         Democracy in  Transition: The Second Generation

     The decade of the sixties, said Kenneth Jernigan many years
later, was almost the exact reverse of the fifties for the
organized blind. It began in despair and ended in triumph.  And he
went on to recall:  The Federation drew itself together, shook off
the civil war, and began to rebuild. It was during the sixties that
we lost our great leader, Dr. tenBroek, but he had done his work
well. The progress continued. By the end of the decade we were
bigger, stronger, better financed, and more united than we had ever
been. 

     In truth the National Federation of the Blind during this
decade underwent not only a recovery and revival but a renaissance.
Out of the protracted struggle against the dissidents and enemies
within in the crucible of civil war was forged a leaner movement
with a sharper edge, a tougher hide, and a fiercer will. At times
on the march, in the streets, on the picket lines it took on the
appearance of an army. At the end of the decade, in a stirring
speech at the 1969 convention banquet, Kenneth Jernigan evoked the
spirit not just of reform but of revolution.  The challenge is
ours,  he said,  and the time is now. Our revolution will not wait,
and it will succeed but only if we take the lead and take the
risks. It is for us to persuade, to participate, to persevere, and
to prevail and prevail we will. The time is now, and the challenge
is real. I ask you, with all that the question implies: Will you
join me on the barricades? 

     The forceful message which those words conveyed was the
inspiration for a new generation of the organized blind the second
National Federation of the Blind generation which in the course of
the sixties, borne on the shoulders of their pioneering elders,
came into maturity and authority within the movement. As the leader
and spokesman of the first generation had been Jacobus tenBroek, so
the leader and spokesman of the second generation was Kenneth
Jernigan. (And for the third generation, not yet on the horizon,
the leader and spokesman would be Marc Maurer.) Each of these blind
leaders of the blind placed his stamp and left his mark, indelibly,
upon the period and the movement; and while those imprints were
closely akin and much alike in character, each bore distinguishing
traits of personality and style, as well as of the time and the
generation.

     In an important sense, the new decade might be said to have
begun not in 1960 but with the ending of the civil war and with the
resignation (temporary, as it turned out) of President tenBroek in
favor of a younger set of leaders. The first of these was John
Taylor, who as First Vice President at the time of tenBroek's
resignation in 1961 succeeded automatically to the presidency.
(Perry Sundquist, a veteran leader in the movement, assumed the
presidency briefly in 1962 after Taylor resigned for career reasons
in the spring of that year.) The second of the  youth brigade  was
Russell Kletzing, a California attorney who was elected President
at the Detroit convention in 1962 and served until 1966 the
landmark year in which Dr. tenBroek was restored to the helm of the
movement he had founded (and was now fated to serve for just two
more years before his death).

     The third member of the generation of  young Turks  who were
moving into positions of leadership during the early sixties was
Kenneth Jernigan, then First Vice President of the National
Federation of the Blind as well as director of the Iowa Commission
for the Blind. By the end of the decade Jernigan was to succeed Dr.
tenBroek as President and to retain the official leadership for a
score of years. The future prominence could not have been foreseen
in February, 1963, when the  Blind American  (temporary successor
to the  Braille Monitor ) published a vivid biographical sketch of
Jernigan under the title  Profile of a Trailblazer.  The article
was authored by Anthony Mannino, executive secretary of the
American Brotherhood for the Blind and a leader of the organized
blind movement in California. In the light of later events which
catapulted Jernigan into national and global leadership in the
blindness field, Mannino's early profile takes on the added
interest of a prophetical assessment of character and personality.
Here is the text of the article:

                    PROFILE OF A TRAILBLAZER
                       by Anthony Mannino

      (Editor's note: Mr. Mannino is the executive secretary of the
American Brotherhood for the Blind.)

      Late in 1962, at the Iowa state budget hearings held by the
newly-elected governor, one agency head presented the reports and
estimates of his department so convincingly that on the following
day his presentation was prominently featured by news reporters who
had attended the hearings. The official who had so impressed his
listeners was Kenneth Jernigan, director of the Iowa Commission for
the Blind, delivering the annual report and budget proposals of the
commission. The achievements and plans to which he had given such
forceful expression were the climax of a concentrated effort in
accomplishing the formidable task accepted by this blind leader in
the field of rehabilitation.

      On May 6, 1958, a blind man was asked to assume direction of
the programs for the blind of an entire state. After many years of
efforts by the organized blind to gain consultation and a voice in
programs for the blind, it fell to Ken Jernigan to face the double
test of proving his own ability as well as the soundness of the
philosophy of the organized blind with respect to rehabilitation
and related services.

      When Ken stepped into the job, Iowa was dead last in the
nation in rehabilitation of the blind. Today it stands in the front
ranks of the states in this essential work a leap forward
accomplished in just four years under Ken's direction. His
philosophy proclaims that the real problem of blindness is not loss
of eyesight, but rather the misunderstanding and lack of
information which accompany it. If a blind person has proper
training and an opportunity to make use of it, blindness for him is
only a physical nuisance. On the basis of his firm belief in these
guiding precepts, Jernigan has rapidly built a state program geared
to independence rather than dependency, to rehabilitation rather
than resignation and dedicated to the proposition that blind people
are inherently normal, potentially equal, and thoroughly competent
to lead their own lives and make their own way in competitive
society. And he has proved his case, with resounding success.

      To understand the success of this bold program, and the man
responsible for it, we must go back a generation into the hills of
Tennessee. The Jernigan family had lived in Tennessee for years;
but the time came in the l920s when economic pressures drove many
of the back-country farmers into the cities. Kenneth's father was
one of those who sought work in the factories in order to earn
enough to return to his farm. He chose the automobile industry of
Detroit; and it was there Ken was born in 1926.

      The new baby had scarcely been made comfortable in his crib
when the family moved back to the farm in Tennessee. Somehow,
modern conveniences and motorized farm machinery had not found
their way to this edge of the Cumberland plateau, which was only
fifty miles southeast of Nashville and almost completely inhabited
by Anglo-Saxon people. They still clung to their ancient culture
and their more or less primitive dwellings. Even today, the
mule-drawn plow has not entirely left the scene. Corn, hay, and
milk were the chief agricultural products which gave this
industrious folk their livelihood. Generation followed generation
in the same pattern of life and endeavor.

      But little Kenneth was different from the other folk. He had
been born blind. However, this did not seem to create any great
problem or concern in the Jernigan household. The child received a
typical upbringing, and as he grew older he assumed a few of the
many chores which had to be done about the farm. Some of the
heavier tasks he shared with his older brother; but bringing in
wood for the stove and fireplaces, and stacking board-lumber which
his father had shaped, were among his earliest prideful
accomplishments. Playmates were few, besides his brother, but they
all included Kenneth in their games. He recalls that some of the
games were modified a little so that he could join the fun.

      In January, 1933, at six years of age, Kenneth was taken to
Nashville to be enrolled at the Tennessee School for the Blind. It
was like going into another world suddenly faced with what seemed
gigantic buildings, strange foods, mysterious steam heat, and
electricity. Accustomed to getting up early, the youngster wandered
away from the sleeping quarters on the very first morning and
proceeded to get utterly lost. Unable to find his way back to the
dormitory, he finally gave up and stretched out on the floor of one
of the rooms he had wandered into to wait until someone found him.
It was a miserable beginning for a boy fresh from a comfortable
home environment.

      But Ken liked school and the world it opened up for his
growing mind. Now he could read books, books, and more books, all
by himself. In preschool years, he had always enjoyed having books
read to him; and his first expressed desire at the school was to
learn to read and write. He was not aware that it would have to be
in Braille, and his first efforts to cope with the strange system
were discouraging. In spite of his intense eagerness for reading
and writing, Ken failed both of these subjects that first year.
After that, he never failed either of them again. Today he is one
of the fastest Braille readers in the country; and his love for
books and reading burns as brightly as ever.

      There is one phase of Ken's education at the T. S. B. which
he now wishes might have been different or might not have been at
all. That was the emphasis placed on the study of music. From his
own experience as well as his adult observation, he holds the firm
opinion that musical training should not be imposed upon students
who show little interest or talent for it. But the tradition at the
school in his day, as at most other schools for the blind even
today, demanded that every student be drilled in some form of
music, whatever his lack of talent or interest.

      Tradition must be served; and Ken found himself spending long
hours of tedious study with the violin, beginning with the second
grade. After three years, he  graduated  into the band with a
trombone; and yet was stuck with the violin for another two years.
In the band he soon forsook the  tailgate  (trombone) in favor of
the alto horn, then (in desperate hope) the cornet, then the
baritone horn and finally a disastrous fling at the drums. He was
quickly relegated back to the brass section on the assumption,
apparently, that he might have little talent but possessed plenty
of brass. At long last, recognizing his profound lack of aptitude,
Kenneth resigned from the band. As he recalls the event today, it
was a great relief not only to him but also to B. P.  Gap  Rice,
the bandleader!

      Meanwhile, he had dropped the violin lessons and shifted to
the piano. Here, again, the effort turned out to be a waste of time
because he was more interested in the mechanics of the piano than
in its musical potential. When he resorted to taking the big
instrument apart instead of playing it, the teacher was truly
convinced that Ken would never be a musician.

      The world had lost another hornblower but it gained a
craftsman. In 1944, while still in high school, Ken started to make
and sell furniture. Using the money he earned on his father's farm
during the summers, he bought tools and hardware. The logs were on
the farm and the sawmill nearby, so this was a practical venture
for an ambitious young man. He proceeded to manufacture tables,
smoking-stands, and floor lamps of original design. But he dared
not attempt to do the staining and varnishing, because he had been
led to believe that a blind person could not manage such delicate
work. Only later did Ken learn that he could indeed do this work
himself, and do it well.

      This experience furnished further proof to Ken Jernigan that
the blind individual must avoid the pitfalls of premature
acceptance of  realistic  advice as to the limitations of his
abilities and capabilities. He firmly believes that orientation
centers for the blind can render a most important service if they
will teach and practice the basic truth that, given the
opportunity, the average blind person can hold the average job in
the average business or industry.

      Young Mr. Jernigan graduated from high school in 1945 and
immediately petitioned the state rehabilitation service for the
chance to prepare himself for a career in law. He was advised
against it. That fall, after a rugged six-week bout with
appendicitis, he matriculated at Tennessee Polytechnic Institute in
Cookesville. He did not find there all the encouragement he needed
and hoped for; but the now strong and independent young man who had
already taken a whirl at professional wrestling was not to be
talked into negative horizons or limited objectives. His hunger for
knowledge was altogether too compelling and his love of books too
deep. His scholastic ability soon produced high grades, and the
pattern of his college life was formed.

      But it was not all study and lessons. Throwing himself into
campus activities from the outset, Ken was soon elected to office
in his class organization and to important positions in other
student clubs. The college debating team especially attracted his
attention, and he took part in some 25 inter-collegiate debates. He
became president of the Speech Activities Club and a member of Pi
Kappa Delta speech fraternity. In 1948, at the Southeastern
Conference of the Pi Kappa Delta competition held at the University
of South Carolina, Ken won first prize in extemporaneous speaking
and original oratory.

      In his junior year he was nominated as one of two candidates
for student-body president. He lost in a very close election, but
the very next year regained his political prestige by backing his
roommate for a campus-wide office and winning. In his senior year
at Tennessee Tech, he was named to the honored list of  Who's Who
in Colleges and Universities. 

      During his undergraduate days Ken started a vending business
by selling candy, cigarettes, and chewing-gum out of his room.
Later on he purchased a vending machine and, with permission gained
from the college president, installed it in the science building.
Before finishing college he had expanded the business to an
impressive string of vending machines placed in other buildings.
Upon graduation, Ken sold this profitable business to a fellow
student, an ambitious sophomore named John Taylor today the
director of rehabilitation with the Iowa Commission for the Blind
and a past President of the National Federation of the Blind.

      After receiving his B. A. in social science, with a minor in
English, from T.P.I., Ken went directly for graduate work to the
Peabody College for Teachers in Nashville. There he majored in
English and minored in history. This time his campus activities
were centered upon the literary magazines. He accomplished a great
deal of writing of articles and editorials, and became editor of a
new literary publication. Meanwhile, he received his Master of Arts
degree in the winter quarter of 1949, but remained to finish the
school year with further studies.

      The following fall young Jernigan returned to the Tennessee
School for the Blind, this time as a teacher in the high school
English department. The renewed personal contact with blind
students, their aspirations and problems, stirred his determination
to give them counseling to the best of his ability and toward
bringing out the best of  their  abilities. Although he had
achieved success with his own education, it was not in the field he
really wanted to pursue. He could not forget that before entering
college his deep desire to become an attorney had been smashed as
not  feasible  by a traditionally-minded rehabilitation officer.
Ken discovered later too late that the rehabilitation man had been
far from correct in his stand. Blind persons were then studying
law, others were already lawyers, and the field of law was not
closed but wide open to trained blind individuals.

      Ken vows today that he will never make this mistake in giving
counsel to blind students.  We in rehabilitation have no right to
make the choice for anybody as to what his vocation should be, when
that person is eager and motivated to try in a field of his choice, 
he maintains.

      After he had mastered the routines of teaching and settled
into various school activities, Ken became interested in
organizational work with the blind. He joined the Nashville chapter
of the then Tennessee Association for the Blind (which later became
the Tennessee Federation of the Blind). He was elected to the vice
presidency of the state affiliate in 1950, and to the presidency in
1951. Though he was extremely busy, Ken found time for several
courses at summer school and later branched out into selling life
insurance. This latter endeavor proved to be as profitable as
teaching and soon became a rewarding part-time job. Meanwhile,
through his participation in organizations of the blind, Ken began
to have his first contacts with national figures in the organized
blind movement. Outstanding among these was Dr. Jacobus tenBroek,
founder and President of the National Federation of the Blind.

      While Ken enjoyed teaching at the Tennessee School, he wanted
to do more in this expanding field. In 1953 he left the school to
accept a position at the Oakland Orientation Center in California.
His work, especially in counseling and guidance, became more
intensified through the closer contact with persons trying to
regain their rightful place in society. His interest in the
National Federation was also sharpened by the many projects
undertaken for that organization. One of the major projects in
which he played an important role while in California was the
campaign to gain recognition and the right to credentials for blind
teachers in that state. Stemming from this great initial effort,
there are now almost 50 blind teachers employed in California
through the teachings, guidance, advice, and encouragement received
from Kenneth Jernigan. When he left Oakland to accept the
leadership of the Iowa Commission for the Blind, the people who
knew him were confident that he would fulfill that challenging
assignment with outstanding success.

