, where I'm studying biology. My dream in
life is to go into ethnobotany, which is the study of plants and
humans. It's how humans interact with their plant societies.
     Carlos Servan: I'm from New Mexico, attending the University
of New Mexico Law School. My goal is to be an international
lawyer and be a good father of that fourteen months' baby. Thank
you.
     Lilia Silva: My name is Lilia Silva, and I'm from Port
Isabel, Texas. I plan to attend Amherst College in Massachusetts
in the fall, hopefully to double major in English and psychology.
Although, as I have told many people, that is very iffy right now
because of all the different choices that I have. I am just so
excited about that. My vocational goal is to possibly become an
English professor or a psychologist. I'm very, very excited to be
here. This is my first convention. Thank you.
     Cindy Simon: I'm from New Jersey. I'm a third-year law
school student from New York University School of Law. My
vocational goal is to continue to be involved in the making of
public policy through the practice of law and through
participation in politics. I am currently a town council
candidate in my home town.
     Mark Truman: My name is Mark Truman. I am currently
attending Daytona Beach Community College in the great State of
Florida. My vocational goal is to be a tax attorney. I'm happy to
have this excellent opportunity. Thank you.

     Peggy Elliott: "And there, Mr. President and members of the
National Federation of the Blind, are the twenty-five scholarship
winners this year."[applause]

     As you can see, we had an impressive group of scholarship
winners this year. Here are the awards they received:

$3,000 NFB Scholarships: Mark Adelsberger, Bonnie Davis, Sharon
     Goto, Michael Graham, Jeanine Lineback, George Mayes,
     Christopher Moore, Kenneth Pendleton, Carolyn Provenzano,
     Carlos Servan, Lilia Silva, and Mark Truman.
$3,000 Ellen Setterfield Memorial Scholarship: Krista Oliver.
$3,000 Hermione Grant Calhoun Scholarship: Elizabeth Bearden.
$3,000 Kuchler-Killian Memorial Scholarship: Stephen Bugner.
$3,000 NFB Educator of Tomorrow Scholarship: Sheila Koenig.
$3,000 NFB Humanities Scholarship: Juliana Raiche.
$3,000 Frank Walton Horn Memorial Scholarship: Buna Dahal.
$3,000 Howard Brown Rickard Scholarship: Cindy Simon.
$3,000 Mozelle and Willard Gold Memorial Scholarship: Edward
     Bell.
$3,000 Kurzweil Scholarship: Timothy Cordes.
$4,000 NFB scholarship: Melissa Orsick.
$4,000 Melva T. Owen Memorial Scholarship: Jeff Dittel.
$4,000 Anne Pekar Memorial Scholarship: Angela Howard.
$10,000 American Action Fund Scholarship: Emily Ross.


[Photo #35 Caption: Marc Maurer delivers the banquet address at the 1995
Convention of the National Federation of the Blind.]

[Photo #36 This is an overhead picture of the banquet. Caption: They came by
the thousands.  There was a sea of human faces.]

                    THE HERITAGE OF CONFLICT
                     An Address Delivered by
                           MARC MAURER
           President, National Federation of the Blind
             At the Banquet of the Annual Convention
                 Chicago, Illinois, July 6, 1995

     The history of the world is, according to one notion, the
biography of inspired human beings who have faced and surmounted
prodigious obstacles--who have been instruments in the
instigation or resolution of conflict. Conflict challenges order
and stability, but it can sometimes also channel and focus energy
and power. Conflict can be a destructive force, but not all
conflict is regressive. Frederick Douglass said:

     The whole history of the progress of human liberty
     shows that all concessions yet made to her august
     claims have been born of earnest struggle. If there is
     no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to
     favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who
     want crops without plowing up the ground. They want
     rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean
     without the awful roar of its many waters.

     Even if all progress must be stimulated by conflict,
conflict itself is not enough. Whether the conflict is productive
or destructive depends on the imagination, the insight, the
spirit, and the courage of the people involved. It is essential
that the objective to be gained be worth the risk, for no
conflict exists without an element of loss. It is how we respond
to the risk and the possibility of loss that determines not only
the outcome of the current dispute but to some extent the
prospects for the future as well.
     If we are so timid that we are unwilling to let our
convictions compete with those of others and if we fail to
support our convictions with reason, effort, and resources, then
progress can never be ours. But if we recognize that the history
of the world must include the biography of inspired human beings
(be they blind or sighted) who have faced and surmounted
prodigious obstacles, then a future with greater opportunity than
we have ever known (both for us and for society as a whole) is an
achievable goal. Much of the world's history has been written
without us because until recently we had not developed the
mechanism to handle conflict. But we will be absent from the
biographer's notebook no longer. We have created the vehicle; we
are collecting the resources; and we have certainly found the
will.
     We, the National Federation of the Blind, are prepared to
meet contention and have conflict if we must, but our purpose
must be seen in perspective. We recognize that, even for the
winner, all conflict has within it an element of loss; we
recognize that the potential gain must equal or outweigh the
risk; and above all, we recognize that progress cannot come
without conflict, even for those who want peace. With that
understanding and in that context, let me make one point
unmistakably and irrevocably clear: We intend to have progress!
     There are two dangers in conflict: one that we will have too
much of it; the other that we will have too little. In the
beginning of our organization (in 1940 when Dr. Jacobus tenBroek
and those few others who were with him brought the National
Federation of the Blind into being in Wilkes-Barre,
Pennsylvania), there was almost no conflict at all about
blindness or the blind. Blind people had traditionally been
without power, and until we came to know our strength, this
remained true.
     It is not that there was no hardship. God knows, there was
plenty of that. Employment opportunities for blind people were
almost nonexistent. The vending program established under the
federal Randolph-Sheppard Act was in its infancy, with very few
participating vendors; and working conditions and wages in the
sheltered shops for the blind were dismal. Education for blind
children was narrowly focused and dead-end in nature even though
the schools for the blind had existed for a hundred years and
even though some of them had excellent academic programs.
Training in mobility and the skills of daily living that the
blind need in order to function and compete in the world at large
had not yet been developed--at least, not as we know those skills
today. Although the Social Security Act had been adopted five
years earlier in 1935, the programs for the blind that are now a
part of it had not been created.
     Despite these disadvantages, we found the strength to
organize--and then, necessarily, we found ourselves in the midst
of conflict. By the 1950's our activities had expanded to include
making surveys of state programs for the blind. In these surveys
we, the organized blind, criticized the programs that were not
providing adequate services--which at the time meant most of
them. This role of vigilant monitor of programs dealing with
blindness remains as important today as it was then. Programs
established to serve the blind must be responsive to the needs of
the blind. The blind who are to be served by these programs are,
collectively, the best judges of their performance.
     However, some of the officials in the field of work with the
blind had never imagined that the blind (the people they thought
of as their clients) might try to speak and act and think for
themselves. They believed that it was somehow inappropriate for
the blind to examine the performance of the governmental and
private agencies established to give them service. With our
insistence that the blind have a right to a voice in shaping
programs that affect their lives, there came a heightened
awareness of the Federation, as well as increasing controversy.
If there was to be any progress at all, how could it possibly
have been otherwise!
     During the decades that followed, conflict within the field
of work with the blind ebbed and flowed, but it was always
present. Most of the time the disputes involved the organized
blind on the one hand and officials of governmental and private
agencies for the blind on the other. By the late 1980's, however,
the bitter clashes that had so long characterized matters dealing
with blindness had diminished to such an extent that they had
become--if not nonexistent, then certainly muted.
     What happened to cause this alteration? And of even greater
importance, what does the change signify for the future? If there
is no conflict, there can be no progress, but we must always keep
in mind that the first great danger in conflict is its potential
for destructiveness--the risk that it may get out of hand and
eliminate the good along with the bad. We must, however, with
equal clarity remember the second great danger inherent in
conflict (just as destructive as the first, and perhaps more
threatening--certainly more insidious because it is usually not
recognized) that there may be too little of it--that the total
absence of controversy may signify stagnation. The trick, then,
is to strike a balance--the minimal amount, enough but not too
much.
     Is the apparent diminution of controversy an indication that
the creative spirit regarding blindness and the blind is gone?
Although confrontation within the field of work with the blind is
no longer one of its principal characteristics, conflict
regarding blindness still exists. The basic misunderstandings
about blindness and the blind have not been totally eradicated.
There are still many among officials of agencies for the blind,
among the members of the general public, and even among the blind
themselves who believe that blindness means inferiority--that the
loss of eyesight is equivalent to the loss of productive
capacity. This means that conflict (although not always
represented by confrontation) is still very much with us.
     However, there are also an increasing number of people who
recognize that blindness is not the devastating affliction that,
at one time, it was almost universally thought to be. This
alteration in the perception of the nature of blindness has
largely occurred because of our strength and our activities--
because of the determined efforts of the National Federation of
the Blind. Today, in many instances, those managing programs for
the blind have come to realize that blind people are not enemies
but potential allies. Furthermore, acceptance of blind people as
valued participants in the broader community is increasing.
     The process has been a long and painful one. But through the
strife and confrontation we have accomplished an objective which
was, at one time, not only implausible but virtually
unimaginable. We have created the potential for alliances within
the field of work with the blind that permit us to expand our
efforts. If we properly assess the opportunities which are
becoming available to us (with all of the dangers that accompany
those opportunities) and if those involved in programs for the
blind can bring themselves to make the same assessments, we will
no longer face the disadvantage of constant abrasive conflict
within the arena of blindness. We may even be able to forge a
cohesive alliance that can bring real equality and full
independence to the blind. This is the heritage of conflict.
     The possibility of alliances with the agencies for the blind
offers opportunities which have not been available in the past,
but if those alliances come, they will not come without danger.
Those who join alliances must, of course, have a shared
objective, a mutual understanding, and a common bond. The best
alliances demand not only commonality of purpose but mutual trust
as well. If we let the agencies trust us, we must be prepared to
trust them. If we engage in alliances with others, we accept and
promote (even if only passively) the positions they espouse and
the actions they take. Consequently, we must guard against the
danger of being bamboozled by the rhetoric of cooperation.
Otherwise, we may come to believe that those things which in the
past we deplored in the performance of many of the agencies were
really not so bad--when it is perfectly clear that they were.
     We may be tempted to assume that, because we have formed
alliances, it would be difficult or impossible to survive without
them. On the other hand, if we are not quick on our mental feet,
we may fail because of former conflicts--struggles that are no
longer relevant--to take full advantage of the cooperation that
might be achieved. Despite all of the dangers that accompany our
burgeoning relationships with programs for the blind, these
growing interactions give us the opportunity for more progress
than was formerly possible. Although conflict need not be in the
form of confrontation, it must occur for future growth.
Therefore, if the agencies for the blind want to join with us,
what are they prepared to bring to the table? Our agenda will
always be action-oriented, and anybody who makes an alliance with
us must be willing to help promote our projects, and not just
expect us to promote theirs.
     What will be the focus of our collective effort today and in
the years ahead? Although conflict within the field of work with
the blind has diminished, misunderstanding about blindness in the
public mind remains all too common. Unless this misunderstanding
is eliminated, we who are blind will be prevented from reaching
our potential. Therefore, the direction of our action in the
years ahead is perfectly clear.
     There are still some people who believe, even today, that
blindness is entirely negative and that the blind have nothing to
contribute. A report from the National Eye Institute, a division
of the National Institutes of Health, entitled Vision Research, A
National Plan: 1994-1998, describes the plight of blind people in
a way that holds out little hope for those who are unfortunate
enough to be afflicted with that condition. The report says in
part:

     Although seldom fatal, eye diseases cause suffering,
     disability, and loss of productivity for millions of people
     in this country and throughout the world. These diseases may
     have their most pronounced effects on an individual's
     quality of life, affecting the ability to act independently,
     recognize family and friends, read, drive a car, and perform
     a host of other activities that we consider routine daily
     tasks.

     So says the report, but the writers from the National Eye
Institute add something else. They tell us that sight is "our
most precious sense." It will come as no surprise that the report
contains nothing about the abilities of blind people or the
alternative techniques used by the blind. We who are blind (the
National Eye Institute would have us believe) have lost our
independence, our ability to read, our productivity, our capacity
to recognize family and friends, and our chance to engage in a
host of other routine activities. There is one small consolation
though: Blindness may cause suffering, but at least, as these
authors tell us, it is seldom fatal.
     What a dismal picture! Is it true that our lives are
devastated by the loss of sight? Can it really be said that sight
is our most precious sense? What about the sense of touch? If we
were totally without it, we would lose one of our greatest
protections, the ability to feel pain, which really means the
ability to survive since pain tells us when our bodies are being
injured by hot or abrasive objects, or when we are too cold or
have eaten or drunk damaging substances. Of course, the reverse
of pain is pleasure, and certainly the sense of touch provides
more of that than most of us have thought about. Begin with sex,
and take it from there. But all of this quibbling about which of
the senses is most precious misses not only the meaning of daily
purpose for the blind but the purpose of life for everybody.
     Life is more than the five physical senses. There are other
senses, those that make us human. What about the sense of
judgment; the sense of commitment to family and community; or,
for that matter, the sense of humor? Perhaps one of our most
important senses is the good sense to know when to disregard the
opinions of the National Eye Institute.
     We are not saying that sight is of no importance--it is.
However, sight is not the essence of life. It may be pleasant to
see a face or drive a car or watch a sunset, but the absence of
these things does not in and of itself cause mental imbalance,
physical immobility, or economic destruction--nor does it rob us
of pleasure or the capacity for a full life. We who are blind are
no longer willing to permit fear and misunderstanding about
blindness, dressed up in the language of a scientific report, to
limit our lives. We will avoid conflict when we can, but as I
have said before, we intend to have progress.
     The research of the National Eye Institute has what might be
called a sight bias. Without examining the fundamental reason for
doing so, these researchers assume that those who possess
eyesight will do well and those who are without it will not.
These researchers are not the only ones who conduct business from
this point of view.
     Here, for example, is a report from the Baltimore Sun for
August 10, 1994.

          Some scholars [the article says] believe most audiences
     tend to hear what someone says first with their eyes.
          "The research on how listeners process vocal messages
     shows that 55 percent of the impact is visual, 38 percent is
     vocal [meaning the tone of voice] and 7 percent is verbal,"
     says Andrew Wolvin, chairman of the department of speech and
     communication at the University of Maryland, College Park.

     How does this research as reported by the Baltimore Sun
apply in practice? If only 7 percent of a message arrives
verbally, and 38 percent is conveyed by the tone of voice, does
this mean that the blind are deprived of the remaining 55
percent? What about sighted people who talk on the telephone? Do
they lose 55 percent of the message? On the other hand, do blind
people (being deprived of sight) concentrate more fully on the
language being presented? Is the visual information (all 55
percent of it) a distraction from the real meaning of the
speaker?
     You can argue it both ways, and the Arkansas Gazette
demonstrates this. On February 12, 1995, an article appeared
which declared that, in certain instances, sight is more of a
hindrance than a help. The paper reported in part:

          A study published recently says the best chance of
     catching a lie is when you're not distracted by how the liar
     looks.
          "People [the article continues] spend a lot of time
     remembering what they are doing with their faces," said
     Joseph Cappella, professor at the Annenberg School for
     Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.
          "We have a strong visual bias," agreed Judee Burgoon,
     professor of communication at the University of Arizona. If
     you're watching for lies, "it's not a bad idea to close your
     eyes."

This is the report from the Arkansas Gazette, and following its
logic, it may be argued that the blind, not being distracted by
the visual image, get more out of a speech or an audio
presentation than the sighted.
     This proposition is reinforced by a scientific study being
conducted by the National Institutes of Health. According to a
report drafted in the winter of 1995, the visual cortex of a
blind person's brain is activated by non-visual stimuli. Even
though our hearing is no different from the hearing of the
sighted, perhaps a larger segment of the brain of a blind person
is used to process auditory information, which means that the
processing is done with more efficiency, more speed, and more
analytical power.
     Or does all of this speculation miss the point? The need to
gather information is as important for the sighted as it is for
the blind, and as important for the blind as it is for the
sighted. Human beings are inventive. They use alternative
channels to get the same information. As long as the knowledge is
obtained, it makes very little difference what mechanism is used
to get it. Our experience demonstrates that the blind can compete
on equal terms with the sighted, and those who describe us as
lacking in perception because of our inability to see (or, for
that matter, as having more of it because we don't) have a lot to
learn. Perhaps they should go back to the drawing board and try
again. As it is, they invite controversy without purpose.
     Maybe the members of the press and the researchers at the
National Institutes of Health can be excused for their lack of
comprehension because they have very little experience with the
blind. However, those who are in the field of work with the blind
should have a more thorough understanding--and, thankfully, many
of them do. A book of helpful hints for the visually impaired,
published in 1994 by Vivian Younger and Jill Sardegna, entitled A
Guide to Independence for the Visually Impaired and Their
Families, expresses the view that blindness is completely
debilitating. It is, they suggest, possible (by using the
material contained in their book, of course) to regain a measure
of independence. However, blindness (they say) alters
dramatically almost every aspect of life. For example in the
chapter dealing with social interactions, the authors say this:

          The more impaired your vision becomes, the less you may
     feel a part of the sighted world. Vision is a major source
     of information gathering, and without it you are cut off
     from a lot of clues you once unconsciously depended on.
     Where you were once able to see a friend's facial
     expression, you may now be able to see only his shadow. He
     may eventually become a disembodied voice.
          You also may [the publication continues] feel detached
     from your own body. You may wonder what your face is doing
     or what emotions it is expressing. You may even feel
     faceless.

     I interrupt the narrative to ask: Can they really believe
it? I have heard many bizarre experiences ascribed to the blind,
but I have never before in my life known anybody to believe that
blind people become detached from their own bodies and
unconnected with their own faces. Have you ever really wondered
what your face was doing? Yet there are those who will question
why we object!
     But there is more:

          How [ask the authors] do you deal with these problems
     and start becoming reoriented to the world?
          Ask a friend over to watch television--and you can
     serve canned juice and potato chips. Have your children take
     turns walking with you to the corner each evening until you
     feel safe and confident traveling alone.
          You can call family members and say, "We're having a
     change of menu. I'm serving pizza and soda this week--and by
     the way, can you pick up the pizza on your way over?" Serve
     that double cheese and anchovy deluxe on paper plates and
     drink your soda from cans until you have mastered pouring.

This is the advice given in Chapter ten, and it speaks for
itself. Although some newly blinded persons may temporarily have
trouble in pouring, there is really nothing very intricate about
it. The trouble with this book is not the detail of it but the
emphasis and the overall perspective, the custodial tone and the
looking down.
     But these authors have not exhausted their recommendations
to assist us in gaining full and independent lives. Earlier in
the publication (in the chapter called "Getting Reacquainted with
Your Home") there is a passage offering advice to the blind
person about the bathroom. If I hadn't read this myself, I would
have found it hard to believe. See how this strikes you. The
authors say:

          It is unavoidable--you will need to find your way
     around the bathroom almost immediately. Fortunately, because
     it is small--and because we often use it in the dark--the
     bathroom may be the easiest room in the house to get
     accustomed to with little or no vision.
          Make your starting point [the authors say] the entrance
     to the bathroom.

     I interrupt to ask where else would you make the starting
point? But back to the text.

     Although you can probably count the number of steps to the
     toilet, start by following along the wall using the
     sweep/step method. Notice the contrast of the bath mat to
     the floor, the towels to the wall, or the tub wall to the
     floor. If you are worried about slipping on the bath mat,
     you can tape it down or replace it with the nonskid type.

     This is what the authors say--and again, the trouble is with
the emphasis and the talking down. If a person is elderly and
frail, then he or she (whether sighted or blind) may be concerned
about slipping on the bath mat and may want to tape it down or
replace it with the nonskid type. But age is not mentioned. It is
blindness. And as all of us in this room know, blindness has
absolutely nothing to do with slipping on a bath mat.
     As to the foolishness about counting the steps from the
bathroom door to the toilet, I won't dignify it with a comment.
Persons who need to use that method won't know why they started
or what to do when they arrive. As to trailing the wall with a
sweep/step method: Forgive them, Lord. They know not what they
say.
     But we are not through with the bathroom. Consider how these
authors deal with the bathtub. Here is what they say:

          When you get to the bathtub or shower, take a few
     practice attempts getting in and out. If you have trouble
     getting into the tub, face the wall and brace yourself
     against it with your hands for support. Next, feel with your
     knee for the top of the tub. While holding onto the wall,
     step up, over, and into the bathtub.
          To get out of the tub, just follow these directions in
     reverse.

     This is the advice from the guidebook for those who have
become visually impaired. It was published in 1994. Is all
conflict in the blindness field at an end? Don't you believe it!
But before we leave the bathroom, here is one final hint from the
authors.

     The biggest problem you will probably ever have in the
     bathroom [they say] is finding the toilet paper. The
     dispenser is often located in the most inconvenient and
     illogical place. So take time when exploring this room to
     practice finding the toilet paper while sitting on the
     toilet.

I remind you that the authors are speaking about the exploration
of the bathroom in your own home. How often have you lost the
toilet paper dispenser? How much practice is required to find it?
You may even have designed the layout.
     With self-proclaimed experts like these offering advice to
the blind, is it difficult to understand why we sometimes face
attitudes which question our initiative, our judgment, our
competence, and our very capacity to be full citizens and human
beings? How should we respond? Even though all conflict has
within it an element of loss, we cannot accept this erroneous
description. It must and it will be challenged. We have created
the vehicle to handle conflict, and you can put money in the bank
on this: We intend to have progress!
     The writings of the public press are often a reflection of
popular thought. A report from the Denver Post on December 18,
1994, describes the reactions of a veteran reporter when visiting
a program for young blind children. This emotionally charged
feature entitled "Brightening the Lives of Blind Babies" says:

          Their mysterious, dark world is full of danger and
     unimaginable challenges. They hear voices but cannot see
     faces. They hear music but cannot see the band play.
          They must learn to walk without ever having seen
     someone take a step. They must learn to grasp without ever
     having seen a hand. They must learn to read without ever
     having seen a word. They must learn to eat without ever
     having seen a spoon.
          They are blind babies.