      With the zest of a crusader, Ken plunged into the task of
building up the Iowa programs for the blind. He found the
commission housed in small and poorly equipped quarters, with a
budget of only twenty thousand dollars. The entire staff consisted
of six people. It was in all respects a dismal picture and a bleak
prospect. But it did not remain so for long. Step by step, Ken
skillfully planned and expanded the program, services, staff, and
budget of the Commission. He argued up and down the state and won
growing support for his programs. Today the Commission is housed in
a fully equipped six-story building, serving more than four
thousand blind Iowans. A budget of $400,000 is financing programs
of rehabilitation, orientation, home teaching, home industries,
vending stands, Braille library, and many other related services.
Each of these programs is characterized by the dynamic director.

      In a way, with each year of experience in work for the blind,
Ken gained as much as he gave. With each passing year he has become
more convinced that blindness need not serve as a hindrance in
virtually any vocation. Admitting that sight is an advantage, he
hastens to point out that there are numerous alternative techniques
which, learned and utilized properly, provide the blind person with
the  equalizer. 

      Kenneth Jernigan has worked for what he believes in and his
preachment has been practiced with driving energy. Speaking with
firm conviction, he declares:  If I were asked to sum up my
philosophy of blindness in one sentence, I would say  It is
respectable to be blind . Few people would deny this in the
abstract; but when we analyze what they really believe, we find
that most of them are at first ashamed of blindness. 

      This blind leader is convinced that the dominant attitudes of
society toward blindness place unwarranted limitations upon the
blind person. Since social attitudes, unlike the physical fact of
blindness, are open to change, he maintains that one of our
principal functions should be to encourage proper attitudes toward
blindness and the blind. Adequate knowledge, understanding, and
recognition of talents must be brought to supplant traditional
preconceptions, prejudices, and generalizations about the blind.
From a climate of healthy social attitudes will emerge the
opportunities and full rights of citizenship which should be the
birthright of the blind. And they, in turn, will then carry their
full and proper share of the responsibility of free and independent
citizens in our democratic society.

     At the 1963 National Convention in Philadelphia attended by
some 600 Federationists an unprecedented event took place which
served to underline the rising stature of Kenneth Jernigan in the
movement. Although it was the custom then and later for the
Federation's President to deliver the banquet address given the
symbolic and ceremonial significance of that annual oration in this
year the honor was bestowed upon the First Vice President. Rising
to the occasion, Jernigan presented a deeply considered
philosophical statement which was to remain after a quarter of a
century among the most decisive formulations on record of the
profound difference between the affirmative creed of the organized
blind and the custodial doctrines of the blindness system.
Following is the text of Jernigan's address,  Blindness: Handicap
or Characteristic,  which was first delivered at the banquet of the
1963 National Convention in Philadelphia.

              BLINDNESS HANDICAP OR CHARACTERISTIC
                       by Kenneth Jernigan

      It has been wisely observed that philosophy bakes no bread.
It has, with equal wisdom, been observed that without a philosophy
no bread is baked. Let me talk to you, then of philosophy my
philosophy concerning blindness and, in a broader sense, my
philosophy concerning handicaps in general.

      One prominent authority recently said,  Loss of sight is a
dying. When, in the full current of his sighted life, blindness
comes on a man, it is the end, the death, of that sighted life. It
is superficial, if not naive, to think of blindness as a blow to
the eyes only, to sight only. It is a destructive blow to the
self-image of a man a blow almost to his being itself! 

      This is one view, a view held by a substantial number of
people in the world today. But it is not the only view. In my
opinion it is not the correct view. What is blindness? Is it a 
dying ?

      No one is likely to disagree with me if I say that blindness,
first of all, is a characteristic. But a great many people will
disagree when I go on to say that blindness is  only  a
characteristic. It is nothing more or less than that. It is nothing
more special, or more peculiar, or more terrible than that
suggests. When we understand the nature of blindness as a
characteristic a normal characteristic like hundreds of others with
which each of us must live we shall better understand the real need
to be met by services to the blind, as well as the false needs
which should not be met.

      By definition a characteristic any characteristic is a
limitation. A white house, for example, is a limited house; it
cannot be green or blue or red; it is limited to being white.
Likewise every characteristic those we regard as strengths as well
as those we regard as weaknesses is a limitation. Each one freezes
us to some extent into a mold; each restricts to some degree the
range of possibility, of flexibility, and very often of opportunity
as well.

      Blindness is such a limitation. Are blind people more limited
than others?

      Let us make a simple comparison. Take a sighted person with
an average mind (something not too hard to locate); take a blind
person with a superior mind (something not impossible to locate)
and then make all the other characteristics of these two persons
equal (something which certainly is impossible). Now, which of the
two is more limited? It depends, of course, entirely on what you
wish them to do. If you are choosing up sides for baseball, then
the blind man is more limited that is, he is  handicapped.  If you
are hiring someone to teach history or science or to figure out
your income tax, then the sighted person is more limited or 
handicapped. 

      Many human characteristics are obvious limitations; others
are not so obvious. Poverty (the lack of material means) is one of
the most obvious. Ignorance (the lack of knowledge or education) is
another. Old age (the lack of youth and vigor) is yet another.
Blindness (the lack of eyesight) is still another. In all these
cases the limitations are apparent, or seem to be. But let us look
at some other common characteristics which do not seem limiting.
Take the very opposite of old age youth. Is age a limitation in the
case of a youth of twenty? Indeed it is, for a person who is twenty
will not be considered for most responsible positions, especially
supervisory and leadership positions. He may be entirely mature,
fully capable, in every way the best qualified applicant for the
job. Even so, his age will bar him from employment; he will be
classified as too green and immature to handle the responsibility.
And even if he were to land the position, others on the job would
almost certainly resent being supervised by one so young. The
characteristic of being twenty is definitely a limitation.

      The same holds true for any other age. Take age fifty, which
many regard as the prime of life. The man of fifty does not have
the physical vigor he possessed at twenty; and, indeed, most
companies will not start a new employee at that age. The Bell
Telephone System, for example, has a general prohibition against
hiring anyone over the age of thirty-five. But it is interesting to
note that the United States Constitution has a prohibition against
having anyone under thirty-five running for President. The moral is
plain: any age carries its built-in limitations.

      Let us take another unlikely handicap not that of ignorance,
but its exact opposite. Can it be said that education is ever a
handicap? The answer is definitely yes. In the agency which I head
I would not hire Albert Einstein under any circumstances if he were
today alive and available. His fame (other people would continually
flock to the agency and prevent us from doing our work) and his
intelligence (he would be bored to madness by the routine of most
of our jobs) would both be too severe as limitations.

      Here is an actual case in point. Some time ago a vacancy
occurred on the library staff at the Iowa Commission for the Blind.
Someone was needed to perform certain clerical duties and take
charge of shelving and checking talking book records. After all
applicants had been screened, the final choice came down to two.
Applicant A had a college degree, was seemingly alert, and clearly
of more than average intelligence. Applicant B had a high school
diploma (no college), was of average intelligence, and possessed
only moderate initiative. I hired applicant B. Why? Because I
suspected that applicant A would regard the work as beneath him,
would soon become bored with its undemanding assignments, and would
leave as soon as something better came along. I would then have to
find and train another employee. On the other hand I felt that
applicant B would consider the work interesting and even
challenging, that he was thoroughly capable of handling the job,
and that he would be not only an excellent but a permanent
employee. In fact, he has worked out extremely well.

      In other words, in that situation the characteristic of
education the possession of a college degree was a limitation and
a handicap. Even above-average intelligence was a limitation; and
so was a high level of initiative. There is a familiar bureaucratic
label for this unusual disadvantage: it is the term  overqualified. 
Even the overqualified, it appears, can be underprivileged.

      This should be enough to make the point which is that if
blindness is a limitation (and, indeed, it is), it is so in quite
the same way as innumerable other characteristics to which human
flesh is heir. I believe that blindness has no more importance than
any of a hundred other characteristics and that the average blind
person is able to perform the average job in the average career or
calling, provided (and it is a large proviso) he is given training
and opportunity.

      Often when I have advanced this proposition, I have been met
with the response,  But you can't look at it that way. Just
consider what you might have done if you had been sighted and still
had all the other capacities you now possess. 

       Not so,  I reply.  We do not compete against what we might
have been, but only against other people as they are, with their
combinations of strengths and weaknesses, handicaps and
limitations.  If we are going down that track, why not ask me what
I might have done if I had been born with Rockefeller's money, the
brains of Einstein, the physique of the young Joe Louis, and the
persuasive abilities of Franklin Roosevelt? (And do I need to
remind anyone, in passing, that FDR was severely handicapped
physically?) I wonder if anyone ever said to him:

       Mr. President, just consider what you might have done if you
had not had polio! 

      Others have said to me,  But I formerly had my sight, so I
know what I am missing. 

      To which one might reply,  And I was formerly twenty, so I
know what I am missing.  Our characteristics are constantly
changing, and we are forever acquiring new experiences,
limitations, and assets. We do not compete against what we formerly
were but against other people as they now are.

      In a recent issue of a well-known professional journal in the
field of work with the blind, a blinded veteran who is now a
college professor, puts forward a notion of blindness radically
different from this. He sets the limitations of blindness apart
from all others and makes them unique. Having done this, he can say
that all other human characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses,
belong in one category and that with regard to them the blind and
the sighted individual are just about equal. But the blind person
also has the additional and unique limitation of his blindness.
Therefore, there is really nothing he can do quite as well as the
sighted person, and he can continue to hold his job only because
there are charity and goodness in the world.

      What this blind professor does not observe is that the same
distinction he has made regarding blindness could be made with
equal plausibility with respect to any of a dozen perhaps a hundred
other characteristics. For example, suppose we distinguish
intelligence from all other traits as uniquely different. Then the
man with above one hundred twenty-five IQ is just about the same as
the man with below one hundred twenty-five IQ except for
intelligence. Therefore, the college professor with less than one
hundred twenty-five IQ cannot really do anything as well as the man
with more than one hundred twenty-five IQ and can continue to hold
his job only because there are charity and goodness in the world.

       Are we going to assume,  says this blind professor,  that
all blind people are so wonderful in all other areas that they
easily make up for any limitations imposed by loss of sight? I
think not.  But why, one asks, single out the particular
characteristic of blindness? We might just as well specify some
other. For instance, are we going to assume that all people with
less than one hundred twenty-five IQ are so wonderful in all other
areas that they easily make up for any limitations imposed by lack
of intelligence? I think not.

      This consideration brings us to the problem of terminology
and semantics and therewith to the heart of the matter of blindness
as a handicap. The assumption that the limitation of blindness is
so much more severe than others that it warrants being singled out
for special definition is built into the very warp and woof of our
language and psychology. Blindness conjures up a condition of
unrelieved disaster something much more terrible and dramatic than
other limitations. Moreover, blindness is a conspicuously visible
limitation; and there are not so many blind people around that
there is any danger of becoming accustomed to it or taking it for
granted. If all of those in our midst who possess an IQ under one
hundred twenty-five exhibited, say, green stripes on their faces,
I suspect that they would begin to be regarded as inferior to the
non-striped and that there would be immediate and tremendous
discrimination.

      When someone says to a blind person,  You do things so well
that I forget you are blind I simply think of you as being like
anybody else,  is that really a compliment? Suppose one of us went
to France, and someone said:  You do things so well that I forget
you are an American and simply think of you as being like anyone
else  would it be a compliment? Of course, the blind person must
not wear a chip on his shoulder or allow himself to become angry or
emotionally upset. He should be courteous, and he should accept the
statement as the compliment it is meant to be. But he should
understand that it is really not complimentary. In reality it says: 
It is normal for blind people to be inferior and limited, different
and much less able than the rest of us. Of course, you are still a
blind person and still much more limited than I, but you have
compensated for it so well that I almost forget that you are
inferior to me. 

      The social attitudes about blindness are all pervasive. Not
only do they affect the sighted but also the blind as well. This is
one of the most troublesome problems which we have to face. Public
attitudes about the blind too often become the attitudes of the
blind. The blind tend to see themselves as others see them. They
too often accept the public view of their limitations and thereby
do much to make those limitations a reality.

      Several years ago Dr. Jacob Freid, at that time a young
teacher of sociology and now head of the Jewish Braille Institute
of America, performed an interesting experiment. He gave a test in
photograph identification to Negro and white students at the
university where he was teaching. There was one photograph of a
Negro woman in a living room of a home of culture well furnished
with paintings, sculpture, books, and flowers. Asked to identify
the person in the photograph, the students said she was a  cleaning
woman,   housekeeper,   cook,   laundress,   servant,   domestic, 
and  mammy.  The revealing insight is that the Negro students made
the same identifications as the white students. The woman was Mary
McLeod Bethune, the most famous Negro woman of her time, founder
and president of Bethune- Cookman College, who held a top post
during Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, and a person of
brilliance and prestige in the world of higher education. What this
incident tells us is that education, like nature, abhors a vacuum,
and that when members of a minority group do not have correct and
complete information about themselves, they accept the stereotypes
of the majority group even when they are false and unjust. Even
today, in the midst of the great civil rights debate and protest,
one wonders how many Negroes would make the traditional and
stereotyped identification of the photograph.

      Similarly with the blind the public image is everywhere
dominant. This is the explanation for the attitude of those blind
persons who are ashamed to carry a white cane or who try to bluff
sight which they do not possess. Although great progress is now
being made, there are still many people (sighted as well as blind)
who believe that blindness is not altogether respectable.

      The blind person must devise alternative techniques to do
many things which he would do with sight if he had normal vision.
It will be observed that I say  alternative  not  substitute 
techniques, for the word  substitute  connotes inferiority, and the
alternative techniques employed by the blind person need not be
inferior to visual techniques. In fact, some are superior. Of
course, some are inferior, and some are equal.

      In this connection it is interesting to consider the matter
of flying. In comparison with the birds, man begins at a
disadvantage. He cannot fly. He has no wings. He is  handicapped. 
But he sees the birds flying, and he longs to do likewise. He
cannot use the  normal,  bird-like method, so he begins to devise
alternative techniques. In his jet airplanes he now flies higher,
farther, and faster than any bird which has ever existed. If he had
possessed wings, the airplane would probably never have been
devised, and the inferior wing-flapping method would still be in
general use.