     That's what it says--and it just gets you right here,
doesn't it? Whether it's little kittens--little hungry, sore-
pawed kittens--or whether it's a blind baby who has to learn to
walk without ever having seen somebody else do it, the emotion
just drips, and the tears come rolling after. As Mark Twain said
in another context: Great legend; great lie. Pass on!
     And, of course, it is a lie, but that is not the real
trouble with it. I have no objection to letting people clean out
their sinuses, their tear ducts, or their guilty consciences with
a heavy dose of false beliefs and misplaced emotion--but I do
have an objection to condoning such exercises when they damage
lives and blight futures. And in this case that is exactly what
is happening.
     Of course, blind children learn to eat without having seen a
spoon, and they continue eating that way for the rest of their
lives--along with a knife and a fork into the bargain. Most of us
here in this room have done it tonight, but we haven't mixed
tears with our gravy--and that goes for the sighted among us,
too.
     Have I been too hard on this reporter? Not at all. Listen to
more of what he says.

          Nothing in thirty years of journalism--three decades of
     seeing misery and sorrow and suffering on five of the
     Earth's continents--had prepared me for the emotional impact
     of this assignment.
          When I first walked into the room, the sadness
     overwhelmed me. I stood there, a veteran journalist who
     isn't supposed to get choked up--and I fought back tears.

     So have I been too hard on him? You bet I haven't. As any
blind person with an ounce of sense knows (and most sighted
people, too, if it comes to that), this is a bunch of disgusting
twaddle. Yes, it does make you want to cry--and yes, for the
blind children about whom he is writing. But not for the reasons
he gives. The tears come for the damage this so-called "veteran
journalist" is doing--the doors he is helping to close, the
dreams he is helping to kill, the futures he is helping to twist
and destroy. But he is not finished:

     A little blind girl was sitting cross-legged on the floor of
     a darkened room [he says], next to a bright white table of
     light, desperately trying to pick up the brightly colored
     plastic triangles, squares, and circles.

The operative word, of course, is "desperately." If she had just
tried to do it by using her sense of touch, she might not have
had any problem with it.
     But back to the text.

          Without a bright light [the reporter continues], the
     little girl couldn't see the shadowy shapes--but even with
     brilliant light, she can't see the colors.
          One of her playmates today is a little girl who was
     born without eyes and who will never detect a dim shadow or
     a vague shape.

There you have it--the cause of misery: two little girls playing
together--both blind. Is that really tragic? But the author is
not finished:

          My first impression [he says]--as is most visitors'--is
     one of near hopelessness.
          Every tiny lesson is a monumental struggle for the
     child and for the parent. Learning how to pour milk into a
     glass can take years.

If it takes years, probably you can't learn to do it at all.
     But back to the report.

          By the end of my second visit [he says], I had begun to
     conquer that sense of awful hopelessness.
          I had seen the smiles, and heard the laughter, and
     witnessed the courage.
          They exercise, they discover, they socialize. They
     talk, and they sing, and they laugh, and they touch--but all
     the time they are learning to cope with the unseen, scary
     world around them.

So says the reporter. The children have courage. The world is
scary. This description reminds me of a conversation I once
overheard between two sighted volunteers who were planning an
outing for blind people who were members of a large church. One
volunteer said to the other: "First we give them lunch. Then we
walk them on the lawn."
     Undoubtedly our veteran journalist would have felt right at
home "walking them on the lawn." But we should not do this man an
injustice. He has not written casually. He has thought it through
and has a philosophy of blindness.

     Since 90 percent of a person's learning is by sight [he
     says], these kids suffer the biggest learning handicap of
     all--and many of them have other physical disabilities to
     add to their burden.

     In the spirit of his philosophy, here is how he describes
the techniques used by these blind children to identify objects:

          To find his seat at the lunch table [the veteran
     journalist tells us], four-and-a-half-year-old Vincent feels
     along the row of chairs, touching an item on the back of
     each. When he finds the piece of macaroni, he knows that's
     where he sits.
          Vincent has chosen macaroni as his sign, to mark his
     chair and his storage cubicle--because he can't see his own
     name.

     Does it occur to you to wonder what stimulated this tear-
jerking piece of trash? Well, the answer is not hard to find. The
article appeared a week before Christmas, and the program for the
blind in question was being hyped to receive donations from the
1994 charity drive then being conducted by the Denver Post.
     The final portion of the article is thoroughly appropriate
in the context. Here is what it says:

          To contribute, use the coupon on Page 8T in today's
     Denver Post.
          Please--do it for the Macaroni Kid.

     So that's the Christmas present the Denver Post gave to the
blind of the nation last year. If any of you leave your chairs
and plan to return, I assume you will tie a lettuce leaf on the
back or smear a little gravy for identification.
     But enough of this foolishness! In reality it isn't funny.
We are dealing with something that is as sinister and serious as
the lives and destinies of us all. The fact that most people
won't see it that way doesn't lessen the damage. It makes it
worse. As to the Macaroni Kid, he won't thank the Denver Post as
he grows up--or if he does, there will truly be cause for tears
and pity--tragedy indeed. His chance for a full life will be much
enhanced if articles like the one I have just quoted cease to be
written.
     And here is where we come in, we of the National Federation
of the Blind. If we are willing to let this article (and others
like it) go unchallenged, all will be peace and goodwill. But if
we challenge and debunk such articles (as surely we will and
must), conflict and resentment will inevitably result. In the
circumstances and with carefully considered and deliberate
purpose, I say: Let it be so. Let the conflict come. In fact, if
it does not come to hunt us, we will go and hunt it. We will do
it for the blind of the nation; we will do it for ourselves; and,
yes, we will do it for the Macaroni Kid. He deserves better than
he got, and we will help him get it.
     And it is not just the Macaroni Kid who gets hurt by
articles like the one in the Denver Post. This spring, as I was
preparing for the convention of the National Federation of the
Blind, I received a call from a woman who was clearly in a state
of agitation. She told me that she had been receiving our
literature and that she didn't want it anymore. From the tone of
her voice I could tell that she was extremely upset. I asked her
what the trouble was, and she responded by telling me that she
had asked in the past to be removed from the mailing list to
receive our literature and our monthly magazine, the Braille
Monitor, and that she could not have this literature coming to
her home. She said that her children would see it. I said that
our literature might be of help to her, and she said: "I realize
that, but my children are not dumb. They will know."
     With real reluctance and great sadness I removed her name
from the mailing list. This woman is becoming blind. We had been
sending her our literature because she clearly needs it. However,
she thought that she could hide her blindness from the members of
her own family--and she felt the need to do so. She won't accept
our help because she is ashamed of becoming blind, and she is
making a desperate effort to prevent others from learning that
she is losing her sight. She wants to keep this from her
children. She wants to protect them from the shame, and she wants
to hide.
     With such an attitude this woman is destined for failure.
Such is the result of articles like the one in the Denver Post.
Such is the predictable fate of the Macaroni Kid unless we can
change it. Such is the tragedy of blindness. Such is the
challenge for all of us.
     As I have said, we in the Federation will avoid controversy
when we can, but we will meet it when we must. We have the
vehicle to handle conflict, and we know how to use it. We know
that all conflict contains an element of loss but that without
conflict there is stagnation. There is no progress. And one thing
is certain--we intend to have progress.
     As everybody knows, we live in a time of turmoil. The
federal government is re-examining its role in programs for the
blind, and the state governments are doing the same. So is the
private sector, and so are we. A few years ago many of the groups
of the disabled (including some of the blind) seemed to think
that the Americans With Disabilities Act would solve all (or, at
least, most) of our problems--but we in the Federation never felt
that way--and we don't feel that way now. Whether the
restructuring of public buildings, the redesigning of the
workplace, and the reconfiguration of the environment mandated by
the ADA are a good or a bad thing is not pertinent to what I am
saying tonight. What is pertinent is this: Ultimately government
cannot make us free, cannot make us equal participants in
society. Business cannot do it; the press cannot do it; the
public at large cannot do it; and the agencies for the blind
cannot do it. We will either do it for ourselves, or it will not
be done. Others can help (and certainly they can hinder)--but in
the total scheme of things they cannot give us freedom, and they
cannot keep us from having it. We have come too far for that. We
are too strong, too determined, too well organized, too
knowledgeable about our own needs and strengths, and too close to
the final goal to allow it to happen.
     I want to be clearly understood. We are not seeking
unnecessary conflict, and we are not trying to belittle the
importance of the help which agencies for the blind and the
general public can give. Without goodwill and understanding on
the part of the public, we can't make it. But the same is true of
every other segment of society. I believe we will have public
goodwill and understanding because we will work for it and earn
it. I also think we need the assistance of the governmental and
private agencies doing work with the blind, but we must establish
the context and define the terms. The nature of the contact with
the agencies and the extent of their influence must be limited,
not total. We must have partnership, not custody.
     There is still much to be done as we move from second-class
status to first-class membership in society. Certain
representatives of the press; some of the scientific community;
the remaining misguided, self-proclaimed experts in the field of
work with the blind; and even some of us who are blind hold
outmoded notions that look to yesterday instead of tomorrow. But
with all of our problems we are making more progress than we have
ever made, and our future is bright with hope.
     As to our relationship with agencies for the blind, conflict
has diminished, and increasingly we are considering alliances and
turning outward to broader confrontations. This does not mean
that all conflict inside the blindness field is finished or that
it will not recur. It simply means that we are making progress.
We take pride in our heritage, both in the progress and in the
conflict which was necessary to achieve it. What we have done has
worked. Look about you tonight for the evidence. We the blind
have come here in our thousands. We have come from every part of
the nation. We have come with our hopes and dreams. We have come
to reaffirm our unity and purpose as the strongest collective
force for growth in matters dealing with the blind. We have come,
not only to remember the past, but to plan for today and to build
for the years and the decades ahead. We have come with the
knowledge that we possess the capacity to meet the challenge. As
we have repeatedly said, we want no strife or confrontation, but
we will do what we have to do. Our future is in our own hands,
and it has never looked better. If we do not go the rest of the
way to full membership in society, the fault will be ours--not
somebody else's. We can ask no more; we will accept no less. And
make no mistake! We intend to have progress! My brothers and my
sisters, let us make it come true.


[Photo #37 Caption: The banquet always has a multiplicity of facets and a
captivating concatination of circumstances. Here Hazel tenBroek (the
Federation's first First Lady) sits next to Frank Kurt Cylke (Director of the
National Library service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped) and points
her camera at the camera, pictures within pictures within pictures.]

[Photo #38 Caption: Robert C. St.Clair, Vice President, McDougal Littell,
Inc., A Houghton Mifflin Company, and Chairperson, Committee Serving Students
with Disabilities, Association of American Publishers, Inc.]

[Photo #39 Caption: Christine B. D'Ortona, Deputy Director, School Division,
Association of American Publishers, Inc.]

[Photo #40 Caption: Kathlene Karg, Assistant Director of Copyright and New
Technology, Association of American Publishers, Inc.]

[Photo #41 Caption: Kenneth Jernigan]

                BRAILLE LITERACY, BRAILLE TEXTS,
                        AND BRAILLE BILLS

     From the Editor: The following panel presentation was made
during the Thursday morning, July 6, session of the convention.
The issue addressed, solving the problems faced by text-book
publishers in providing electronic versions of the school books
blind students need and doing so economically and quickly, was
one of the most important discussions of the convention. Here is
the presentation in its entirety:

     Dr. Jernigan: This is an important item on our program,
perhaps as much for the fact of its occurrence as for what any of
us who are making presentations will say. It is long past time
that we and the Association of American Publishers, Inc., got
together and tried to see if we can make common cause. It has
been to our cost and theirs that this has not occurred in the
past.
     Recently I heard the figures thrown around that, to meet the
provisions of the Braille bills, publishers in this country have
costs in excess of $5 million a year, and I said to the person
who told me that, "It may well be, and if so, it serves them
right." Now I didn't say that to be belligerent, but I said it
because, if I had economic interests at stake and I thought
somebody had influence on those interests, I'd go hunt them up.
On the other hand, be it said on behalf of the publishers that
they made some attempts in this field, but they were not
knowledgeable in the blindness field. They did not know what
group or people to contact. I suspect the fact they are here
indicates now that we will have closer relations in the future.
But also the impact of seeing the numbers here will bring home in
a way that nothing else could that we are the blind of this
country, that we are the ones who are out there in the states and
localities and before Congress, working to determine the
legislative agenda and talking about what blind people need and
what they intend to have.
     Let me say that the reason for this agenda item goes back to
the introduction of the first Braille bills. When we got
legislatures in an increasing number of states to enact into law
a provision that any textbook used in that state had to be made
available in an accessible form, our purpose was not to see if we
could find a way to make life difficult for the publishers or to
see if we could add costs to their production. I think also the
publishers had no interest in trying to keep blind people from
having Braille.
     We've been talking to the publishers recently, and I want to
introduce some of them to you, representatives of the American
Association of Publishers. We have three of them here. The first
one is Robert St. Clair. We have him listed in the program as
Director of Production and Manufacturing for McDougal Littell,
Inc., which is (I gather) part of Houghton Mifflin, and the
Chairman of the Committee Serving Students with Disabilities for
the Association of American Publishers, Inc. He has got a
promotion since we put our program together. He is, as of about a
month ago, Vice President of McDougal Littell, Inc., effective
June 6.
     So, fresh from his promotion to say whatever he wishes to
say is Robert St.Clair.

     Robert St.Clair: Thank you, Dr. Jernigan and members of the
National Federation of the Blind. It is my privilege to have this
opportunity to share with you some of my experiences of the past
four years in trying to assess the school publishers' role in
making electronic text files available for translation into
Braille.
     Before I begin my remarks, I want to qualify them by saying
that I speak as the Director of Production and Manufacturing for
only one division of one publishing house. Others may have had
different experiences and may have a different perspective from
mine, and I do not claim to represent them.
     As you all know and as Dr. Jernigan mentioned, for several
years states have been passing legislation that requires
publishers of educational materials to furnish electronic files
of all adopted pupil materials for which Braille translation
software is available. The first state to pass a law that had a
major impact on school publishers was Texas. Although the bill
was not signed into law until late spring, 1991, the requirement
was made retroactive to cover books already submitted for
adoption in April of that year. Those involved in the drafting of
that legislation apparently assumed that all publishers must use
computers to create electronic text files, so that it would be a
simple matter for publishers to copy those files for submission
in Texas and that the files would be appropriate and useful for
translation into Braille. That simply is not the case.
     Whether books are produced out-of-house or in-house, on
high-end composition systems or in page-layout programs, the
resulting files, while meeting the needs of publishers to produce
textbooks for sighted students, do not meet the needs of Braille
producers to prepare materials for visually impaired students.
Thus publishers were forced to create separate, parallel files to
meet the requirements of the Texas law. At the time that the
Texas law was implemented, my employer was a relatively small
independent employee-owned publisher. We had not yet been
acquired by Houghton Mifflin, and the potential financial impact
on our bottom line was significant.
     Simply to have our compositors strip the typesetting codes
from their files in order to create the flat ASCII files required
by law cost approximately $5,000 per title. To edit and sequence
the files to match the printed bound books exactly according to
quotations from our compositors would have cost between $35,000
and $40,000 per title. So the first point I want to emphasize is
that the files that publishers create in the course of developing
a print book are not accurate or appropriate for translation into
Braille. So many changes occurred between the time that the
original word-processed file is complete and the time the
printing plates are made that it is often more efficient and
cost-effective to scan or re-key the bound book and then
proofread and verify and correct the resulting electronic file
than it is to proofread and edit the original word-processed
file. Thus every time a school publishing company is required to
create an electronic file for Braille purposes, it incurs
additional expense.
     As of today, as many as twenty-five states have passed
Braille laws with varying degrees of specificity and
interpretation. Many of them are modeled on the Texas law and
present a variety of problems for publishers. One of these
problems is determining who in the state administration is
responsible for administering the law and who can tell publishers
just what the specifications are. What format is required? When
are files to be submitted? For what subjects? On what timetable?
     The second point I want to emphasize then is that publishers
spend a great deal of valuable staff time unnecessarily just
trying to find out what requirements they need to meet in each of
perhaps twenty-five states. In many cases they are needlessly
duplicating effort by sending the same files to several or many
states. Furthermore, it is conceivable that, when all fifty
states have Braille laws, publishers will be furnishing separate
files to all states for all pupil titles sold or adopted in those
states.
     My third point then is that publishers are creating special
electronic files intended for translation into Braille and
duplicating those files and sending them out to numerous states,
whether or not there are Braille-reading blind students in those
states who need any, much less all, of those books. According to
a survey conducted last year by the Association of American
Publishers, respondents reported that they are spending an
average of $675,000 per year per publisher to meet the many state
requirements. Given the number of different editions of different
texts in different subjects in use in schools of this country,
the odds of a Braille-reading blind student in a given state
needing the eleventh-grade history book published by McDougal
Littell in 1994 are slim indeed. Thus much of the expenditure is
helping no one while adding an adverse effect on the publisher's
profitability.
     I should point out that school publishers are not social
service agencies or welfare organizations. They are for-profit
organizations, whose ultimate responsibility is not only to the
education community, but to their shareholders as well. What then
do we propose as a solution? In 1993 the Association of American
Publishers established a committee to foster communication among
school publishers and to increase their ability to serve Braille-
reading blind students in a meaningful way without unnecessarily
increasing the cost of print materials for sighted students.
     One of the primary missions of the AAP Committee is to
promote the development of a national repository for electronic
files for Braille textbook production. Such a repository at a
minimum would enable publishers to send electronic files to one
location instead of to fifty different locations. Through the
state's own identification and assessment of blind students, the
repository then could determine state requirements and provide
files to states only as needed. It could also serve as a clearing
house to advise states of prior requests from other states and to
avert duplication of effort among state agencies.
     A national repository could not only eliminate unnecessary
waste and duplication, it also could provide a much needed
service to the many state and regional agencies faced with the
formidable task of guaranteeing accessible educational materials
for blind students and others with special needs.
     The final point I want to emphasize is that publishers stand
ready to help in this effort, but it is our fervent hope that we
be allowed to focus our efforts where they are truly needed and
to eliminate the costly duplication of effort that is serving no
one--neither the blind community nor the economy. Thank you.
[applause]

     Dr. Jernigan: Mr. St.Clair, it is refreshing to hear your
talk. You've been very candid. Let me be equally candid. You're
right. Publishers are not in the charity business; they're in the
business of meeting their need to make a profit. We are not in
the charity business for publishers. Although our heart bleeds
for your problems, it also bleeds for blind kids who don't have
an opportunity for books. As you know, what we're trying to do is
to see if our interests can come together and mesh. If they
can't, then they're going to be adversarial, and everybody is
going to suffer. Let me talk just a second, and then I'm going to
introduce the next persons on the panel.
     One of the problems you mention for publishers can be seen
in a different perspective. Suppose that you published books only
in Braille, and suppose you said, "Well, unless we can first find
a sighted kid who needs print, we won't publish that book at all.
It won't be immediately available." The problem we've found with
Braille over and over is that the teachers say, "Well, I don't
run into enough kids who need Braille, so therefore I won't get
trained in Braille because I won't use Braille." And the
publishers have always said, "Well, we don't know any kids out
there who read Braille, so we won't prepare the book for them in
Braille." Then a blind child comes along, and the teacher says,
"Gosh, I'd like to teach you Braille, but I don't know it, and
there are no books available in Braille." So you are in a vicious
circle. [applause]
     At a minimum we intend to have quickly available in every
state any textbook used by sighted students in that state. Now
that doesn't mean that it has to be on the premises at that time.
You're right. We ought to be able to streamline the effort
better. That's why your organization and ours need to work
together. We pass the Braille bills. Nobody else. We pass them.
And we intend to pass them in every other state. And we intend to
amend the federal law to make it a federal requirement. The only
question is this: Do we work separately and adversarially, or can
we find a way--and I hope and believe we can--to work together?
Ultimately our objective simply must be met. That is--every blind
child in this country must have available to him or her textbooks
in an accessible form so that excellence in education and true
competition are possible. That's what we have to do. [applause]
     Let me now introduce the second of our panelists. I talked
with her on the phone the other day and got acquainted with her.
I found it a pleasant experience. We worked together well in
planning what we would do on this program. She is Christine
D'Ortona. She is the Assistant Director of the School Division of
the Association of American Publishers. It is a pleasure to have
you with us.