      This matter of our irrational images and stereotypes with
regard to blindness was brought sharply home to me some time ago
during the course of a rehabilitation conference in Little Rock,
Arkansas. I found myself engaged in a discussion with a well-known
leader in the field of work with the blind who holds quite
different views from those I have been advancing. The error in my
argument about blindness as a characteristic, he advised me, was
that blindness is not in the range of  normal  characteristics;
and, therefore, its limitations are radically different from those
of other characteristics falling within the normal range. If a
normal characteristic is simply one possessed by the majority in a
group, then it is not normal to have a black skin in America or,
for that matter, white skin in the world at large.

      It is not normal to have red hair or be over six feet tall.
If, on the other hand, a normal characteristic is simply what this
authority or someone else defines as being normal, then we have a
circular argument one that gets us nowhere.

      In this same discussion I put forward the theory that a man
who was sighted and of average means and who had all other
characteristics in common with a blind man of considerable wealth
would be less mobile than the blind man. I had been arguing that
there were alternative techniques (not substitute) for doing those
things which one would do with sight if he had normal vision. The
authority I have already mentioned, as well as several others, had
been contending that there was no real, adequate substitute for
sight in traveling about. I told the story of a wealthy blind man
I know who goes to Hawaii or some other place every year and who
hires sighted attendants and is much more mobile than any sighted
person I know of ordinary means. After all of the discussion and
the fact that I thought I had conveyed some understanding of what
I was saying, a participant in the conference said as if he thought
he was really making a telling point,  Wouldn't you admit that the
wealthy man in question would be even more mobile if he had his
sight? 

      Which brings us to the subject of services to the blind and
more exactly of their proper scope and direction. There are, as I
see it, four basic types of services now being provided for blind
persons by public and private agencies and volunteer groups in this
country today. They are:

      1. Services based on the theory that blindness is uniquely
different from other characteristics and that it carries with it
permanent inferiority and severe limitations upon activity.

      2. Services aimed at teaching the blind person a new and
constructive set of attitudes about blindness based on the premise
that the prevailing social attitudes, assimilated voluntarily by
the blind person, are mistaken in content and destructive in
effect.

      3. Services aimed at teaching alternative techniques and
skills related to blindness.

      4. Services not specifically related to blindness but to
other characteristics (such as old age and lack of education),
which are nevertheless labeled as  services to the blind  and
included under the generous umbrella of the service program.

      An illustration of the assumptions underlying the first of
these four types of services is the statement quoted earlier which
begins,  Loss of sight is a dying.  At the Little Rock conference
already mentioned the man who made this statement elaborated on the
tragic metaphor by pointing out that  the eye is a sexual symbol 
and that, accordingly, the man who has not eyes is not a  whole
man.  He cited the play  Oedipus Rex  as proof of his contention
that the eye is a sexual symbol. I believe that this misses the
whole point of the classic tragedy. Like many moderns, the Greeks
considered the severest possible punishment to be the loss of
sight. Oedipus committed a mortal sin (unknowingly he had killed
his father and married his mother); therefore, his punishment must
be correspondingly great. But that is just what his self-imposed
blindness was a punishment, not a sexual symbol.

      But this view not only misses the point of  Oedipus Rex  it
misses the point of blindness. And in so doing it misses the point
of services intended to aid the blind. For according to this view
what the blind person needs most desperately is the help of a
psychiatrist of the kind so prominently in evidence at several of
the orientation and adjustment centers for the blind throughout the
country. According to this view what the blind person needs most is
not travel training but therapy. He will be taught to accept his
limitations as insurmountable and his difference from others as
unbridgeable. He will be encouraged to adjust to his painful
station as a second-class citizen and discouraged from any thought
of breaking and entering the first-class compartment. Moreover, all
of this will be done in the name of teaching him  independence  and
a  realistic  approach to his blindness.

      The two competing types of services for the blind categories
one and two on my list of four types with their underlying conflict
of philosophy may perhaps be clarified by a rather fanciful
analogy. All of us recall the case of the Jews in Nazi Germany.
Suddenly, in the 1930s, the German Jew was told by his society that
he was a  handicapped  person that he was inferior to other Germans
simply by virtue of being a Jew. Given this social fact, what sort
of adjustment services might we have offered to the victim of
Jewishness? I suggest that there are two alternatives matching
categories one and two on my list of services.

      First, since he has been a  normal  individual until quite
recently, it is, of course, quite a shock (or  trauma,  as modern
lingo has it) for him to learn that he is permanently and
constitutionally inferior to others and can engage only in a
limited range of activities. He will, therefore, require a
psychiatrist to give him counseling and therapy and to reconcile
him to his lot. He must  adjust  to his handicap and  learn to live 
with the fact that he is not a  whole man.  If he is realistic, he
may even manage to be happy. He can be taken to an adjustment
center or put into a workshop, where he may learn a variety of
simple crafts and curious occupations suitable to Jews. Again, it
should be noted that all of this will be done in the name of
teaching him how to live  independently  as a Jew. That is one form
of adjustment training: category one of the four types of services
outlined earlier.

      On the other hand, if there are those around who reject the
premise that Jewishness equals inferiority, another sort of 
adjustment  service may be undertaken. We might begin by firing the
psychiatrist. His services will be available in his own private
office, for Jews as for other members of the public, whenever they
develop emotional or mental troubles. We will not want the
psychiatrist because the Nazi psychiatrist likely has the same
misconceptions about Jews as the rest of his society. We might
continue then by scrapping the  Jew trades  the menial routines
which offer no competition to the normal world outside. We will
take the emphasis off of resignation or of fun and games. We will
not work to make the Jew happy in his isolation and servitude, but
rather to make him discontent with them. We will make of him not a
conformist but a rebel.

      And so it is with the blind. There are vast differences in
the services offered by various agencies and volunteer groups doing
work with the blind throughout the country today. At the Little
Rock conference this came up repeatedly. When a blind person comes
to a training center, what kind of tests do you give him, and why?
In Iowa and some other centers the contention is that he is a
responsible individual and that the emphasis should be on  his 
knowing what he can do. Some of the centers represented at the
Little Rock conference contended that he needed psychiatric help
and counseling (regardless of the circumstances and merely by
virtue of his blindness) and that the emphasis should be on the 
center personnel's  knowing what he can do. I asked them whether
they thought services in a center were more like those given by a
hospital or like those given by a law school. In a hospital the
person is a  patient.  (This is, by the way, a term coming to be
used more and more in rehabilitation today.) The doctors decide
whether the patient needs an operation and what medication he
should have. In reality the  patient  makes few of his own
decisions. Will the doctor  let  him do this or that? In a law
school, on the other hand, the  student  assumes responsibility for
getting to his own classes and organizing his own work. He plans
his own career, seeking advice to the extent that he feels the need
for it. If he plans unwisely, he pays the price for it, but it is
his life. This does not mean that he does not need the services of
the law school. He probably will become friends with the professors
and will discuss legal matters with them and socialize with them.
From some he will seek counsel and advice concerning personal
matters. More and more he will come to be treated as a colleague.
Not so the  patient.  What does he know of drugs and medications?
Some of the centers represented at the Little Rock conference were
shocked that we at the Iowa Commission for the Blind  socialize 
with our students and have them to our homes. They believed that
this threatened what they took to be the  professional
relationship. 

      Our society has so steeped itself in false notions concerning
blindness that it is most difficult for people to understand the
concept of blindness as a characteristic and for them to understand
the services needed by the blind. As a matter of fact, in one way
or another, the whole point of all I have been saying is just this:
Blindness is neither a dying nor a psychological crippling it need
not cause a disintegration of personality and the stereotype which
underlies this view is no less destructive when it presents itself
in the garb of modern science than it was when it appeared in the
ancient raiment of superstition and witchcraft.

      Throughout the world, but especially in this country, we are
today in the midst of a vast transition with respect to our
attitudes about blindness and the whole concept of what handicaps
are. We are reassessing and reshaping our ideas. In this process
the professionals in the field cannot play a lone hand. It is a
cardinal principle of our free society that the citizen public will
hold the balance of decision. In my opinion, it is fortunate that
this is so, for professionals can become limited in their thinking
and committed to outworn programs and ideas. The general public
must be the balance staff, the ultimate weigher of values and
setter of standards. In order that the public may perform this
function with reason and wisdom, it is the duty of each of us to
see that the new ideas receive the broadest possible dissemination.
But even more important, we must examine ourselves to see that our
own minds are free from prejudices and preconception.

     The final years of the tenBroek era years in which Kenneth
Jernigan, as First Vice President, came to play an increasingly
vital role were characterized by innovation and progress in a
number of program areas. It was in 1964 that the National
Federation of the Blind moved conspicuously onto the world stage
through its inauguration of the International Federation of the
Blind, and during this decade the numbers and participation of
foreign delegates at the National Federation's conventions began to
increase significantly. (The international role of the National
Federation of the Blind will be discussed in Chapter Nine.)

     One of the truly extraordinary events in all of Federation
history still wondrous to recall a quarter of a century later was
the silver anniversary convention of 1965, which was held (as luck
and good planning would have it) in Washington, D.C. That
significant site permitted the Federation's leaders to line up over
100 members of Congress, both senators and representatives, as
banquet guests and for Kenneth Jernigan, as master of ceremonies,
to draw a thirty-second speech from every one of them. The Vice
President of the United States, Hubert Humphrey, was among those
who addressed this most glittering of conventions; so was Robert F.
Kennedy, then a junior senator from New York; and so too was John
McCormack, the venerable Speaker of the House of Representatives
and one of the most powerful men in government of his generation.

     Something of the splendor of this twenty-fifth annual
convention was conveyed by an article the following month in the 
Braille Monitor , which appeared under the heading  `The Week That
Was.' 

THE WEEK THAT WAS 

      For nearly one thousand blind Americans and their families,
the week of July 4, 1965, will long be a time to remember with
pleasure, with purpose, and with pride.

      For  that was the week that was : the week of the Washington
convention, magnificently commemorating the Silver Anniversary of
the National Federation of the Blind. 

      The week of Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, announcing to
delegates in ringing tones that  The proof of your achievement is
that what once had been private goals your goals have now become
public official goals,  our  goals as a nation.  

      The week of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, the Federation's gift
volume in his hands, pledging to carry on the profound commitment
of his brother John F. Kennedy to the rights of the blind to speak
for themselves and to be heard. 

      The week of Speaker of the House John W. McCormack,
delivering the convention's keynote address, commending
Federationists for their spirit of independence, their
implementation of the constitutional right to organize, and the
effectiveness of their advice to Congress on legislation affecting
the blind. 

      The week of our own President Russell Kletzing, presiding
over historic events and helping to make them so by his own
performance and speeches. 

      The week of Senator Vance Hartke, Senator Frank Moss,
Congressman Walter S. Baring, and Congressman Phillip Burton, one
by one narrating their personal hopes and collective efforts to
raise the standards of aid and opportunity for the nation's blind.

      That was the week that was: the week of television cameras
pointed like howitzers at the speaker's stand from both sides of
the packed auditorium, of news reporters and photographers circling
about the platform, scribbling notes and popping flashbulbs of
microphones clustered like a metal bouquet on the rostrum  of radio
interviews and TV broadcasts beamed to all parts of the country.

      That was the week that was: the week of the  Hartke
demonstration,  a spontaneous migration of hundreds of
Federationists to the Capitol in order to lend graphic support to
the fight for the Hartke bill then in contest on the Senate floor
a fight which was rewarded with overwhelming Senate passage of the
historic measure on July 9.

      That was the week that was: the week of the  banquet of
banquets  the monumental convention dinner which brought together
600 Federationists and 103 members of Congress in a single room for
a single purpose with Representatives and Senators rising in turn
for an impromptu 30-second speech each one commanded, clocked, and
congratulated by a masterly if unceremonious Master of Ceremonies,
First Vice President Kenneth Jernigan a stirring occasion made
still more memorable by the address of President Emeritus Jacobus
tenBroek, which was hailed by one Congressman present as  the best
speech I have ever heard bar none. 

      That was the week of social commingling and reunion: of
community sings around the piano in the vast Hospitality Room of
bus loads of conventioneers complete with children, dogs, and
television cameramen touring the Washington and Lincoln monuments,
the Jefferson Memorial, and the Kennedy grave at Arlington a week
of gatherings by the fountain in the Mayflower Hotel lobby, of
convivial tables in the Presidential Room and smaller groups
consorting in the Rib Room, and of expeditions to Scholl's Colonial
Cafeteria of exhibits in the Cabinet Room, open house in the
National Convention suite, and private parties everywhere a week of
festivity, fellowship, and Federationism.

      That was the week of international federation: of speeches
and panel discussions featuring overseas leaders of the worldwide
blind movement from Germany, Equador, Saudi Arabia, England, and
Korea along with our own famed internationalists, Dr. tenBroek and
Isabelle Grant.

      That was the week of the Leadership Seminar: a two-day
conclave following the convention of some 60 stalwart
Federationists from numerous states, living and studying together
at the University of Maryland's Center for Adult Education
reviewing, debating, and absorbing an array of programs and
procedures looking toward leadership and democratic organization
among the blind.

      That was the week of action and accomplishment: of the
President's Report, the White Cane report, the Washington
congressional report, and the state reports on the progress of
legislation of important resolutions on a dozen political and
social fronts of meetings general and special: meetings of blind
merchants, of teachers, of various national committees the week of
succession of speeches and discussions tackling concrete problems
and programs, bringing the issues into the open, closing the ranks
on policy decisions and initiatives, moving the Federation onward. 

      That was the week that was the week that is a landmark in the
history of the organized blind the week that will be remembered by
all who were there with pleasure, with purpose, and with pride.

     Another report on the Washington convention of 1965 this one
in the form of a prose poem capturing the highlights of the
memorable week through a succession of striking images appeared in
the  Monitor  under the by-line of Floyd S. Field, a veteran New
York Federationist with the soul of an artist. His narrative ode, 
All's Quiet Tonight Along the Potomac,  follows:

              ALL'S QUIET TONIGHT ALONG THE POTOMAC
  by Floyd S. Field, President, Niagara Chapter,   Empire State
Association of the Blind

      All's quiet tonight along the Potomac!

      Where Generals McClellan and Mead reviewed their troops:
where General Grant marched his victorious army past the White
House: where the Drummer Boy of the Rappahannock played his dirge
as President Andrew Johnson bade farewell to the martyred Lincoln
when his body left the railroad station on the first Pullman on his
sad trip back to Illinois.

       All this a century ago: one hundred years of winter's snow
on Lincoln's grave, as all heroes of Blue and Gray are now laid
peacefully away. 

      All's quiet tonight along the Potomac!

      Where five-score and no years later another President Johnson
seeks rest in Texas as the twenty-fifth annual convention of the
National Federation of the Blind concludes its conclave at the
Mayflower: where for one hour Toastmaster Ken Jernigan ruled
members of Congress with an iron hand, allowing each the unheard-
of cloture time of thirty seconds and bringing out humor most of us
thought impossible.  I yield you thirty seconds, Mr. Congressman 
and one replied:  With Ken as Speaker, the House would be in
adjournment by March.  Where founder Jacobus tenBroek told in a
masterful speech of the first twenty- five years of the National
Federation of the Blind: of its establishment and battles, its
victories and defeats, its progress and firm foundation.

      All's quiet tonight along the Potomac!

      In the ballroom where President Russell Kletzing presided;
and where Convention Chairman Ken Jernigan gave daily prizes to
those present at the right time; and where International President
tenBroek and our General of the Foreign Armies, Isabelle Grant,
told of progress of the independent blind around the world, of
Fatima Shah, in Pakistan, too busy serving her fellow blind to hold
her new grandchild on her lap, and of how we may assist her and
others.

      All's quiet tonight along the Potomac!

      Where the featured tour brought busloads of blind people and
guides to visit the Lincoln Memorial; the Arlington National
Cemetery, where they saw the  Changing of the Guard  and with
special permission used the path of the Kennedy family in visiting
the grave of the martyred President, standing there in reverence;
and the 555-foot monument to the Father of Our Country while others
toured the Capitol, the Senate chambers, the Smithsonian
Institution, and even tried to converse with life-size dummies in
the famous wax museum.

      All's quiet along the Potomac!

      Where the annual financial report was distributed and made
less dry by the distribution of water by members of a chapter named
for another mighty river to NFB officials, foreign visitors, and
presidents of state affiliates even putting a few drops in the
Mayflower fountain.

      And thus concluded the twenty-fifth anniversary convention of
the Federation said to have had the very highest esprit de corps
its delegates returning to resume their work for the blind in
Hawaii and Alaska, in Maine and Texas, in California and West
Virginia, and in a total of 36 sovereign states but with many
taking time to attend a seminar on problems of the sightless at the
University of Maryland. And as the honor guard is changed regularly
at Arlington; and the eternal flame, kindled by Jackie, burns
steadily on the grave of the late President; and until hordes of
Shriners take over our nation's Capital:

      All's quiet tonight along the Potomac!

     The silver anniversary convention of 1965 with its parade of
statesmen, its congressional chorus, its week-long flow of rhetoric
was above all a symphony of words. In this regard the leaders of
the National Federation of the Blind notably Jacobus tenBroek,
Kenneth Jernigan, and Russell Kletzing found themselves addressing
the convention, not in competition but in concert with some of the
most illustrious public figures of the age: Hubert Humphrey, Bobby
Kennedy, John McCormack, and many others. Yet, by common consensus
of the delegates and convention guests, none who spoke during those
memorable sessions was quite as impressive in appearance, as
eloquent in delivery, or as powerful in impact as their founder and
President Emeritus, Dr. tenBroek. Something of the effect which his
banquet address had upon the audience (at least a hundred of whom
were hardened politicians) may be gleaned from the response of one
Congressman, Edward R. Royball of California, who attended the
dinner:  This was the most outstanding speech I have ever heard, 
he said.  May I suggest that it be written up and sent to every
member of Congress, both House and Senate, to every member of every
state legislature, and to every member of our city councils
throughout the country. I want them all to be proud of whatever
contribution they have made to this magnificent movement. 

     Dr. tenBroek's speech,  The Federation at Twenty-Five:
Postview and Preview,  clearly represented the summation of his
career as leader of the organized blind movement. While it was not
formally a valedictory (he would deliver two more banquet addresses
in succeeding years), there was about this oration an air of
finality and the reflective quality of a testament. In assessing
the quarter century of collective achievement and struggle in
placing the work of the Federation in historical perspective
Jacobus tenBroek was at the same time putting his own house in
order.

     Viewed in that context,  The Federation at Twenty-Five  stands
as a symbolic watershed an emblem of transition between the
generation of the pioneers, embodied in tenBroek himself, and the
oncoming generation of builders and planners represented on that
platform by the long-time disciple who introduced him to the
banquet audience, Kenneth Jernigan. (And Jernigan's own speech of
introduction conveyed a similar message in its reference to the 
spiritual  side of the movement and of the incarnation of that
spirit in the person of Dr. tenBroek.)

     Here is the complete text of the banquet speech delivered by
Dr. tenBroek at the 25th annual convention of the National
Federation of the Blind held in Washington, D.C., in July, 1965:

THE FEDERATION AT TWENTY-FIVE:   POSTVIEW AND PREVIEW
 by Jacobus tenBroek

      Oscar Wilde tells us:  Most modern calendars mar the sweet
simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes
is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.  We must
approach the task of celebration and review with some pause and
some humility, neither exaggerating our importance nor
underestimating it. It is my task in this spirit to capsulize our
history, convey our purposes, and contemplate our future.

      The career of our movement has not been a tranquil one. It
has grown to maturity the hard way. The external pressures have
been unremitting. It has been counseled by well-wishers that all
would be well and it has learned to resist. It has been attacked by
agencies and administrators and learned to fight back. It has been
scolded by guardians and caretakers and learned to talk back. It
has cut its eyeteeth on legal and political struggle, sharpened its
wits through countless debates, broadened its mind and deepened its
voice by incessant contest. Most important of all, it has never
stopped moving, never stopped battling, never stopped marching
toward the goals of security, equality, and opportunity for all the
nation's blind. It has risen from poverty to substance, from
obscurity to global reputation.

      It is fitting that the anniversary of our own independence
movement should coincide with that of the nation itself. The two
revolutions were vastly different in scope but identical in
principle. We too memorialize a day of independence independence
from a wardship not unlike that of the American colonists. Until
the advent of the National Federation of the Blind, the blind
people of America were taken care of but not represented; protected
but not emancipated; seen but rarely heard.

      Like Patrick Henry on the eve of revolution, we who are blind
knew in 1940 that if we wished to be free, if we meant to gain
those inestimable privileges of participation for which we had so
long yearned, then we must organize for purposes of self-expression
and collective action; then we must concert to engage in a noble
struggle.

      In that spirit the National Federation of the Blind was
founded. In that spirit it has persevered. In that spirit it will
prevail.

      When the founding fathers of the Federation came together at
Wilkes-Barre, to form a union, they labored in a climate of
skepticism and scorn. The experts said it couldn't be done; the
agencies for the blind said it shouldn't be done.  When the blind
lead the blind,  declared the prophets of doom,  all shall fall
into the ditch. 

      But the Federation was born without outside assistance. It
stood upright without a helping hand. It is still on its feet
today.

      At the outset we  declared  our independence. In the past 25
years we have  established  it. Today we may say that the National
Federation of the Blind has arrived in America and is here to stay.
That is truly the  new outlook for the blind. 

      We have not reached our present standing, as all of you know,
by inertia and idleness. The long road of our upward movement is
divided into three phases corresponding to the first decade, the
second decade, and the third half-decade of our existence as an
organization. Each of these three periods, though a part of a
continuum, has had a different emphasis and a different character.
Let us look at each of them.

      The Federation was not born with a silver spoon in its mouth
but, like the nation itself, it was born with the parchment of its
principles in its hand. Our basic philosophy and purposes even most
of our long-range programs existed full-panoplied at our origin. We
were dedicated to the principles of security with freedom; of
opportunity without prejudice; of equality in the law and on the
job. We have never needed to alter or modify those goals, let alone
compromise them. We have never faltered in our confidence that they
are within our reach. We have never failed to labor for their
implementation in political, legal, and economic terms.

      The paramount problems of our first decade, the 1940s, were
not so much qualitative as quantitative; we had the philosophy and
the programs, but we lacked the membership and the means. The
workers were few and the cupboard was bare.

      Each month as we received our none too bountiful salary as a
young instructor at the University of Chicago Law School, Hazel and
I would distribute it among the necessities of life: food,
clothing, rent, Federation stamps, mimeograph paper and ink, other
supplies. So did we share our one-room apartment. The mimeograph
paper took far more space in our closet than did our clothes. We
had to move the mimeograph machine before we could let down the
wall bed to retire at night. If on a Sunday we walked along
Chicago's lake front for an hour, four or five fewer letters were
written, dropping our output for that day to fewer than
twenty-five.

      The decade of the forties was a time of building: and build
we did, from a scattering of seven state affiliates at our first
convention to more than four times that number in 1950. It was a
time of pioneering: and pioneer we did, by searching out new paths
of opportunity and blazing organizational trails where no blind man
had before set foot. It was a time of collective self-discovery and
self-reliance: of rising confidence in our joint capacity to do the
job to hitch up our own wagon train, and hitch it up we did.

      In the decade of the forties we proved our organizational
capacity, established our representative character, initiated
legislative programs on the state and national levels, and spoke
with the authority and voice of the blind speaking for themselves.
In these very terms the decade of the fifties was a time both of
triumph and travail. The triumph was not unmixed but the travail
was passing.

      Our numbers escalated to a peak of forty-seven statewide
affiliates with membership running to the tens of thousands. Our
resources multiplied through a campaign of fundraising. Our voice
was amplified with the inauguration of the  Braille Monitor  as a
regular publication in print, Braille, and tape, which carried the
word of Federationism to the farthest parts of the Nation and many
distant lands.

      With the funds to back us up, with a broad base of membership
behind us, with constructive programs of opportunity and -
enlargement, with growing public recognition and understanding, the
Federation in the fifties galvanized its energies along an
expanding front. We sent teams of blind experts into various
states, on request of the governors, to prepare master plans for
the reform of their welfare services to the blind. We aided our
state affiliates in broad programs of legislative and
administrative improvement in welfare and rehabilitation. We
participated in opening the teaching profession to qualified blind
teachers in a number of states. We assisted in bringing to
completion the campaign to secure white cane laws in all of the
states so that blind men might walk abroad anywhere in the land
sustained  by a faith justified by law.  We shared with others the
credit for infusing into federal welfare the constructive objective
of self-care and self-support, progressive improvements in the aid
grant and matching formula, and the addition of disability
insurance. Over the unflagging opposition of the Social Security
Administration, we secured the acceptance by Congress, in
progressive amounts, of the principle of exempt income for blind
aid recipients; at first temporary, and finally permanent
permission for Pennsylvania and Missouri to retain their separate
and rehabilitative systems of public assistance; and we began to
lay the groundwork by which our blind workers in the sheltered
shops might secure the status and rights of employees. We pushed,
pulled, and persuaded the civil service into first modifying, then
relaxing, and finally scrapping its policy of discrimination
against blind applicants for the public service.

      In these enterprises, as against the doctrinaire, aloof
resistance of administration, we had the cordial good will,
practical understanding, and humane regard of an ever-growing
number of Congressmen.

      All of a sudden, in the furious fifties, the National
Federation of the Blind was very much noticed. Our organizations
became the objects of intense attention if rarely of affection on
the part of the agencies, administrators, and their satellite
groups which had dominated the field.

      As the organized blind movement grew in affluence and in
influence, as affiliates sprang up in state after state, county
after county, across the land, as a groundswell of protest rose
against the dead ends of sheltered employment and segregated
training, of welfare programs tied to the poor law and social
workers bound up in red tape, the forces of custodialism and
control looked down from their lighthouses and fought back.

       The National Federation of the Blind,  said its President in
1957,  stands today an embattled organization. Our motives have
been impugned; our purposes reviled; our integrity aspersed; our
representative character denied. Plans have been laid, activities
undertaken, and concerted actions set in motion for the clear and
unmistakable purpose of bringing about our destruction. Nothing
less is sought than our extinction as an organization. 

      No Federationist who lived through that decade can forget how
the battle was joined in the historic struggle for the right of
self-expression and free association. The single most famous piece
of legislation our movement has produced one which was never passed
by Congress but which made its full weight felt and its message
known throughout the world of welfare and the country of the blind
was the Kennedy-Baring Bill.

      It is fitting that John F. Kennedy, then the junior senator
from Massachusetts, was a sponsor of that bill of rights for the
blind, who gave his name and voice to the defense of our right to -
organize.

      Eight years ago he rose in the Senate to introduce and speak
for his bill  to protect the right of the blind to self-expression. 
He told how some 43 state associations of blind persons had become 
federated into a single nationwide organization, the National
Federation of the Blind.  He declared:  It is important that these
views be expressed freely and without interference. It is important
that these views be heard and considered by persons charged with
responsibility.   He pointed out that in various communities this
freedom had  been prejudiced by a few professional workers in
programs for the blind.  He urged that  our blind citizens be
protected against any exercise of this kind of influence or
authority to interfere with their freedom of self-expression
through organizations of the blind. 

      The Kennedy Bill was simple and sweeping in its purposes: to
insure to the blind the right to organize without intimidation; and
to insure to the blind the right to speak and to be heard through
systematic means of consultation with the responsible agencies of
government.

      That bill of rights was not enacted; but it gained its ends
in other ways. Lengthy and dramatic public hearings were held by a
committee of Congress, at which dozens of blind witnesses both
expert and rank-and-file testified to the extent of coercion and
pressure brought against them by the forces hostile to their
independence.  Little Kennedy bills  were introduced in a number of
state legislatures and enacted by some. The forces of opposition
called off their attack upon the organized blind and beat a
strategic retreat.

      Meanwhile, in that second decade, the Federation faced
another bitter struggle within its own house. Not all
Federationists were happy with the way the movement was going.
There were a few who were decidedly  soft on custodialism,  over
friendly to the agencies which opposed us. There were others with
a burning passion for leadership and office, an ambition which
burned the deeper as it burned in vain. There were still others
whose grievances were personal; real enough to them if not
substantial in fact. All of these factors combined in the fifties
to form a temporary crisis of confidence and collaboration.

      But then, as suddenly as it had begun, the civil turmoil
ended. Those who had desired power for their own ends or for
itself, who had sought to change the character and officers of the
movement, departed to form their own organizations. Shaken in its
unity, depleted in resources, diminished in membership, the
Federation began the hard task of rebuilding and rededication.