     Christine D'Ortona: I must say that I've been a little
anxious about this for a while, not knowing exactly what I would
encounter. But here I am, and I think it will be just fine. My
background in publishing prior to my association with the
Association of American Publishers was trade and then some
special-edition magazines. So I was involved in an entirely
profit-making enterprise, where we sold advertising, and we
didn't do a project if it wasn't going to make the bottom line. I
was pretty surprised when I took my job at AAP as the Assistant
Director of the School Division with no knowledge of how school
publishing is done.
     When Bob St.Clair spoke his piece, he mentioned adoption
states and open territories and electronic files. I'm not sure if
you all are more savvy now than I was then, but an adoption state
is one of twenty-two states in this country in which a kid learns
from instructional materials dictated by state committees'
decisions of acceptable materials. Consequently, adoption states
are paid a good bit of attention by school publishers because we
(and I'm going to use "we" in the editorial sense because I don't
really work on books; I represent people who do)--we develop a
product with a state's standards in mind and then hope after we
have spent that many millions of dollars developing a product
that the state says, "Yes, this is exactly what we want. Please
come into our school districts and sell these things to our
children."
     So school publishing is unlike other kinds of publishing.
You put out the cash up front. You make the expenditure up front
and then hope that all those development costs will pan out. This
is one of the areas where production of electronic files for
Braille books is very costly. If I'm going to present a program
in Texas or Arkansas, which right now is pretty tough with the
Braille law, I have to be prepared. However large my program is,
if I have a basal reading program of three hundred titles, I have
to be ready to put all of those in Braille.
     Now I know that's wonderful news if I have a blind child
myself or if I'm blind. That's great news. If, however, I am a
publisher and it's not a big-market state, there is sometimes
cause for hesitance. Maybe I don't want to take that program into
that state with that very hard-to-satisfy Braille law.
     Now I hope that I didn't get too many people upset with
that. One of the areas that I've been encouraged to work in with
the Association of American Publishers and with Mr. Maurer and
Dr. Jernigan and NFB is finding a happy medium. Ohio just passed
a Braille law. The original language in the Ohio Braille law was
onerous, to say the least, and unenforceable really. I mean there
was just no way any publisher could list every single title they
had in their entire inventory as available in Braille and at the
same cost as a print text. What we were able to do with Ohio was
we were able to go in and say, "Look, we know what you want. Your
goal is for those kids who need the instructional materials in
Braille to get them as quickly as they can get them, so let's
work together in finding language for the enforcement of this law
that will benefit the kids, give the publishers the time that
they need to do these Braille materials, and ultimately we will
all benefit."
     So that was my first experience with this coming together
and working together that Dr. Jernigan mentioned, and it was
wonderful. We did the same thing with Tennessee. Now I'm working
on New York, so get ready. You're my next target. But I can
honestly and truly say that school publishers are committed to
getting materials into Braille. There was an analogy given me
that Dr. Jernigan was pretty tough in the beginning because he
felt like he had to kick the mule in the head to get its
attention. Well, we're kicked. We're listening.
     I have a very serious request--that we work together to find
reasonable solutions to this very big problem for you, and
"reasonable" is key. You can't tie the hands or put publishers
out of business. That's not going to benefit anyone. [applause]

     Dr. Jernigan: Thank you, Ms. D'Ortona. Let me say this to
you. If some of the electronics manufacturers in this country had
started at the beginning to make some of their products
accessible so that blind persons could use them--read the dials
and so forth--they could have done it for fifty cents apiece. Now
they have to retrofit. So it costs a great deal and very often
doesn't get done. Cooperation is fine, but I tell you what the
publishers must not do is simply dig in their heels and whine.
That won't help. You're not going out of business. You say that
your texts cannot now be quickly put into an accessible form for
Braille. They could have if you had started at the beginning;
and, if you say, "Well, other publishers don't do it. . . ." Take
no comfort from the fact that you're able to modify language in a
given state. We're always going to be there, and we'll go back
and toughen up every state Braille law. We'll keep at it. Now
that's not meaning we're going to fight the publishers. What we
want you to do and what I believe you will do is to work with us
to see that from the very beginning you plan that you're going to
need to make these textbooks available, and then it won't put you
out of business.
     If I were your employer, Ms. D'Ortona, I'd do two things:
I'd fire you if you didn't find a way to make me a profit, and
I'd fire you if you didn't find a way to work out any problems
with the National Federation of the Blind because that would keep
you from making a profit. [applause] That is what I would do.
Life is hard. [laughter]
     Now the third person on our panel is Kathlene Karg,
Assistant Director of Copyright and New Technology, Association
of American Publishers, Inc. Ms. Karg, it's a pleasure to have
you here also. [applause]

     Kathlene Karg: Thank you very much, Dr. Jernigan. It's a
tough audience; you want to fire me before I even talk to you. I
come at this issue from the viewpoint of copyright, which is the
underlying intellectual property behind all the works that we are
talking about today, whether they are only for sighted or whether
we've made that transition to make it available to other sectors
of our society. I also come about it from a viewpoint of the
technology. I agree with you totally, Dr. Jernigan, that if we
had started this process ten years ago and we had started putting
everything into ASCII or SGML or even ICAD, we wouldn't be here
talking about this issue. Of course, then I wouldn't have gotten
to meet you.
     What's done is done, and we have to look towards the future,
and I think that we've been doing that very successfully. I hope
that this is the first step in a long journey together to meet
the goal that we all want--that is, to provide all materials to
every sector of our society on an equal, fair basis. [applause]
     I want to mention one specific role that I take in this
process, because I am located in a Washington, D.C., office. I
want to reassure you that I'm not a techie; I'm not a lawyer; and
I'm not a politician. So why I'm in Washington, I can't figure
out. But what I have done is sit down with some of the staffers
that work in Senator Dole's committees, specifically those that
are dealing with the rights of the disabled and providing
services to the disabled. Senator Dole has shown a lot of
initiative and interest in bringing the issue of creating a
federal repository that Robert St.Clair spoke to you about to
become a reality, swiftly and to the benefit of all. I have given
him language that can go into law immediately, that I think would
be approved by everybody in this room, as well as all of my
members, and it's sitting right now on his desk as things often
do in Washington. So if I was to do anything today, I would call
on NFB, that if this is the initiative that we all want, if this
is what we need--I've seen how effective you are at the state
level--let's work together on a federal level to make this
possible.
     If I may take one other moment just to address the copyright
issue, I know that you have had a number of seminars and
discussions during the last few days on Internet and other
network abilities. I want to say that this is a concern for us
because obviously, if we put an electronic file of one of our
textbooks out to a Brailler, that electronic file can easily be
put on a network, and the entire world can have it in a matter of
seconds. I'm not saying it's a reality yet, but it's a very close
fear to our hearts, not just for the issue of providing Braille,
but for any electronic products that we put out there. We want to
make sure that, when we take this next step, it is a step and not
a plummet off a cliff. So I hope that you will understand these
issues because the copyright issue has been so misunderstood in
public society. It is a right in our Constitution, and it
protects creators and inventors so that they get some rewards for
their work. Without that we are going to lose our number one
product for this country, which is intellectual property. I'll
close with that. Thank you very much. [applause]

     Dr. Jernigan: I want to emphasize to you that whatever else
comes, Braille must and will be made accessible and available to
blind students in the schools throughout the country. I tell you
this, not asking you as a kindness or a charity. I hope you will
want to do it. But whether you want to do it or not, in the same
way that sighted children in this country would fight, their
parents would fight, for the right for them to have textbooks, we
intend to have textbooks; and we have the clout to make it
happen. We're going to do it. [applause] If you set up a national
repository and we're not involved in it, it won't work. That
doesn't mean that we have to run it, but we have to be assured
it's going to work.
     This has to do with your bottom line; we're approaching you
from that point of view. We want you to make profit, a lot of it.
I hope you do. We also want textbooks. You must figure that into
your profit structure, and if necessary you'll have to go back
and rethink the way that from the ground up you publish
textbooks. It's that important. We will ultimately have put into
law that much clout. That's not meant to be a threat. It's meant
simply to be a hopeful thing. All of us want everybody in this
country to have a chance at literacy. The publishers certainly
have an interest in that.
     I wonder if any of you three from the publishing industry--.
You've been good-tempered and candid in dealing with us, and
we've tried to be equally candid in response. It's important that
we get together. We do want to work with you, not in an
adversarial capacity. So, if any of you want to make any
response, we'll take one of you and let you do that. Ms. D'Ortona
will do it.

     Christine D'Ortona: The only response I want to make is: Dr.
Jernigan implied that I felt that I sort of beat Ohio down. That
wasn't it at all. The end result of our working with the NFB in
the State of Ohio was that the kids in Ohio are actually going to
get their materials more quickly and more effectively. You are
going to have better quality. You're going to have better timing.
We were able to go into Ohio and define what it was that the kids
were going to get. My concern is only that some of these states'
laws that are pushed through are pushed through without the
knowledge of what it takes a publisher to do their job. There is
a certain amount of time, there is a certain amount of
technology, and I've already said there is a certain amount of
money--but that's not even the main issue. We know we have to
produce them. The law says we have to produce them to sell in the
state. We have no choice, so what we want to do is work with you
and put together language that affects what it is you want for
your kids and what it is we must do as vendors in your state.
     Working with New York is something that I hope to do so that
we can work out language that makes sense. We don't need a big
board to evaluate how the laws are enforced. We just need
reasonable time periods. We need copyright protection. We need
certain elements built into the laws. I am more than happy to
work with any state group, any NFB group that's writing a law
right now. I'm not a bully. I very much value my publisher's
customers, and that's who you are. Give me a call. Mr. Maurer and
Dr. Jernigan both have my phone number. I will come out there, or
if I don't, I will send representatives who work in your state.
We can work together. Together is the only way this thing is
going to be resolved. [applause]

     Dr. Jernigan: Ms. D'Ortona, I have one more thing to say to
the publishers while we are getting everything out in the open.
Very often, when I go to the publishers or have gone to the
publishers in the last two or three years, once we got them so
they were talking with us, and we with them, anytime you start
talking about specifics they need to do, each one says, "Well,
you see, that's the other publishers. I can't really deal with
this." The publishers are not one unified group. The publishers
had better become one unified group, and that's not said in the
tone of being a bully. That's said in the tone of being a
realist. If the publishers don't get together and deal with
people outside of the publishing industry simply because each one
is so independent, then they are going to have difficulties
economically and otherwise.
     What the publishers need to do is to get their act together,
get together as one group and deal with us. You publishers should
understand that you won't be dealing with our states
individually; you'll be dealing with us as an entire national
body. We can focus resources; and then, if we work together as
the National Federation of the Blind and as the publishers, we
can come up with what's best for the publishers in the way of
profitability and in the way of producing materials, and what's
best for the blind in the way of access to reading material.
That's really what we need to do and why we are glad you did
come. I think that this has been a productive discussion and that
it has been very helpful to us, and I hope it will be to you in
getting on with the business of providing textbooks for blind
children. [applause]

     President Maurer: I want to say this to you who are from the
Association of American Publishers. You have an interest in the
copyright law, and so do we. We were asked recently to provide
proposed language to amend that law to make it much more readily
and easily available to have Braille made available for us. We
did provide that language. You provided language having to do
with a national repository. We didn't discuss ours with you. You
didn't discuss yours with us. If we keep on that way, I suspect
there is going to be conflict. I'd rather there weren't, but if
we don't change, I see no alternative. We will have an interest
in anything dealing with Braille, and we will have an interest in
the copyright law as it deals with Braille or other formatted
book production for blind people.
     Jim Gashel is our Director of Governmental Affairs, and he
is the one principally responsible for dealing with matters that
go before the Congress. He is here at the convention, and I
introduced him to you. I would urge you, when you decide that you
are going to deal with changes in the law affecting blind people,
to consult with us before we get there so that we don't end up,
as we have in front of the legislative committees, with different
points of view. It would be very helpful. I presume that you feel
the same, and it seems only fair that, if any of you would like
to respond to that, I should offer that before we cease.