      That task has been the primary assignment of the sixties, and
today, at the halfway point, we may report that it has been
accomplished. During the five years past we have regained
stability, recovered unity, and preserved democracy.

      We have found new and dynamic leadership, in the person of a
President imbued with youth and creative vigor. We have regained
our fund raiser and with him has come the prospect of renewed
resources. We have restored and rejuvenated the  Braille Monitor ,
as not only the voice but the clarion call of the federated blind.
We have reached across the seas, extending the hand of brotherhood
and the vision of Federationism to blind people the world over
through the International Federation of the Blind.

      We have made new friends yes, and found new champions in the
Congress of the United States and in the legislatures of the
states. And in so doing we have brightened the vistas of hope and
opportunity not only for half a million blind Americans but for all
the handicapped and deprived who rely upon their government for a
hand up rather than a handout.

      And in this new decade of the sixties, we of the Federation
are reaching toward another base of understanding and support. We
intend to carry our case and our cause, not only to the lawmakers
in Congress but to the judges in the courts as well: for it is in
their tribunals that new pathways of progress are being cleared, as
the result of a happily evolving concept which holds that the great
principles of the Constitution among them liberty, dignity,
privacy, and equality must be brought down off the wall and made
real in the lives of all our citizens with all deliberate speed.

      The organized blind have traveled far in the past quarter
century. The road ahead will not be easy. But the road is never
easy for the blind traveler; every step is a challenge, every
independent advance is a conquest. The movement of the organized
blind in society is like the movement of the blind person in
traffic: in both cases the gain is proportionate to the risk. Let
us adventure together.

      It was Theodore Roosevelt who said that the sign of real
strength in a nation is that it can speak softly and carry a big
stick. The sign of strength in our movement is that we speak
vigorously and carry a white cane.

      Whatever may be the challenges to come whatever the
opposition to be converted or defeated, whatever the problems of
maintaining internal democracy and external drive, whatever the
difficulties of activating successful but indifferent blind,
whatever the slow progress and temporary setbacks in achieving our
ultimate goals our experience and accomplishments of a quarter of
a century tell us one thing: we can prevail!

      And we shall prevail!

      We  have  prevailed over the limitations of blindness, in our
lives and in our movement. We  shall  prevail over the handicap of
blindness in all its forms: not the physical disability, which is
an act of nature that may not be repealed, but the social handicap
which is an act of men that men may counteract.

      We  have  prevailed, in our movement and our minds, over the
myth of the  helpless blind man.  We  shall  prevail over that myth
of helplessness in the minds of all who have sight but not vision.

      We  have  prevailed over the foredooming conclusion that the
blind are ineducable, that lack of sight means loss of mind, and
over the only slightly less foredooming conclusion that the blind
can be taught but only the rudiments of academe and rudest of
crafts. We  shall  prevail over every arbitrary restriction and
exclusion inhibiting the fullest development of mind and skill of
every blind person.

      We  have  prevailed over the legal stricture that the blind
should not mix and mingle with the public in public places but
should confine their movement to the rocking chair. We  shall 
prevail over the lingering concept in the law of torts that the
white cane and white cane laws should not be given full credence
and that blind persons are automatically guilty of contributory
negligence whenever an accident befalls them.

      We  have  prevailed over some of the myriad social
discriminations against the blind in hotels, in renting rooms,
houses, and safety deposit boxes, in traveling alone, in blood
banks, in playing at gambling tables, in jury duty, and serving as
a judge, in purchasing insurance, in release from the penitentiary
on parole, in holding student body offices, in marriage laws and
customs. We  shall  prevail over the whole sorry pattern which is
no less vicious because it is sustained by the best of motives.

      We  have  prevailed over the notion that the blind are
capable only of sheltered employment. We  shall  prevail over the
institution of the sheltered workshop itself as a proper place for
any blind person capable of competitive employment.

      We  have  prevailed against the exclusion of qualified blind
workers in a number of fields of competitive employment. We  shall 
prevail over such discrimination in every calling and career.

      We  have  prevailed over the principle of welfare aid as a
mere palliative for those in distress, without built-in incentives
to help them out of that distress. We  shall  prevail over the
stubborn remnants of the poor-law creed the means test, the liens
pest, the requirement of residence, the concept of relatives'
responsibility wherever they rear their Elizabethan heads in the
statutes of the states and nation.

      We  have  prevailed over the obstacles to communication and
communion among the blind of America the physical distances, the
psychological differences, the lack of devices for writing and
talking which have isolated us from one another. We  shall  prevail
over the greater obstacles to communication and affiliation among
the blind people of the world we shall carry Federationism to all
the nations.

      We  shall  prevail because we have demonstrated to the world
and to ourselves that the blind possess the strength to stand
together and to walk alone; the capacity to speak for themselves
and to be heard with respect; the resolute determination of a
common purpose and a democratic cause; the faith that can move
mountains and mount movements!

      Twenty-five years a quarter of a century how much time is
that? In the perspective of eternity, it is an incalculable and
imperceptible fraction. In the chronology of the universe, it is
less than an instant. In the eye of God, it is no more than a
flash. In the biography of a social movement, based on justice and
equality, it is a measurable segment. In the life of a man say from
his thirtieth to his fifty-fifth year it encompasses the best
years, the very prime, when experience, energy, and intelligence
mingle in their most favorable proportions, before which he is too
young, and after which he is too old. As a man who spent those
twenty-five best years of life in and with the Federation, I have
few regrets, immense pride, and boundless hope for the future.

     Thus spoke Dr. tenBroek in summation of the first quarter
century of the organized blind movement in America, and of his own
career as its founder and prime mover. His speech was the capstone
of a convention singularly graced by the presence of public
figures, many of whom were of national prominence and a few of whom
were already of historic stature. One of the latter was Robert
Kennedy, younger brother of the slain President, who in turn would
be assassinated three years later during his own campaign for the
presidency. Then a junior senator from New York, Kennedy was at the
National Federation of the Blind convention to receive for the
Kennedy Memorial Library a special award and other memorabilia
honoring the late President for his role as a champion of the
organized blind in their struggle for the right to organize. This
is how the  Braille Monitor  reported the younger Kennedy's
appearance before the convention and his brief acceptance speech:

      When he had received the plaque and books from the
Federation's President, Senator Kennedy stood silently for what
seemed a long moment, opening one volume after another and swiftly
scanning the contents while the warm applause from the audience of
around 1,000 persons rose and then slowly died away. When he spoke
it was obviously without the aid of notes or text; he spoke
deliberately, softly, but with the familiar Kennedy inflection and
the unmistakable Kennedy grace.

       I want to just tell you,  the Senator began,  how
appreciative and how grateful I am to you for this presentation to
the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library. As I look over these books
with your names in them the documents on the right of the blind to
organize, and then the correspondence that President Kennedy had
with some of your officers it brings back to my mind once again the
strong feeling of affection and admiration that President Kennedy
had for you and for your efforts both after he became President,
and prior to that time when he was a senator from the state of
Massachusetts. 

       A Greek philosopher once wrote; `What joy is there in day
that follows day, some swift, some slow, with death the only goal?'
What we are interested in those of you that are here, and those of
us who are in the Senate of the United States, who feel strongly
about this problem is to make sure that you can live out your lives
making a contribution to society, and live your lives in dignity.

       I think back to the time when I was Attorney General,  he
went on.  Two of the best lawyers in the Civil Rights Division, two
of the lawyers who did almost more than anyone else to bring rights
to all of our citizens, were persons who were blind. It might come
as a surprise to many people in the United States that the man in
charge of surveying and studying the records within the Civil
Rights Division records that have to be so carefully appraised that
all this was done under the direction and control of a man who is
blind.

       So I know from personal experience what kind of a
contribution those who are blind can make what a difference they
can make in a department of the government, what a difference they
can make in an agency, what a difference they can really make in
industry and labor.

       So I join with you,  the Senator concluded,  first in
thanking you for your recognition of President Kennedy's interest
in you and your organization. And I also say that that interest is
not ended: that this is a recognition of the past because of what
we intend to accomplish in the future.

       And in that effort, in what you are trying to do both as
individuals and as officers of this organization I want to pledge
to you the help and assistance of the junior senator from the state
of New York. Thank you very much. 

     Another memorable moment in the course of the historic 1965
convention occurred when Hubert Humphrey, then Vice President of
the United States, was honored in a special ceremony as recipient
of the Federation's Newel Perry Award. In receiving the award
Humphrey reminded the delegates that this was his third meeting
with the organized blind:  Eighteen years ago, as mayor of
Minneapolis, I welcomed your members to that great city for your
seventh annual convention. Five years ago, as a U.S. Senator from
Minnesota, I attended another very enthusiastic convention your
state convention in Minnesota. And today I am proud to meet with
you again, proud to receive your plaque, to greet so many old, dear
friends, and I hope to make new ones. 

     Vice President Humphrey then said:  Today the nation is
fulfilling many of the hopes, yes, the visions, of your own
Federation and of other pioneering organizations. Your great
founder Jacobus tenBroek had this vision. He had a gift of
foresight which others who had the blessing of physical sight did
not possess. Your Federation has compiled a remarkable and fruitful
record nationally, in the states, cities, and rural areas. You have
brought hope to countless thousands of the blind, where before
there had been so much hopelessness. You have encouraged self-help
by the blind in place of dependency. Your Federation has taken many
steps forward. You have come a long way. And I regard it as a great
honor to have walked with you and worked with you. Long may the
Federation flourish in its service, in its leadership. Long may the
courageous blind help to lead a courageous America to a better life
for all. 

     With those words, and waving aloft his Newel Perry plaque,
Hubert Humphrey took leave of the Washington convention giving way
to a parade of other orators and luminaries. Among them was the
Federation's own First Vice President, Kenneth Jernigan, who took
full advantage of the massive turnout of congressmen and
politicians in the audience to deliver a major address on a subject
of perennial importance (and one to which he would return
frequently at future conventions): that of the needless social
handicap imposed upon the blind, not by their own physical
condition but by the misconceptions of the public. In effect
Jernigan turned his speech into a seminar on blindness, proclaiming
the Federationist doctrine that blind persons are only normal
people who can't see not abnormal people who can't function. But he
demonstrated that the very words we use starting with the word 
blind  and the very concepts we form out of these words, like the
concept of the  helpless blind,  carry a freight of unacknowledged
connotations which become stumbling blocks on the road to
independence.

     Here is the text of that speech:

              BLINDNESS CONCEPTS AND MISCONCEPTIONS
                       by Kenneth Jernigan

      When an individual becomes blind, he faces two major
problems: First, he must learn the skills and techniques which will
enable him to carry on as a normal, productive citizen in the
community; and second, he must become aware of and learn to cope
with public attitudes and misconceptions about blindness attitudes
and misconceptions which go to the very roots of our culture and
permeate every aspect of social behavior and thinking.

      The first of these problems is far easier to solve than the
second. For it is no longer theory but established fact that, with
proper training and opportunity, the  average  blind person can do
the  average  job in the  average  place of business and do it as
well as his sighted neighbor. The blind can function as scientists,
farmers, electricians, factory workers, and skilled technicians.
They can perform as housewives, lawyers, teachers, or laborers. The
skills of independent mobility, communication, and the activities
of daily living are known, available, and acquirable. Likewise, the
achievement of vocational competence poses no insurmountable
barrier.

      In other words the real problem of blindness is not the
blindness itself not the acquisition of skills or techniques or
competence. The real problem is the lack of understanding and the
misconceptions which exist. It is no accident that the word  blind 
carries with it connotations of inferiority and helplessness. The
concept undoubtedly goes back to primitive times when existence was
at an extremely elemental level. Eyesight and the power to see were
equated with light, and light (whether daylight or firelight) meant
security and safety. Blindness was equated with darkness, and
darkness meant danger and evil. The blind person could not hunt
effectively or dodge a spear. In our day, society and social values
have changed. In civilized countries there is now no great premium
on dodging a spear, and hunting has dwindled to the status of an
occasional pastime. The blind are able to compete on terms of
equality in the full current of active life. The primitive
conditions of jungle and cave are gone, but the primitive attitudes
about blindness remain. The blind are thought to live in a world of 
darkness,  and darkness is equated with evil, stupidity, sin, and
inferiority.

      Do I exaggerate? I would that it were so. Consider the very
definition of the word  blind,  the reflection of what it means in
the language, its subtle shades and connotations. The 1962 printing
of the World Publishing Company's college edition of  Webster's New
World Dictionary of the American Language  defines  blind  as
follows:  without the power of sight; sightless; eyeless; lacking
insight or understanding; done without adequate directions or
knowledge; as, blind search. Reckless; unreasonable; not controlled
by intelligence; as, blind destiny; insensible; drunk; illegible;
indistinct. In  architecture , false, walled up, as, a  blind 
window.  The 1960 edition of  Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary 
says:  blind. Sightless. Lacking discernment; unable or unwilling
to understand or judge; as, a  blind  choice. Apart from
intelligent direction or control; as,  blind  chance. Insensible;
as, a  blind  stupor; hence, drunk. For sightless persons; as, a 
blind  asylum. Unintelligible; illegible; as,  blind  writing. 

      There are a number of reasons why it is extremely difficult
to change public attitudes about blindness. For one thing, despite
the fact that many achievements are being made by the blind and
that a good deal of constructive publicity is being given to these
achievements, there are strong countercurrents of uninformed and
regressive publicity and propaganda. It is hard to realize, for
instance, that anyone still exists who actually believes the blind
are especially gifted in music or that they are particularly suited
to weaving or wickerwork. It is hard to realize that any
well-educated person today believes that blind people are
compensated for their loss of sight by special gifts and talents.
Yet, I call your attention to a section on blindness appearing in
a book on government and citizenship which is in current use in
many public high schools throughout our country. Not in some bygone
generation, but today, hundreds of thousands of ninth-grade
students will study this passage:

Caring for the Handicapped

      The blind, the deaf, the dumb, the crippled, and the insane
and the feeble-minded are sometimes known collectively as the 
defective  people who are lacking some normal faculty or power.
Such people often need to be placed in some special institution in
order to receive proper attention.

      Many blind, deaf, and crippled people can do a considerable
amount of work. The blind have remarkable talent in piano tuning,
weaving, wickerwork, and the like. The deaf and dumb are still less
handicapped because they can engage in anything that does not
require taking or giving orders by voice.1

      I confess to being surprised when I learned that the book
containing the foregoing passage was in general use. It occurred to
me to wonder whether the text was unique or whether its 
enlightened  views were held by other authors in the field. The
results of my investigation were not reassuring. I call your
attention to the selection on blindness appearing in another text
in common use throughout the high schools of our nation.