     Kathlene Karg: I would, of course, like to work with the NFB
legislative body and whatever role they would like to play. I
would like to see your legislation before it hits the floor of
the Senate or the House. It's always nice to know ahead of time
what we are all trying to do together, and I will start to share
what we are doing with you. I think that's the only way we can
possibly make this all work. [applause]

     President Maurer: Thank you very much. It has been a
pleasure, as Dr. Jernigan said, to have all of you come and be
with us. We look forward to working with you in time to come.


[Photo #42 Caption: Ramona Walhof (center), Marc Maurer, and Sheryl Pickering
at the meeting of the Resolutions Committee.]

                   RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED BY THE
                    ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE
                NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
                           JULY, 1995
                        by Ramona Walhof

     From the Editor: Ramona Walhof is the Secretary of the
National Federation of the Blind and President of the NFB of
Idaho. She also serves as the Chairman of the Resolutions
Committee. Each year she presides over the receipt and handling
of all resolutions until they are acted upon by the convention.
This is what she has to say about the resolutions considered at
the 1995 convention of the National Federation of the Blind:

     The Resolutions Committee meets early in the convention and
consists of members from at least half the states. As are most
Federation meetings, the Resolutions Committee meeting is open,
and frequently a large number of observers are present. This
means that issues raised in resolutions are brought to the
attention of several hundred people early in the convention so
that they can be discussed informally as desired throughout the
week.
     The 1995 convention passed fifteen resolutions. The National
Federation of the Blind takes its resolutions seriously. These
are policy statements of the organization, and we use them to let
others know what our policies are.
     Any member of the NFB may present a resolution to the
Resolutions Committee for consideration. After reading and
discussing it, the committee will send it on to the convention
floor with a recommendation of "pass" or "do not pass." In order
to receive action, resolutions must be written clearly and
presented to the NFB President or the committee chairman at least
two weeks before the convention. This year not all the
resolutions presented were in such a condition that the committee
could act on them.
     The Board of Directors may also present resolutions to the
convention floor for action. However, this year all the
resolutions were brought to the committee. The fifteen printed
below were passed by the committee and the convention.
     As usual, we are providing full texts of all the resolutions
passed in Chicago by the 1995 NFB Convention. First I will give a
brief description of each:

     Resolution 95-01 seeks to preserve the linkage between blind
and seniors aged sixty-five to sixty-nine with regard to the
amount of money that can be earned by Social Security
beneficiaries without losing benefits.
     Resolution 95-02 commends Secretary of Education Richard
Riley for removing the National Accreditation Council for
Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped from the list
of accrediting boards recognized by the Department of Education.
     Resolution 95-03 calls upon Congress to amend the Javits-
Wagner-O'Day Act to provide that sheltered workshops for the
blind assist blind persons in preparing for competitive work for
private and public employers and to provide that agencies'
eligibility for government support largely depend on their
effectiveness in this area.
     Resolution 95-04 condemns and deplores the attempt of
representatives of the Association for Education and
Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired (AER) to seek
legislation in various states for the certification of mobility
instructors.
     Resolution 95-05 reiterates the position of the NFB that
separate identifiable agencies generally provide the best service
to the blind and rejects the cross-disability approach.
     Resolution 95-06 calls upon producers of television programs
to confer with NFB representatives about when to read aloud
printed contact information.
     Resolution 95-07 urges the Social Security Administration to
encourage college students to get work experience without being
penalized.
     Resolution 95-08 urges Congress to pass legislation to
eliminate copyright difficulties when material is being produced
in alternative formats for the blind.
     Resolution 95-09 opposes the application of the Javits-
Wagner-O'Day Act to the procurement of specialized materials for
the blind by the National Library Service for the Blind and
Physically Handicapped (NLS), now or in the future.
     Resolution 95-10 requests the Social Security Administration
to develop a clear and simple benefits-reporting system which
beneficiaries can follow when moving from inactivity to work
activity.
     Resolution 95-11 calls upon agencies having responsibility
for guidelines, regulations, or enforcement of the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) to eliminate requirements for detectable
warnings.
     Resolution 95-12 advocates the preservation of identifiable
rehabilitation programs based on the principle of consumer choice
and control and with federal funding available.
     Resolution 95-13 calls upon the U.S. Department of Justice
to support actively decisions of arbitration panels in the
Randolph-Sheppard program.
     Resolution 95-14 seeks equal access for the blind in using
telecommunications services and systems.
     Resolution 95-15 urges manufacturers of computer hardware
and software to make manuals available in Braille when requested
by the blind and the deaf-blind.

                        RESOLUTION 95-01

     WHEREAS, the Social Security Disability Insurance program
includes an exempt earnings provision for blind people so that
work is encouraged with no financial penalty applied to the
extent that earnings do not exceed the exempt amount for seniors
in the age range of sixty-five to seventy; and
     WHEREAS, proposals which are pending in Congress would raise
the current earnings exemption threshold in five annual
adjustments from $11,280 currently to reach $30,000 beginning in
the year 2000; and
     WHEREAS, a version of the earnings exemption changes which
was passed by the House of Representatives as part of the
"Contract with America" legislation would apply the higher
threshold amounts to age sixty-five to seventy retirees but not
to blind people, leaving blind people with an earnings exemption
of $11,280; and
     WHEREAS, the objective of the earnings limit changes--to
promote work incentives for beneficiaries--is equally valid for
blind people and senior citizens: Now, therefore,
     BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in
Convention assembled this seventh day of July, 1995, in the City
of Chicago, Illinois, that this organization call upon the
Congress to make changes in the earnings exemption threshold
which apply to blind people to the same extent that they apply to
seniors.

                        RESOLUTION 95-02

     WHEREAS, the National Accreditation Council for Agencies
Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC) appeared for
many years on the Secretary of Education's list of officially
recognized accrediting agencies; and
     WHEREAS, the recognition of NAC by the Secretary of
Education was obtained from the beginning on the basis of
politics and not on the merits of NAC'S program; and
     WHEREAS, throughout its history NAC has severely damaged the
quality of services to the blind by attempting to force itself
upon the field in a way that was calculated from the beginning to
overpower the views of blind consumers; and
     WHEREAS, the Secretary of Education, Richard W. Riley,
decided to remove NAC from the list after reviewing information
supplied by the National Federation of the Blind in which it was
clearly demonstrated to him that NAC was no longer eligible for
recognition: Now, therefore,
     BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in
Convention assembled this seventh day of July, 1995, in the City
of Chicago, Illinois, that this organization applaud and commend
Secretary Riley for acting forthrightly to remove NAC from the
list of officially recognized accrediting agencies.

                        RESOLUTION 95-03

     WHEREAS, the Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act, originally known as
the Wagner-O'Day Act, became law in 1938, for the purpose of
giving a non-competitive priority in federal purchasing to favor
items made by blind people at non-profit agencies called
sheltered workshops; and
     WHEREAS, the jobs made possible by virtue of the Javits-
Wagner-O'Day Act are not in the competitive labor force and, in
the vast majority of instances, never lead to jobs that are in
the open labor market; and
     WHEREAS, in its operation of the Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act in
the manner just described, the federal government is overseeing
and financing a system of segregated employment settings for
blind and disabled people, directly contravening the policy of
the United States, declared in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as
amended, to promote employment opportunities for persons with
disabilities in integrated settings: Now, therefore,
     BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in
Convention assembled this seventh day of July, 1995, in the City
of Chicago, Illinois, that this organization urge the Congress to
enact legislation which will reshape and reform the Javits-
Wagner-O'Day program into an instrument of job training and
transitional work opportunities for blind people, providing for
each person employed in the program a plan with specifically
identified goals and time schedules to obtain competitive
employment; and
     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that eligibility for agencies to
participate in the Javits-Wagner-O'Day program be based to a
considerable extent on each agency's consistent demonstration of
its ability to enable blind people to achieve competitive
employment outcomes.

                        RESOLUTION 95-04

     WHEREAS, the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of
the Blind and Visually Impaired (AER) is promoting legislation
for enactment in the states and seeking to create a state-
administered regulatory scheme for certification of mobility
instructors; and
     WHEREAS, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, where
legislation of this type has been proposed most recently, the
certification standards, examination policies, and other related
matters would all be regulated by a board to be known as the
"State Board of Examiners in Orientation and Mobility;" and
     WHEREAS, according to the legislation, the board would
consist of nine members appointed by the governor, seven of whom
"shall be engaged in rendering professional services in
orientation and mobility, one shall be engaged in rendering
professional services in ophthalmology or optometry, and one who
is legally blind shall represent consumer interests"; and
     WHEREAS, the make-up of the proposed board alone reveals
AER's real purpose, to control the practice of orientation and
mobility teaching by having the certification and examination
standards shaped to fulfill its own narrow objectives; and
     WHEREAS, it is a grandiose and false notion in the extreme
to think that teaching independent travel methods to the blind is
so intellectually challenging and technically difficult that
state-level certification is warranted to assure appropriate
expertise when such has never been demonstrated at any time or in
any state: Now, therefore,
     BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in
Convention assembled this seventh day of July, 1995, in the City
of Chicago, Illinois, that this organization reject AER's
proposed orientation and mobility instructor certification
legislation and vigorously oppose this legislation in every state
in which the legislation is introduced; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we condemn and deplore the
efforts of AER to use state certification legislation as the
means of seizing control over mobility instruction for the blind.

                        RESOLUTION 95-05

     WHEREAS, on more than one occasion during the past several
months the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL) has
issued official position statements to the effect that all
programs which receive federal funds for serving people with
disabilities should be "cross-disability programs," meaning that
they should serve anyone with any disability and not be
specialized in their approach; and
     WHEREAS, the statements made by NCIL have had particular
reference to services for the blind provided through specialized
agencies, such as separate state agencies for the blind, which at
the option of the states are permitted to receive direct federal
funding under Title I of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as
amended; and
     WHEREAS, the attempt to enforce a cross-disability mold upon
all programs and services is undesirable and not workable in that
individuals often have particular disabilities, such as
blindness, deafness, or other specific conditions; and
     WHEREAS, the notion that everyone must conform to a
generalist view of disability is an attempt to strong-arm the
entire service-delivery system to fit a particular view of
disability, not the particular needs of individuals: Now,
therefore,
     BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in
Convention assembled this seventh day of July, 1995, in the City
of Chicago, Illinois, that this organization firmly and
forcefully reject use of the cross-disability approach in the
organization, planning, and delivery of training, adjustment, and
supportive services; and
     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we reaffirm the long-standing
policy of this organization to preserve and create wherever
possible a specialized approach to services for the blind
provided by identifiable and consumer-responsive agencies.

                        RESOLUTION 95-06

     WHEREAS, many informational programs and commercials are
aired on television and cable channels that make use of silently
displayed contact information such as toll-free telephone
numbers; and
     WHEREAS, persons who are blind cannot easily obtain this
information from these broadcasts: Now, therefore,
     BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in
Convention assembled this seventh day of July, 1995, in the City
of Chicago, Illinois, that this organization call upon television
networks, local stations, cable companies, and producers of
programs for the above throughout this country to confer with
representatives of the National Federation of the Blind regarding
the verbalization of essential telephone numbers and similar
information.

                        RESOLUTION 95-07

     WHEREAS, blind students in postsecondary education programs
should be encouraged to obtain work experience through activities
such as internships, work study, and similar programs; and
     WHEREAS, students who participate in these programs are
often challenged by the Social Security Administration on the
assumption that the income which they have received or will
receive will likely affect entitlement to cash benefits; and
     WHEREAS, policies and regulations of the Social Security
Administration should, to the maximum extent possible, encourage
work activity by beneficiaries and should particularly avoid
penalizing students who are performing useful work as a means of
acquiring experience and skills needed for obtaining and
retaining employment; and
     WHEREAS, it is particularly important that, in the case of
full-time students who are disability insurance beneficiaries,
months of trial work should not be counted for income received
and services provided under virtually any foreseeable
circumstance, and, in the case of full-time students who are SSI
recipients, arrangements should be made to exempt income and
resources through expedited approval of Plans for Achieving Self
Support or other procedures: Now, therefore,
     BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in
Convention assembled this seventh day of July, 1995, in the city
of Chicago, Illinois, that this organization urge the Social
Security Administration to issue revised and clear guidelines
especially designed to promote work experience for students; and
     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the guidelines called for in
this resolution be designed to enable students who are
beneficiaries to obtain work experience without penalty so that
they are encouraged to view work as the most attractive option
available.

                        RESOLUTION 95-08

     WHEREAS, revision of copyright laws is under review in
Congress in part as the result of the burgeoning capacity for
electronic publishing and distribution of information; and
     WHEREAS, copyright clearance is often the major obstacle to
the timely conversion of printed matter into Braille or sound-
recorded formats designed for use by the blind; and
     WHEREAS, any delay in obtaining copyright permission to
reproduce printed matter in formats that are exclusively useful
to blind and visually impaired persons cannot be justified on the
basis of protecting intellectual property or financial interest
since the material is already published and available to sighted
readers: Now, therefore,
     BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in
Convention assembled this seventh day of July, 1995, in the City
of Chicago, Illinois, that this organization urge the Congress to
enact statutory provisions which will assure that copyrighted
works may be reproduced at any time if the purpose for the
reproduction, as indicated by the format used, is to provide
blind and visually impaired persons with direct access to the
work in question.

                        RESOLUTION 95-09

     WHEREAS, the National Library Service for the Blind and
Physically Handicapped (NLS) is responsible under federal law for
providing reading matter in Braille and sound-recorded formats;
and
     WHEREAS, in order to make this service possible, the NLS
relies principally upon specialized, nonprofit production
facilities which supply specified quantities of books and
magazines under contract; and
     WHEREAS, a competitive process is used by NLS to obtain the
greatest amount of suitable material from the few suppliers
available at the most favorable price possible; and
     WHEREAS, efforts have been made to require NLS to alter this
approach, at least in certain instances, by giving a non-
competitive priority to programs operating under the Javits-
Wagner-O'Day Act; and
     WHEREAS, application of the Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act to
materials procurement by NLS has distinct programmatic and
financial disadvantages and is not in the ultimate best interest
of the vast majority of blind and visually impaired readers: Now,
therefore,
     BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in
Convention assembled this seventh day of July, 1995, in the City
of Chicago, Illinois, that this organization oppose application
of the Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act to the procurement of specialized
materials for the blind by NLS; and
     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that, in the event of future efforts
to restrict procurement activities of NLS by entities in the
Javits-Wagner-O'Day program, this organization, to the extent
necessary, seek appropriate exemption legislation.

                        RESOLUTION 95-10

     WHEREAS, senior officials of the Social Security
Administration speak with great conviction of their desire to
reduce the work disincentives in the cash benefits and medical
assistance programs; and
     WHEREAS, in order to achieve this objective, the policies
and procedures of the Social Security Administration at all
levels, but particularly in local offices, should reinforce the
view that work activity for beneficiaries is preferred over
inactivity and, in fact, is the expected norm; and
     WHEREAS, work activity among blind people could best be
promoted by presenting beneficiaries with current, individualized
reports with sufficient detail for them to know the current
information on file concerning the months of trial work used and
available, the beginning and ending dates for an extended period
of eligibility, the amount of time remaining (if any) for
Medicare part A coverage to continue without charge, and other
matters relating to the anticipated effect that work may have on
benefit eligibility; and
     WHEREAS, the current procedures for handling claims nullify
the pro-work stance of the Social Security Administration by
failing to anticipate work of beneficiaries and, as a
consequence, not giving them a user-friendly and simple way to
submit work reports routinely; and
     WHEREAS, the unintended consequence of the present reporting
and data-tracking procedures relating to work activity is that a
punitive "got-ya" approach appears to be the principal method
used to monitor work, with virtually all of the consequences
being disclosed as after-the-fact penalties, not before-the-fact
advantages: Now, therefore,
     BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in
Convention assembled this seventh day of July, 1995, in the City
of Chicago, Illinois, that this organization reassert to the
Social Security Administration its request for the design and
implementation of a user-friendly work and benefit status
reporting system; and
     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the principal objective of this
system should be to provide a path of clarity and simplicity for
beneficiaries to follow in going from inactivity to work
activity.

                        RESOLUTION 95-11

     WHEREAS, the need for and usefulness of so-called detectable
warnings has now been studied extensively by groups of
professional researchers at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute
and State University and the Battelle Memorial Institute; and
     WHEREAS, the findings of both studies confirm the everyday
experience of blind people, that safe travel from place to place
does not depend upon having strips of truncated domes installed
to surround features of the built environment such as streets and
drop-offs; and
     WHEREAS, the research also shows that the strips of
truncated domes do not make a unique or even significant
contribution to safe and effective mobility for blind people in
moving about through the public streets and in using transit
stations; and
     WHEREAS, truncated domes are a potential hazard to everyone;
and
     WHEREAS, in light of the research results and the
substantial body of evidence that blind people neither want nor
need detectable warnings, the guidelines and regulations
requiring them cannot be supported and should not be enforced:
Now, therefore,
     BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in
Convention assembled this seventh day of July, 1995, in the City
of Chicago, Illinois, that this organization urge all agencies
having responsibility for guidelines, regulations, or enforcement
of the Americans with Disabilities Act to remove all references
to and abandon all requirements for detectable warnings; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization express as a
matter of policy its commitment to assist entities covered by the
ADA in efforts to defend themselves against enforcement of
requirements for detectable warnings.

                        RESOLUTION 95-12

     WHEREAS, Congress is considering bills to consolidate laws
and programs relating to education, training, and employment for
youth and adults; and
     WHEREAS, the impetus for the consolidation approach is to
move responsibility for program leadership from the federal
government to state or local governments and to reduce federal
spending in the process; and
     WHEREAS, both original and redrafted versions of the various
consolidation measures contain plans to merge the vocational
rehabilitation program with the delivery of job-training and
employment services for the general non-disabled and unemployed
population, but the more recent proposals, particularly the bill
being considered in the Senate, have called for maintaining
vocational rehabilitation as a distinctive state-administered
program with a significant continuing federal role in both
funding and policy leadership; and
     WHEREAS, reforming the vocational rehabilitation program so
that consumer responsiveness and client choice can prevail over
claims of bureaucratic necessity is long overdue, but submerging
the program into the generic job training system would not
achieve this goal and would sacrifice the identifiable service
delivery system in the process: Now, therefore,
     BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in
Convention assembled this seventh day of July, 1995, in the City
of Chicago, Illinois, that this organization continue to serve as
a vigorous advocate for an identifiable vocational rehabilitation
service-delivery system which is based on the principles of
choice and consumer control over individualized service
decisions; and
     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we urge the Congress to reaffirm
the commitment to specialized services which is best expressed by
maintaining leadership within the federal government over
statewide and identifiable public vocational rehabilitation
agencies and with adequate funding provided for services chosen
to meet individual needs.

                        RESOLUTION 95-13

     WHEREAS, the Randolph-Sheppard Act contains an arbitration
procedure, which can be used by state licensing agencies to
challenge violations of the law by federal property-managing
departments, agencies, and instrumentalities; and
     WHEREAS, according to the Randolph-Sheppard Act the decision
of an arbitration panel in a proceeding such as this is binding,
and the head of the property managing agency is obliged to cause
any violation found to cease; and
     WHEREAS, resistance to, rather than compliance with, the
decisions of arbitration panels has become the normal response of
federal property managers (most notably the Department of
Veterans Affairs in recent cases) who act as though the decision
of a Randolph-Sheppard arbitration panel means nothing; and
     WHEREAS, it has become the expected practice of the
Department of Justice to join with federal agencies and officials
in resisting, and in fact disregarding, arbitration panel
decisions: Now, therefore,
     BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in
Convention assembled this seventh day of July, 1995, in the City
of Chicago, Illinois, that this organization call upon the
Department of Justice to cease and desist from assisting with or
promoting resistance to arbitration decisions issued pursuant to
the Randolph-Sheppard Act; and
     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this Federation request
cooperation by the Department of Justice in assuring that
decisions of Randolph-Sheppard panels are given the substantial
deference and weight they deserve as official rulings in the
administration of the Randolph-Sheppard Program.

                        RESOLUTION 95-14

     WHEREAS, bills now pending in Congress offer the possibility
of removing legal obstacles to rapid expansion of our nation's
telecommunications capacity and the variety of services
available; and
     WHEREAS, the proposed changes in the law underscore the
necessity for a highly developed telecommunications
infrastructure to support the needs of our society, including the
needs of people who are blind, in the information age; and
     WHEREAS, in order for blind people to compete and interact
on equal terms with others, it is essential that the efficient
and effective use of telecommunications equipment and services
not become dependent upon the ability to see; and
     WHEREAS, access provisions for persons with disabilities,
including the blind, have been included in somewhat different
forms in both House and Senate versions of the telecommunications
reform legislation: Now, therefore,
     BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in
Convention assembled this seventh day of July, 1995, in the City
of Chicago, Illinois, that this organization urge the Congress
promptly to complete action on a comprehensive telecommunications
reform measure which includes the strongest possible affirmative
statement that access for people who are blind is required; and
     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that upon the enactment of the
telecommunications reform legislation this Federation will do all
in its power to seek approval of regulations and standards which
will assure that efficient and effective equal access methods are
available for blind people in using telecommunications equipment
and services.