      The blind may receive aid from the states and the federal
government, if their families are not able to keep them from want.
There are over one hundred institutions for the blind in the United
States, many of which are supported wholly or partly by taxes.
Sometimes it seems as if blind people are partly compensated for
their misfortune by having some of their other talents developed
with exceptional keenness. Blind people can play musical
instruments as well as most of those who can see, and many
activities where a keen touch of the fingers is needed can be done
by blind people wonderfully well. Schools for the blind teach their
pupils music and encourage them to take part in some of the outdoor
sports that other pupils enjoy.2

      If this is not enough to make the point, let me give you a
quotation from still another high school text in current use:

Kinds of Dependents

      There are many persons who do not take a regular part in
community life and its affairs, either because they cannot or will
not. Those who cannot may be divided into the following classes (1) 
 The physically handicapped  : the blind, the deaf, and the
crippled; (2)  the mentally handicapped : the feeble-minded and the
insane; (3)  the unemployed : those incapable of work, the misfits,
and the victims of depression; and (4)  the orphaned : those
children left in the care of the state or in private institutions.
The community should care for these people or help them to care for
themselves as much as possible.

      Those who will not play their part in community life are the
criminals. Schools have been established where the blind are taught
to read by the use of raised letters called the Braille system.
They are also taught to do other things such as to weave, make
brushes, tune pianos, mend and repair furniture, and to play
musical instruments. It is far better for the blind to attend these
institutions than to remain at home because here they can learn to
contribute to their own happiness.3

      In attempting to change public attitudes, not only must we
overcome the effects of Webster's dictionary and a host of
textbooks, but we must take into account another factor as well.
Several years ago the agency that I head was attempting to help a
young woman find employment as a secretary. She was a good typist,
could fill out forms, handle erasures, take dictation, and
otherwise perform competently. She was neat in her person and could
travel independently anywhere she wanted to go. She was also
totally blind. I called the manager of a firm which I knew had a
secretarial opening and asked him if he would consider interviewing
the blind person in question. He told me that he knew of the 
wonderful work  which blind persons were doing and that he was most 
sympathetic  to our cause but that his particular setup would not
be suitable. As he put it,  Our work is very demanding. Carbons
must be used and forms must be filled out. Speed is at a premium,
and a great deal of work must be done each day. Then, there is the
fact that our typewriters are quite a ways from the bathroom, and
we cannot afford to use the time of another girl to take the blind
person to the toilet. 

      At this stage I interrupted to tell him that during the past
few years new travel techniques had been developed and that the
girl I had in mind was quite expert in getting about, that she was
able to go anywhere she wished with ease and independence. He came
back with an interruption of his own.

       Oh, I know what a  wonderful  job the blind do in traveling
about and accomplishing things for themselves. You see I know a
blind person. I know Miss X, and I know what a good traveler she is
and how competent.  I continued to try to persuade him, but I knew
my case was lost. For, you see, I also know Miss X, and she is one
of the poorest travelers and one of the most helpless blind people
I have ever known. There is a common joke among many blind persons
that she gets lost in her own bedroom, and I guess maybe she does.

      The man with whom I was talking was not being insincere; far
from it. He thought that the ordinary blind person, by all reason
and common sense, should be completely helpless and unable to
travel at all. He thought that it was wonderful and remarkable that
the woman he knew could do as well as she did. When compared with
what he thought could normally be expected of the blind, her
performance was outstanding. Therefore, when I told him that the
person that I had in mind could travel independently, he thought
that I meant the kind of travel he had seen from Miss X. We were
using the same words, and we were both sincere, but our words meant
different things to each of us. I tremble to think what he thought
I meant by  good typing  and  all-around competence. 

      When I go into a community to speak to a group and someone
says to me,  Oh I know exactly what you mean; I know what blind
people can do, because I know a blind person,  I often cringe. I
say to myself,  And what kind of blind person do you know? 

      This gives emphasis (if, indeed, emphasis is needed) to the
constantly observed truth that all blind people are judged by one.
If a person has known a blind man who is especially gifted as a
musician, he is likely to believe that all of the blind are good at
music. Many of us are living examples of the fallacy of that
misconception. Some years ago I knew a man who had hired a blind
person in his place of business. The blind man was, incidentally,
fond of the bottle and was (after, no doubt, a great deal of soul
searching on the part of the employer) fired. The employer still
refuses to consider hiring another blind person. As he puts it, 
They simply drink too much. 

      Once I was attending a national convention made up largely of
blind people, and a waitress in the hotel dining room said to me, 
I just think it is wonderful how happy blind people are. I have
been observing you folks, and you all seem to be having such a good
time! 

      I said to the waitress,  But did you ever observe a group of
sighted conventioneers! When they get away from their homes and the
routine of daily life, they usually let their hair down and relax
a bit. Blind people are about as happy and about as unhappy as
anybody else. 

      Not only is there a tendency to judge all blind people by
one, but there is also a tendency to judge all blind people by the
least effective and least competent members of the larger, sighted
population. In other words, if it can't be done by a person with
sight, a  normal person,  then, how can it possibly be done by a
blind person? One of the best illustrations of this point that I
have ever seen occurred some time ago when an attempt was being
made to secure employment for a blind man in a corn oil factory.
The job involved the operation of a press into which a large
screw-type plunger fed corn. Occasionally the press would jam, and
it was necessary for the operator to shut it off and clean it out
before resuming the operation. The employer had tentatively agreed
to hire the blind man, but when we showed up to finalize the
arrangements, the deal was off. The employer explained that since
our last visit, one of his sighted employees had got his hand
caught in the press, and the press had chewed it off. It developed
that the sighted employee had been careless. When the press had
jammed, he had not shut it off, but had tried to clean it while it
was still running. The employer said,  This operation is dangerous!
Why, even a sighted man got hurt doing it! I simply couldn't think
of hiring a blind man in this position!  It was to no avail that we
urged and reasoned. We might have told him (but didn't) that if he
intended to follow logic, perhaps he should have refused to hire
any more sighted people on the operation. After all it wasn't a
blind man who had made the mistake.

      There is still another factor which makes it difficult to
change the public attitudes about blindness. All of us need to feel
superior, and the problem is compounded by the fact that almost
everyone secretly feels a good deal of insecurity and inadequacy a
good deal of doubt regarding status and position. On more than one
occasion people have come to the door of a blind man to collect for
the heart fund, cancer research, or some other charity, and have
then turned away in embarrassment when they have found they were
dealing with a blind person. Their comment is usually to the
effect,  Oh, I am sorry! I didn't know! I couldn't take the money
from a blind person!  In many instances, I am happy to say, the
blind person has insisted on making a contribution. The implication
is clear and should not be allowed to go unchallenged. It is that
the blind are unable to participate in regular community life, that
they should not be expected to assume responsibilities, that they
should receive but not give as others do.

      More than once I have seen confusion and embarrassment in a
restaurant when it came the blind person's turn to treat for coffee
or similar items. At the cash register there was an obvious feeling
of inappropriateness and shame on the part of the sighted members
of the group at having restaurant employees and others see a blind
person pay for their food. Something turns, of course, on the
question of means; and the blind person should certainly not pay
all of the time; but he should do his part like any other member of
the group.

      Recently I registered at a hotel, and the bellboy carried my
bags to my room. When I started to tip him (and it was a fairly
generous tip), he moved back out of the way with some
embarrassment. He said,  Oh, no, I couldn't! I am a gentleman! 
When I persisted he said,  I am simply not that hard up! 

      It is of significance to note that he had an amputated hand
and that he was quite short of stature. What kind of salary he made
I do not know, but I would doubt that it was comparatively very
high. His manner and tone and the implication of his words said
very clearly,  I may be in a bad way and have it rough, but at
least I am more fortunate than you. I am grateful that my situation
is not worse than it is.  There was certainly no ill intent. In
fact, there were both charity and kindness. But charity and
kindness are sometimes misplaced, and they are not always
constructive forces.

      Let me now say something about the agencies and organizations
doing work with the blind. Employees and administrators of such
agencies are members of the public, too, and are conditioned by the
same forces that affect other people in the total population. Some
of them (in fact, many) are enlightened individuals who thoroughly
understand the problems to be met and who work with vigor and
imagination to erase the stereotypes and propagate a new way of
thought concerning blindness and its problems; but some of them
(unfortunately, far too many) have all the misconceptions and
erroneous ideas which characterize the public at large. Regrettably
there are still people who go into work with the blind because they
cannot be dominant in their homes or social or business lives, and
they feel (whether they verbalize it or not) that at least they can
dominate and patronize the blind. This urge often expresses itself
in charitable works and dedicated sincerity, but this does not
mitigate its unhealthy nature or make it any less misguided or
inappropriate.

      Such agencies are usually characterized by a great deal of
talk about  professionalism  and by much high-flown jargon. They
believe that blindness is more than the loss of eyesight; that it
involves multiple and mysterious personality alterations. Many of
them believe that the newly blinded person requires the assistance
of a psychiatrist in making the adjustment to blindness, and,
indeed, that the psychiatrist and psychotherapy should play an
important part in the training programs for the blind. They believe
that the blind are a dependent class and that the agencies must
take care of them throughout their entire lives. But let some of
these people speak for themselves. One agency administrator has
said:  After he is once trained and placed, the average disabled
person can fend for himself. In the case of the blind, it has been
found necessary to set up a special state service agency which will
supply them not only rehabilitation training but other services for
the rest of their lives.  The agencies  keep in constant contact
with them as long as they live. 

      This is not an isolated comment. An agency psychiatrist has
this to say:  All visible deformities require special study.
Blindness is a visible deformity and all blind persons follow a
pattern of dependency. 

      Or consider this by the author of a well-known book on
blindness:  With many persons, there was an expectation in the
establishment of the early schools that the blind in general would
thereby be rendered capable of earning their own support a view
that even at the present is shared in some quarters. It would have
been much better if such a hope had never been entertained, or if
it had existed in a greatly modified form. A limited acquaintance
of a practical nature with the blind as a whole and their
capabilities has usually been sufficient to demonstrate the
weakness of this conception. 4

      It cannot be too strongly emphasized that the foregoing
quotations represent individual instances and not the total
judgment of the agencies and organizations doing work with the
blind. Opinions and approaches vary as much with the agencies as
with the general public. I would merely make the point here that
being a professional worker in the field does not insure one
against the false notions and erroneous stereotypes which
characterize the public at large.

      For that matter, being a blind person is no passport to
infallibility either. Public attitudes about the blind too often
become the attitudes of the blind. The blind are part of the
general public. They tend to see themselves as others see them.
They too often accept the public view of their limitations and thus
do much to make those limitations a reality. There is probably not
a single blind person in the world today (present company included)
who has not sold himself short at one time or another.

      At one time in my life I ran a furniture shop, making and
selling the furniture myself. I designed and put together tables,
smoke stands, lamps, and similar items. I sawed and planed, drilled
and measured, fitted and sanded. I did every single operation
except the final finish work, the staining and varnishing. After
all, as I thought, one must be reasonable and realistic. If anyone
had come to me at that time and said that I was selling myself
short, that I should not automatically assume that a blind person
could not do varnishing, I think I would have resented it very
much. I think I would have said something to this effect:  I have
been blind all my life, and I think I know what a blind person can
do; you have to use common sense. You can't expect a blind person
to drive a truck, and you can't expect him to varnish furniture
either. 

      Later when I went to California to teach in the state's
Orientation Center for the Blind, I saw blind people doing
varnishing as a matter of course. By and by I did it myself. I can
tell you that the experience caused me to do a great deal of
serious thinking. It was not the fact that I had hired someone else
to do the varnishing in those earlier days in my shop. Perhaps it
would have been more efficient, under any circumstances, for me to
have hired this particular operation done so that I could spend my
time more profitably. It was the fact that I had automatically
assumed that a blind person could not do the work, that I had sold
myself short without realizing it, all the while believing myself
to be a living exemplification of progressive faith in the
competence of the blind a most deflating experience. It made me
wonder then, as it does today: How many things that I take for
granted as being beyond the competence of the blind are easily
within reach? How many things that I now regard as requiring
eyesight really require only insight, an insight which I do not
possess because of the conditioning I have received from my
culture, and because of the limitations of my imagination?

      There is also the temptation to have our cake and eat it too,
the temptation to accept the special privileges or shirk the
responsibility when it suits us and then to demand equal treatment
when we want it.

      Some years ago when Boss Ed Crump was supreme in Memphis, an
interesting event occurred each year. There was an annual football
game, which was called the  ball game for the blind.  Incidentally,
Mr. Crump also conducted an annual watermelon-slicing for the
Negro. With respect to the  ball game for the blind,  Mr. Crump's
friends went about contacting the general public and all of the
businesses of the area soliciting donations and purchases of
tickets. Probably a good deal of arm-twisting and shaming were done
when necessary. The total take was truly impressive. In the
neighborhood of one hundred thousand dollars was raised each year.
The money was then equally divided among all known blind persons in
the county, and a check was sent to each. It usually amounted to
about one hundred dollars and was known as the  Christmas bonus for
the blind. 

      Most of the blind whom I knew from Shelby County gladly
received these checks, and most of the rest of us in the state
(either secretly or openly) envied them their great good fortune.
How short-sighted we all were! The blind people of Memphis were not
being done a favor! They were being robbed of a birthright. As they
gave their money and bought their tickets, how many businessmen
closed their minds (although without conscious thought) to the
possibility of a blind employee? How many blind people traded equal
status in the community, social and civic acceptance, and
productive and remunerative employment for one hundred dollars a
year? What a bargain!

      As I said in the beginning, the real problem of blindness is
not the loss of eyesight but the misconceptions and
misunderstandings which exist. The public (whether it be the
general public, the agencies, or the blind themselves) has created
the problem and must accept the responsibility for solving it. In
fact, great strides are being made in this direction.

      First must come awareness, awareness on the part of the blind
themselves, and a thorough consistency of philosophy and dedication
of purpose; an increasing program of public education must be
waged; vigilance must be maintained to see that the agencies for
the blind are staffed with the right kind of people; with the right
kind of philosophy; and the movement of self-organization of the
blind must be encouraged and strengthened. This last is a cardinal
point, for any disadvantaged group must be heard with its own
voice, must lead in the achievement of its own salvation.