                        RESOLUTION 95-15

     WHEREAS, accessibility to computer hardware and software
results in more job opportunities, broader academic pursuits, and
a higher level of independence for blind and deaf-blind
consumers; and
     WHEREAS, this accessibility is often contingent upon the
availability of user's manuals in Braille; and
     WHEREAS, the availability of user's manuals in Braille is
virtually non-existent: Now, therefore,
     BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in
Convention assembled this seventh day of July, 1995, in the City
of Chicago, Illinois, that this organization actively advocate
for the provision of Braille editions of manuals for users of
computer hardware and software and that these manuals be
available on request from the manufacturers of these products.


                          CONSTITUTION
                             OF THE
                NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
                         AS AMENDED 1986

ARTICLE I. NAME
     The name of this organization is the National Federation of
the Blind.

ARTICLE II. PURPOSE
     The purpose of the National Federation of the Blind is to
serve as a vehicle for collective action by the blind of the
nation; to function as a mechanism through which the blind and
interested sighted persons can come together in local, state, and
national meetings to plan and carry out programs to improve the
quality of life for the blind; to provide a means of collective
action for parents of blind children; to promote the vocational,
cultural, and social advancement of the blind; to achieve the
integration of the blind into society on a basis of equality with
the sighted; and to take any other action which will improve the
overall condition and standard of living of the blind.

ARTICLE III. MEMBERSHIP
     Section A. The membership of the National Federation of the
Blind shall consist of the members of the state affiliates, the
members of divisions, and members at large. Members of divisions
and members at large shall have the same rights, privileges, and
responsibilities in the National Federation of the Blind as
members of state affiliates.
     The Board of Directors shall establish procedures for
admission of divisions and shall determine the structure of
divisions. The divisions shall, with the approval of the Board,
adopt constitutions and determine their membership policies.
Membership in divisions shall not be conditioned upon membership
in state affiliates.
     The Board of Directors shall establish procedures for
admission of members at large, determine how many classes of such
members shall be established, and determine the annual dues to be
paid by members of each class.
     Section B. Each state or territorial possession of the
United States, including the District of Columbia, having an
affiliate shall have one vote at the National Convention. These
organizations shall be referred to as state affiliates.
     Section C. State affiliates shall be organizations of the
blind controlled by the blind. No organization shall be
recognized as an "organization of the blind controlled by the
blind" unless at least a majority of its voting members and a
majority of the voting members of each of its local chapters are
blind.
     Section D. The Board of Directors shall establish procedures
for the admission of state affiliates. There shall be only one
state affiliate in each state.
     Section E. Any member, local chapter, state affiliate, or
division of this organization may be suspended, expelled, or
otherwise disciplined for misconduct or for activity unbecoming
to a member or affiliate of this organization by a two-thirds
vote of the Board of Directors or by a simple majority of the
states present and voting at a National Convention. If the action
is to be taken by the Board, there must be good cause, and a good
faith effort must have been made to try to resolve the problem by
discussion and negotiation. If the action is to be taken by the
Convention, notice must be given on the preceding day at an open
Board meeting or a session of the Convention. If a dispute arises
as to whether there was "good cause," or whether the Board made a
"good faith effort," the National Convention (acting in its
capacity as the supreme authority of the Federation) shall have
the power to make final disposition of the matter; but until or
unless the Board's action is reversed by the National Convention,
the ruling of the Board shall continue in effect.

            ARTICLE IV. OFFICERS, BOARD OF DIRECTORS,
                   AND NATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD
     Section A. The officers of The National Federation of the
Blind shall be: (1) President, (2) First Vice President, (3)
Second Vice President, (4) Secretary, and (5) Treasurer. They
shall be elected biennially.
     Section B. The officers shall be elected by majority vote of
the state affiliates present and voting at a National Convention.
     Section C. The National Federation of the Blind shall have a
Board of Directors, which shall be composed of the five officers
and twelve additional members, six of whom shall be elected at
the Annual Convention during even numbered years and six of whom
shall be elected at the Annual Convention during odd numbered
years. The members of the Board of Directors shall serve for two-
year terms.
     Section D. The Board of Directors may, in its discretion,
create a National Advisory Board and determine the duties and
qualifications of the members of the National Advisory Board.

         ARTICLE V. POWERS AND DUTIES OF THE CONVENTION,
            THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS, AND THE PRESIDENT
     Section A. Powers and Duties of the Convention. The
Convention is the supreme authority of the Federation. It is the
legislature of the Federation. As such, it has final authority
with respect to all issues of policy. Its decisions shall be made
after opportunity has been afforded for full and fair discussion.
Delegates and members in attendance may participate in all
Convention discussions as a matter of right. Any member of the
Federation may make or second motions, propose nominations, and
serve on committees; and is eligible for election to office,
except that only blind members may be elected to the National
Board. Voting and making motions by proxy are prohibited.
Consistent with the democratic character of the Federation,
Convention meetings shall be so conducted as to prevent
parliamentary maneuvers which would have the effect of
interfering with the expression of the will of the majority on
any question, or with the rights of the minority to full and fair
presentation of their views. The Convention is not merely a
gathering of representatives of separate state organizations. It
is a meeting of the Federation at the national level in its
character as a national organization. Committees of the
Federation are committees of the national organization. The
nominating committee shall consist of one member from each state
affiliate represented at the Convention, and each state affiliate
shall appoint its member to the committee. From among the members
of the committee, the President shall appoint a chairperson.

     Section B. Powers and Duties of the Board of Directors. The
function of the Board of Directors as the governing body of the
Federation between Conventions is to make policies when necessary
and not in conflict with the policies adopted by the Convention.
Policy decisions which can reasonably be postponed until the next
meeting of the National Convention shall not be made by the Board
of Directors. The Board of Directors shall serve as a credentials
committee. It shall have the power to deal with organizational
problems presented to it by any member, local chapter, state
affiliate, or division; shall decide appeals regarding the
validity of elections in local chapters, state affiliates, or
divisions; and shall certify the credentials of delegates when
questions regarding the validity of such credentials arise. By a
two-thirds vote the Board may suspend one of its members for
violation of a policy of the organization or for other action
unbecoming to a member of the Federation. By a two-thirds vote
the Board may reorganize any local chapter, state affiliate, or
division. The Board may not suspend one of its own members or
reorganize a local chapter, state affiliate, or division except
for good cause and after a good faith effort has been made to try
to resolve the problem by discussion and negotiation. If a
dispute arises as to whether there was "good cause" or whether
the Board made a "good faith effort," the National Convention
(acting in its capacity as the supreme authority of the
Federation) shall have the power to make final disposition of the
matter; but until or unless the Board's action is reversed by the
National Convention, the ruling of the Board shall continue in
effect. There shall be a standing subcommittee of the Board of
Directors which shall consist of three members. The committee
shall be known as the Subcommittee on Budget and Finance. It
shall, whenever it deems necessary, recommend to the Board of
Directors principles of budgeting, accounting procedures, and
methods of financing the Federation program; and shall consult
with the President on major expenditures.
     The Board of Directors shall meet at the time of each
National Convention. It shall hold other meetings on the call of
the President or on the written request of any five members.
     Section C. Powers and Duties of the President. The President
is the principal administrative officer of the Federation. In
this capacity his or her duties consist of: carrying out the
policies adopted by the Convention; conducting the day-to-day
management of the affairs of the Federation; authorizing
expenditures from the Federation treasury in accordance with and
in implementation of the policies established by the Convention;
appointing all committees of the Federation except the Nominating
Committee; coordinating all activities of the Federation,
including the work of other officers and of committees; hiring,
supervising, and dismissing staff members and other employees of
the Federation, and determining their numbers and compensation;
taking all administrative actions necessary and proper to put
into effect the programs and accomplish the purposes of the
Federation. The implementation and administration of the interim
policies adopted by the Board of Directors are the responsibility
of the President as principal administrative officer of the
Federation.

                  ARTICLE VI. STATE AFFILIATES
     Any organized group desiring to become a state affiliate of
The National Federation of the Blind shall apply for affiliation
by submitting to the President of the National Federation of the
Blind a copy of its constitution and a list of the names and
addresses of its elected officers. Under procedures to be
established by the Board of Directors, action shall be taken on
the application. If the action is affirmative, the National
Federation of the Blind shall issue to the organization a charter
of affiliation. Upon request of the National President the state
affiliate shall provide to the National President the names and
addresses of its members. Copies of all amendments to the
constitution and/or bylaws of an affiliate shall be sent without
delay to the National President. No organization shall be
accepted as an affiliate and no organization shall remain an
affiliate unless at least a majority of its voting members are
blind. The president, vice president (or vice presidents), and at
least a majority of the executive committee or board of directors
of the state affiliate and of all of its local chapters must be
blind. Affiliates must not merely be social organizations but
must formulate programs and actively work to promote the economic
and social betterment of the blind. Affiliates and their local
chapters must comply with the provisions of the Constitution of
the Federation.
     Policy decisions of the Federation are binding upon all
affiliates and local chapters, and the affiliate and its local
chapters must participate affirmatively in carrying out such
policy decisions. The name National Federation of the Blind,
Federation of the Blind, or any variant thereof is the property
of the National Federation of the Blind; and any affiliate, or
local chapter of an affiliate, which ceases to be part of the
National Federation of the Blind (for whatever reason) shall
forthwith forfeit the right to use the name National Federation
of the Blind, Federation of the Blind, or any variant thereof.
     A general convention of the membership of an affiliate or of
the elected delegates of the membership must be held and its
principal executive officers must be elected at least once every
two years. There can be no closed membership. Proxy voting is
prohibited in state affiliates and local chapters. Each affiliate
must have a written constitution or bylaws setting forth its
structure, the authority of its officers, and the basic
procedures which it will follow. No publicly contributed funds
may be divided among the membership of an affiliate or local
chapter on the basis of membership, and (upon request from the
National Office) an affiliate or local chapter must present an
accounting of all of its receipts and expenditures. An affiliate
or local chapter must not indulge in attacks upon the officers,
Board members, leaders, or members of the Federation or upon the
organization itself outside of the organization, and must not
allow its officers or members to indulge in such attacks. This
requirement shall not be interpreted to interfere with the right
of an affiliate or local chapter, or its officers or members, to
carry on a political campaign inside the Federation for election
to office or to achieve policy changes. However, the organization
will not sanction or permit deliberate, sustained campaigns of
internal organizational destruction by state affiliates, local
chapters, or members. No affiliate or local chapter may join or
support, or allow its officers or members to join or support, any
temporary or permanent organization inside the Federation which
has not received the sanction and approval of the Federation.

                    ARTICLE VII. DISSOLUTION
     In the event of dissolution, all assets of the organization
shall be given to an organization with similar purposes which has
received a 501(c)(3) certification by the Internal Revenue
Service.

                    ARTICLE VIII. AMENDMENTS
     This Constitution may be amended at any regular Annual
Convention of the Federation by an affirmative vote of two-thirds
of the state affiliates registered, present, and voting; provided
that the proposed amendment shall have been signed by five state
affiliates in good standing and that it shall have been presented
to the President the day before final action by the Convention.
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