      Accomplishments are made of dreams and drudgeries, of hope
and hard work. The blind of the nation are now moving toward a
destiny, a destiny of full equality and full participation in
community life.

      That destiny will be achieved when the day comes on which we
can say with pleasure and satisfaction what we must now say with
concern and consternation:  Public attitudes about the blind become
the attitudes of the blind. The blind see themselves as others see
them. 

     FOOTNOTE  

1.  McCrocklin, James,  Building Citizenship  (1961, Allyn and
Bacon, Inc., pub.; Boston), p. 244.

2.  Hughes, R. O.,  Good Citizenship  (1949, Allyn and Bacon, pub.;
Boston), p. 55.

3.  Blough, G. L., and David S. Switzer, and Jack T. Johnson, 
Fundamentals of Citizenship  (Laidlow Brothers, pub.; Chicago), pp.
164-167.

4. From an address entitled  Within the Grace of God  by Professor
Jacobus tenBroek, delivered at the 1956 convention of the National
Federation of the Blind in San Francisco.

     If the silver anniversary convention of 1965 was a high point
on the Federation's road to revival and reconstruction, the next
year's convention held in Louisville provided the decisive
confirmation of the movement's full recovery. It came with the
restoration to the presidency of the man who had held that office
for 21 years before relinquishing it in 1963. That dramatic and
unanticipated event followed the decision of Russell Kletzing, the
incumbent National Federation of the Blind President, to step down.
Following his formal announcement to that effect at the close of
the presidential report, the convention hall buzzed with
speculation and wonderment. Here is how the  Braille Monitor 
reported the episode:

     CONVENTION ACCLAIMS tenBROEK AS PRESIDENT

       Because of my unbounded faith in you, I am gratified to find
that you have some faith in me. 

      With these words, Professor Jacobus tenBroek resumed the
office of President of the National Federation of the Blind which
he had previously held for 21 years after the organization's
founding in 1940.

      Thus occurred the high point of the 1966 convention and one
of the highlights of 26 years of Federation history. This dramatic
and wholly unexpected event followed the decision of Russell
Kletzing, the Federation's President for the past four years, not
to be a candidate for re-election a decision reached earlier and
informally made known to many delegates as they arrived at the
convention. It thus came as no surprise when Russ declared at the
conclusion of his President's Report on the first afternoon of the
convention that because of the growing requirements of his
professional career and of his family he would not run again.

      Ken Jernigan, as the man whom informal discussion among the
delegates had generally singled out as the obvious successor to the
office, then took the floor in an atmosphere of mounting suspense.

       Mr. President,  he began,  I wish to make a brief statement
and a motion.  As the tension in the audience rose still further,
Ken went on to say that at the urging of other Federation leaders
he himself had given serious consideration to permitting his own
name to be placed in nomination for the presidency but  I have
never felt right about it.  For him it was proper to be Dr.
tenBroek's  chief lieutenant but not his chief. 

       During the last few days,  Jernigan continued,  and again
this morning, in this hotel, I discussed with Dr. tenBroek the
reasons why he, our founder and leader, ought to run for the
presidency at this time. Those shattering and best forgotten days
of the civil war are over; and his spirit, his integrity, his value
are now needed more than ever to carry us to new heights of unity
and accomplishment but not as President Emeritus rather, as
President. 

      Observing that Dr. tenBroek  this morning gave me a decision
that permits this motion now,  Ken went on to say  again that I
will do everything that I can to assist Dr. tenBroek in the years
ahead and that if the time comes when he cannot or will not allow
his name to be placed in nomination for the presidency, I will
definitely be a candidate for that office. 

      He then moved that the convention  unanimously, by
acclamation, elect as its President Jacobus tenBroek. 

      There followed a demonstration the like of which
Federationists had not experienced before unless it was on that
other memorable occasion five years earlier when Professor tenBroek
announced his resignation and retirement from the presidency. On
both occasions the response of the delegates was not one merely of
volume but of the expression of intense feelings. It was one of
those rare times about which one can say truly that there was not
a dry eye in the assemblage.

       There is no doubt of the sense of this convention, 
exclaimed Russ Kletzing after some minutes of demonstration. 
President tenBroek, will you please come up here? 

      The first extemporaneous words of the newly acclaimed leader
of the National Federation reflected the mood of the gathering;  A
man ought not to come to these conventions unless he has a strong
heart.

       We have lived together and worked together for a long time
now, and most of you know that I'm a sentimental fellow. Because of
my unbounded faith in you, I'm gratified to find that you have some
faith in me.

       I saw Don Capps a little while ago and he said, as he has
regularly for the past five years; `You wouldn't be interested in
being President, would you?' I replied. `Do you think I'm mad?' And
he said, `Well, I suspect that you've had that kind of madness all
the time I've known you.'

       It is a kind of madness,  Dr. tenBroek continued.  A man,
having once undertaken the burdens and responsibilities of this
office, ought really in good sense not to be eager to shoulder them
again.

       But as is true of you, so also it is true of me that the
Federation gets in one's blood. In this movement we have a great
cause to carry forward and to work for. It is not just a matter of
our personal feelings and our private lives, if we have some sense
of responsibility to others, some sense of obligation to contribute
whatever we can to improve the lot of our fellows. 

      President tenBroek went on to speak of the work of Jernigan
and Kletzing and of fruitful collaboration with them over the
years.

      He gaveled his first presidential session to adjournment with
the request that the delegates give Russ Kletzing a standing
ovation for his performance as President during the past four
years.

      The session ended with the delegates on their feet,
applauding and cheering.

     Shortly after the 1966 convention, Dr. tenBroek learned that
he had cancer; and it was not much longer before it would prove to
be incurable. Nevertheless, as Kenneth Jernigan was to say of him
later:  He came to the 1967 convention in Los Angeles in high good
humor and tranquillity. It was his last. There are many who say it
was his greatest. When he rose to make the banquet address, it
seemed a fitting climax and valedictory. 

     That valedictory speech of President tenBroek was sharply
focused and pointedly addressed. Whereas, two years before, at the
silver anniversary convention, he had reviewed the full sweep of
the movement's history and accomplishments, now he concentrated
upon a single troubled phase of its career: namely, the present
state of its relations with the agencies in the field. Dr.
tenBroek's address left no doubt of his conviction that the
conflict of the organized blind with the agencies claiming dominion
over them was the paramount issue of the period the outcome of
which would decide the fate of blind Americans, individually and
collectively, for many years to come.

      The blind have a right to live in the world,  he declared. 
That right is as deep as human nature; as pervasive as the need for
social existence; as ubiquitous as the human race; as invincible as
the human spirit. As their souls are their own, so their destiny
must be their own.  But Dr. tenBroek went on to assert that  this
bedrock right is challenged directly by many agencies not only by
their actions but by their words.  He therefore posed the
fundamental issue in the form of a blunt question to the organized
blind:  Are We Equal to the Challenge? 

     Following is the text of President tenBroek's final banquet
address as delivered before that 1967 convention at Los Angeles:

                 ARE WE EQUAL TO THE CHALLENGE?
                       by Jacobus tenBroek

      When last we met together in this Golden State eleven years
ago, in that  other California  whose unofficial capital is San
Francisco I delivered another banquet address which I dare say some
of our grizzled members still remember. It was entitled  Within the
Grace of God.  It was frankly a fighting speech, and I'd like for
a moment to recall to your minds and memories what the fight was
all about.

      That 1956 speech was principally concerned with the
development of our movement the organized blind movement of the
United States and with the relations of that movement with the
private voluntary agencies, and combinations of agencies, in the
field of work for the blind.

      The state of our relations with the agencies, at that
turbulent point of our history, can be briefly characterized. It
was a state of war. We were in fact the targets of concerted
opposition both nationally and within many of our affiliated
states. The purpose of that attack was to break up the organized
blind movement and return its members to the alienation,
dependency, and disorganization of the status quo ante bellum that
is, the good old days before the blind were organized.

      Among other things, that agency opposition took the form of
a verbal campaign directed against the basic premises and pillars
of our movement. In editorials, speeches, books and broadsides,
authoritative spokesmen for major agencies reminded the blind over
and over of their legendary  lacks and losses  their irremediable
dependency, their emotional imbalance, their obvious inequality,
their desperate need for professional guidance and custodial care
until their dying day or, alternatively, until that future golden
age, as one agency director expressed it,  when each and every
blind person is a living advertisement of his ability and capacity
to accept the privileges and responsibilities of citizenship. 

      Now we are together again in California eleven years after.
How goes the battle today? How do we stand now in relation to the
agencies?

      Before confronting those questions, let it be understood that
our embattled relationship with the agencies is only one phase of
a many-sided movement of the blind reaching toward integration,
equality, and independence. It goes hand in hand with our struggle
to improve life and livelihood through legislative action national,
state, and local. It has its counterpart also in the arena of the
courtroom, where dramatic struggles against discrimination and
exclusion continue to be fought alternately won and lost and won
again. On still another front we are engaged in positive
relationships with other groups and associations, in particular
those of the disabled, the disadvantaged and the deprived. Our
concern must always be with the lame and the halt as well as with
the blind! And then there is our own domestic front: the internal
order of the Federation, with its constantly renewed challenges of
diversity and democracy.

      On all these fronts and more, we are called upon to devote
our fullest energies and creative efforts toward the discovery of
new solutions to changing issues and evolving needs. But in each of
these areas, the agencies loom as both a fact of our lives and a
factor in our planning. Nor is this a peculiar problem of blind
Americans. Elsewhere in the world everywhere else in the world much
the same tense and tortuous relationship exists. It exists, to be
sure, at different stages and in various forms. In many countries
of Europe, although rear-guard battles are still being fought, the
course of the struggle has long since been determined. The pattern
has been one, not of extinction of the agencies, but of their
conquest and assimilation. The blind people of Europe have
organized themselves and have taken over the agencies.

      In England, on the other hand, almost alone of the principal
European nations, the battle continues to rage unabated. There a
large national organization of the blind stands on the battle line
against an entrenched and powerful agency and its satellites. It is
an unequal struggle, though far from one-sided; and the organized
blind of Great Britain have no early hope of carrying out the
continental pattern. Rather they seek to secure their goals through
increasing governmentalization, thereby gradually superseding the
voluntary societies by having the government take over their vested
interests.

      In Canada the story is perhaps the saddest and sorriest of
all. In that northern clime an agency colossus bestrides the world
of the blind from coast to coast, making free use of company-union
tactics wherever any independent sentiment dares to express itself
among the disorganized blind. Only a handful of undaunted spirits
remain to hold the banner aloft in the deserted battlefield. Still
a different pattern exists in some European countries, and
especially those beyond the Iron Curtain, where large national
organizations of the blind exist, apparently dominant in their
field. There, for the most part, private agencies and voluntary
societies are virtually nonexistent but the question remains
whether the blind organizations are genuinely self-determined and
self-directing or only the passive instruments of governmental
policy and action. If the flow of communication is truly from the
blind to the government, as well as the other way around, if there
is genuine dialogue and not just authoritarian monologue, then in
those lands the three-cornered struggle among the blind, the
agencies, and the government has been resolved into a two-sided
partnership. Let us hope that this is indeed the case.

      In the United States, meanwhile, the wheel of fortune has not
yet turned so far. The private agencies and voluntary societies are
very much in evidence, as powerful as they are visible. Are they
our collaborators or our calumniators? When the agency official
passes by, who goes there: friend or foe?

      The answer today, no less than eleven years ago, must be
qualified and doubtful. There are agencies aplenty marching with
us, fully attuned to our aspirations and activities, alert to our
petitions, admiring of our programs. Doubtless too, their numbers
have grown since 1956. But there are also large and powerful
agencies abroad in the land, considerable in number and vast in
influence, which remain hostile to our movement in thought, in
speech, and in action.

      And the worst of these, it may well be, is the newest:
namely, COMSTAC. For COMSTAC seeks to impose upon the blind not
less but more authority and custody than ever before. Under the
guise of professionalism, it would perpetuate colonialism. Its
philosophy is a throwback to the age of the silent client, before
the revolution in welfare and civil rights which converted the
client into an active and vocal partner in the programming and
dispensing of services. In its lofty disregard of the organized
blind as the voice of those to be served, COMSTAC betrays its
bureaucratic bias that is, its distorted image of the blind client
not as a  person  to be  served  but as a defective mechanism to be 
serviced .

      Nowhere is the relationship between blind Americans and the
social agencies more distressing or scandalizing than in the
sheltered workshops where the relationship is one of pervasive
exploitation on the one hand and an elemental struggle for survival
on the other. Here the normal dignity of worker-management
relations is not to be found; on the contrary, blind shop workers
find themselves regarded not as workers but as wards, not as
visually disabled simply, but as emotionally disturbed as well.
They have been denied the status of organized labor, denied the
right to strike, denied even the protection of minimum wage
standards given as a matter of course to other workers.

      The inmates of the St. Louis Lighthouse have been out on
strike since last March, in spite of these deprivations just for
the right to sit down and talk with the lighthouse-keepers. Other
strikes have broken out across the country as blind shop workers
have decided to stand up and speak out. Because of this rebellious
spirit, this show of backbone, they are beginning to make progress.
But their gains are coming, step by painful step, against the
bitter-end opposition of the overseers in what must still be
designated the sheltered  sweatshops  of America.

      This condition of cold war between agencies and the organized
blind is being waged with particular force and fury within the
World Council for the Welfare of the Blind at whose gates the
organized blind of nation after nation have come knocking and have
either been turned away or relegated to second-class membership.
The American blind, through the NFB, have battled for years to
occupy the seat that is rightfully theirs upon the World Council's
executive board and to gain equal representation with the agencies,
but have been spurned, insulted, and ignored. The effort of the
organized blind of Australia to gain a single place in that
country's delegation to the World Council, long opposed by the
controlling agencies within Australia, has now been blocked by a
ruling of the World Council that the organized blind need not be
represented at all.

      The rationalization for this action and this attitude is
contained in a 1964 resolution enacted by the World Council as a
compromise to stave off a motion by the NFB. That resolution states
that  where in any country there exists a substantial group of
blind persons organized into associations and where there are blind 
persons  occupying leading positions in agencies for the blind,
adequate provision should be made for their representation in the
national delegation.  The emphasis is upon blind persons, wherever
they may be, and not upon the difference between elective
associations of blind people, on the one hand, and professional
agencies on the other. The lack of distinction is significant; for
it treats alike the roles of the agency professional and the
elected representative of a democratic group. If the confusion of
roles is honest, it reflects a profound ignorance of democracy; if
it is disingenuous, it reflects a shocking contempt for democracy.

      What is the difference between the two roles? I have been
informed by many earnest persons, all of them agency officials, to
be sure, that the difference is negligible, but that what little
difference there is favors the agency professional. For if he is
blind himself, then does he not know the experience of blindness as
well as any elected leader? And since he is a trained professional,
does he not know social policies and programs better? And, finally,
cannot the professional administrator consult his clients as much
as any elective fellow and having spoken  with  them qualify to
speak  for  them?

      These seem plausible arguments on the surface but they convey
an astonishing misconception of the democratic process and its
meaning. Put aside the fact that there are elected blind leaders
who possess at least a modicum of knowledge of the welfare field,
and appointed agency officials who possess little. That is beside
the real point which is that in a democracy the proper role of the
expert and the professional is not to govern, not to rule, but to
advise the governors; it is not to make policy decisions but only
to implement them. An engineer may tell us how to build a highway;
what he cannot do is to make the decision for us whether we should
build the highway or whether we should build instead a college, a
ball park, or a civic center. The sharpest lesson of democracy is
that no professional elite or caste, administrative or military or
scientific, must be permitted to usurp the power of the people and
their elected representatives to make the decisions of life and
liberty, or of life and death.

      That the agencies all too often have failed to subordinate
the role of the expert is one thing; that they all too often have
misconstrued the proper role of the blind is a second thing. But
more important than these mistakes is their persisting refusal to
acknowledge and accept the elementary principles of humanity and
democracy.

      The blind have a right to live in the world. That right is as
deep as human nature; as pervasive as the need for social
existence; as ubiquitous as the human race; as invincible as the
human spirit. As their souls are their own, so their destiny must
be their own. Their salvation or failure lies within their own
choice and responsibility. That choice cannot be precluded or
prejudged; those lives cannot be predetermined or controlled. In a
democracy the blind have a right to share in the fruits and
obligations of the community. They have a right to participate in
the decisions that affect their lives and fortunes. And beneath and
beyond these democratic rights there is a further one: the right to
organize for collective self-expression, and to be represented
through their own associations. This, if it does not go without
saying, surely goes without disputing.

      But no: that basic and bedrock right is challenged directly
by many agencies no less today than a decade ago. Not only by their
actions, but by their words, do they stand condemned of throwing
stumbling blocks in the path of the blind. I call to your attention
an editorial published last September in the  Matilda Ziegler
Magazine , written by its managing editor, Howard M. Liechty, who
is also the longtime managing editor of the  New Outlook for the
Blind , the official journal of the American Foundation.

      Editor Liechty's editorial is a straightforward, unequivocal,
and sweeping attack upon the notion of equality as having any
present application to the blind and also upon the effort to move
toward  equality  by organized action and legislative reform.  Any
attempt to force social equality,  writes Editor Liechty,  would
mean legislating it, and any thinking man must know that you cannot
legislate such a thing of the heart, and force men to accept their
fellow men as social equals.  And he goes on to quote with favor
the words of a former Supreme Court Justice, Charles E. Whittaker,
to the effect that no minority group has ever achieved acceptance
in America until,  by long years of exemplary conduct, a majority
of its members have earned the respect and liking of the people
generally. 

      Well, there you have it. To Editor Liechty today, as to his
colleagues a decade ago, the hope of the blind for such peculiar
values as full citizenship, individual rights, social acceptance,
and human dignity, must continue to be a hope deferred. If anyone
should ask how long, oh lords, how long must we be kept waiting,
the answer comes back: until by exemplary conduct you have proved
your worthiness all of you together, and each one of you
individually.

      This requirement so righteously imposed upon the blind, this
test of exemplary conduct or good behavior, has a strangely
familiar ring. It is the echo of the ancient Poor Law, that
separate but unequal body of legal demands and strictures enforced
upon the poor, the indigent, and the disabled as the precondition
of eligibility for public aid. In scarcely diluted form, these
requirements of exemplary conduct are now to be the conditions of
eligibility for citizenship itself, not for others, but only for
the blind.

      To assert, as Editor Liechty does, that the rights of equal
opportunity, of equal treatment, and equal access, of participation
and expression, cannot be legislatively secured and judicially
enforced is to fly in the face of our entire constitutional and
political history. It is also to disregard the not inconsiderable
history of the organized blind movement from the Kletzing case to
the Model White Cane Law.

      Of course we cannot be required to love one another; but we
can be prevented from expressing our hates, our superstitions, and
our prejudices in terms of public law and social policy. We cannot
require the sighted to embrace the blind as brothers; but we can
stop them from placing obstacles in their path.

      We need not suppose that the end of discrimination against
the blind will bring an automatic end to prejudice; but we can
choose to be guided by the sense of justice, the voice of reason,
the commitment to equality, and the passion for freedom which
together make up the ancestral faith of American democracy.

      Why is it always the defenders of injustice and inequality
who cry out against the use of force to bring about change? For it
is force they are themselves defending: the force of habit, the
force of custom, the force of poor laws and of corrupt
institutions. Against this combination of forces there must be
brought another and opposing set of forces: the force of
conviction, the force of aroused public opinion, the force of
responsible government, the force of law.

      And why is it, finally, that the means test of  exemplary
conduct  always falls upon the  victims  of oppression, exclusion,
and discrimination rather than upon the perpetrators? Whose conduct
is it that most needs to be challenged and examined? Who is it that
should be placed on trial in this case? Is it the blind or is it
the men of short vision and little faith, the obsolete custodians
of the lighthouse and the sheltered shop, who seek to defend their
vested interest by subsidizing the ghost of the helpless blind man?

      Through all the years and decades of our existence as an
organized movement, for all our splendid success in gaining allies
and winning public support, we have faced the persistent opposition
of those whom we may call the  hard-core  custodians. The main
thrust of their attack upon us has always been that blind people
are not ready for equality not prepared for the burden of freedom
not strong enough to stand upright and walk alone down the main
streets of society.

      To this denial of equality by the agencies, the organized
blind reply: we are not only equal to you we are equal to your -
challenge.

     Jacobus tenBroek died on March 27, 1968, in Presbyterian
Hospital, San Francisco. He was buried in the gently rolling hills
not far from Berkeley, overlooking San Francisco Bay and with a
lovely view of Mount Tamalpais, a prospect of which he was very
fond.

     On May 5 of that year a memorial service was held in Berkeley,
on the campus of the University of California where Dr. tenBroek
had taught for the greater part of his distinguished academic
career. The chairman of that memorial assembly was Kenneth
Jernigan, who also delivered a eulogy that has come to be generally
regarded as the definitive assessment of  the man and the movement. 
Here is the text of his eulogy:

          JACOBUS tenBROEK:   THE MAN AND THE MOVEMENT
                       by Kenneth Jernigan

      If my remarks today were to have a title, it might well be: 
Jacobus tenBroek The Man and the Movement.  For the relationship of
this man to the organized blind movement, which he brought into
being in the United States and around the world, was such that it
would be equally accurate to say that the man was the embodiment of
the movement or that the movement was the expression of the man.

      For tens of thousands of blind Americans over more than a
quarter of a century he was leader, mentor, spokesman, and
philosopher. He gave to the organized blind movement the force of
his intellect and the shape of his dreams. He made it the symbol of
a cause barely imagined before his coming: the cause of self-
expression, self-direction, and self-sufficiency on the part of
blind people. Step by step, year by year, action by action, he made
that cause succeed.

      There are those who will tell you it all started in
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in 1940 when the blind of seven states
came together to organize. But they are wrong. It started much
earlier in the age-old discriminations against the blind, in the
social ostracism, the second-class citizenship, and the denial of
opportunity it started in primitive times before the first recorded
history, in the feelings of the community at large and the
restiveness of the blind, the wish for improvement, the resistance
to a system.

      Its seeds were there when the first schools for the blind
were founded in America in the 1800s, when the first feeble
beginnings of rehabilitation occurred in the present century in the
increasing numbers of blind college students, in the ever-expanding
agencies established to serve the blind, in the custodialism, the
hope, the frustration, the despair, and the courage.

      But it also started on July 6, 1911, on the prairies of
Alberta, Canada. On that date and in that place was born Jacobus
tenBroek. His father was a strong-willed  renegade  Dutchman who
first asserted his own independence by running away from home at
seven to become a cabin boy. Over the next thirty years he
literally sailed the seven seas and roamed most of the world, but
at the ripe age of forty he felt a hankering to settle down.
Through devious negotiations with the Dutch community in California
he arranged a marriage with a girl whom he met for the first time
on their wedding day and promptly took up homesteading in the
rugged Canadian prairies of Alberta. Like his fellow  sodbusters 
of that era, Nicolaas tenBroek earned the right to own his section
(640 acres) of hard ground through arduous years of clearing and
breaking it. But unlike the other homesteaders, who customarily
constructed their huts out of the native sod, the elder tenBroek
chose to build his home of logs chopped from the tall Alberta
timber.

      In that primitive, dirt-floor cabin, both Jacobus and his
older brother Nicolaas were born. Some years later when the worst
edge of grinding poverty had been turned, their father set about
erecting the first frame house to be seen in that part of the
province. But the rustic log cabin still stands today, hardly the
worse for more than a half-century of wear as a monument to Dutch
craftsmanship and North American timber.

      One day, seven-year-old Jacobus and a boyhood friend were
playing at bows and arrows, taking turns aiming at a roughly
constructed bull's eye cut out of a large piece of canvas. On a
sudden whim, young tenBroek darted behind the cloth to peer through
the hole at his companion. At that moment the other boy released an
arrow from his bow and for once that day the missile was perfectly
on target.

      The sight of one eye was irrevocably lost to Jacobus tenBroek
on that afternoon. Even then, however, had he received prompt and
expert medical attention he would have retained the full sight of
the other eye. But in rural Alberta in those days, such care was
not to be had. Before many years had gone by Jacobus was totally
blind.

      Perhaps it required the challenge of blindness to get his 
Dutch  up. At any rate, the stubborn streak of independence he had
inherited from both parents, coupled with a spartan upbringing on
a prairie homestead prevented any lapse into helplessness or
self-pity. The family decided to move back to California so that
Jacobus could enroll in the California School for the Blind.
Following this schooling he enrolled in the University of
California, where he graduated with highest honors and went on to
win the Order of the Coif at the University Law School.

      In 1937 he won what he was to consider his greatest triumph:
the hand of his wife Hazel. The three children and the happy life
which followed gave evidence to the wisdom of that judgment.

      The question has been put before: What if that fateful arrow
had never flown? But the arrow did fly and the results are a matter
of history. Jacobus tenBroek went on to earn five college degrees,
including a doctorate from Harvard and another from the University
of California. He became a brilliant teacher and scholar, a
renowned author, and a prominent authority in the field of social
welfare. He also became the founder and leader of the National
Federation of the Blind. From the very beginning the organization
was active, tumultuous, dynamic, inspiring. It struggled,
prospered, had civil war, and rebuilt. And through it all, one man
was a central figure Jacobus tenBroek. His enemies called him a
tyrant and hated him. His friends called him Chick and loved him.

      I first met Chick in 1952, when the Federation was twelve
years old. From that time until his death he was my closest friend
my teacher, companion, counselor, colleague, and brother. I worked
with him in good times and in bad, and had occasion to know him in
every conceivable kind of situation. He could be harsh and quick of
temper, but he could also be gentle, considerate, and generous. He
was the greatest man I have ever known.

      When he began the Federation in 1940 the plight of the blind
was sorry, indeed. To start any organization at all was a
monumental effort. It involved finding and stimulating blind
people, licking stamps and cranking the mimeograph machine, finding
funds and resources, and doing battle with the agencies bent on
perpetuating custodialism.

      When I came on the scene in 1952, the Federation was a
growing concern. The convention was held in New York that year, and
we had our first nationwide coverage a fifteen minute tenBroek
speech. The early and mid-fifties were a time of growth and harmony
for the organized blind movement. New states were joining the
Federation; money was coming into the treasury; and we established
our magazine, the  Braille Monitor . By 1956 the organization had
reached full maturity. Almost a thousand delegates gathered at San
Francisco to hear a classic statement of the hopes, purposes and
problems of the blind. It was Dr. tenBroek's banquet address, 
Within the Grace of God.  His addresses the following year at New
Orleans  The Cross of Blindness  and  The Right of the Blind to
Organize  were equally cogent.

      Shortly after the New Orleans convention smoldering sparks of
conflict within the Federation flamed into open civil war. The
three succeeding conventions Boston in 1958, Santa Fe in 1959, and
Miami in 1960 left the organization in virtual ruin. What had been
a great crusade had now become a bickering political movement.
Unity was gone; and although the overwhelming majority of the
members still believed in the leadership of Dr. tenBroek, they
seemed unable to mobilize themselves to meet this new type of
challenge. The opposition established a magazine, calling it the 
Free Press.  There were character assassinations, charges and
counter-charges. When Dr. tenBroek rose to speak to the delegates
at the Kansas City convention in 1961, his voice was weary, and his
words carried sorrow and defeat. He cited two lists of occurrences
during the preceding year things the Federation had done, and
things that had been done to the Federation by its own disruptive
faction from within. He said that he had undergone extreme and
bitter personal attack, aimed at destroying his career and his
reputation.  They have called me a Hitler,  he said,  a Stalin, and
a Mussolini. They have compared me to Caesar.  He then told the
audience that he felt that he had no choice but to resign. As he
talked, the dissenters shifted uneasily in their seats, the
majority wept. When he finished, I walked off of that stage with
him and it seemed to me as if the organized blind movement might be
finished.

      But the Federation did not die. From those dark days of 1961
it rallied. The resignation of Dr. tenBroek seemed to galvanize the
members into action. The dissenters were expelled. Renewal and
rebirth began. The 1962 convention at Detroit was a welcome
contrast to the four which had preceded it. Although Dr. tenBroek
was not the President, he was still the spiritual leader of the
movement. This fact was made clear by his reception throughout the
meeting and, particularly, at the banquet, where he delivered the
principal address.

      In 1965 the Federation met in the nation's Capitol. The
convention was tumultuous, enthusiastic. The Vice President of the
United States spoke, as did the Speaker of the House and numerous
others. The climax came at the banquet when more than one hundred
congressmen and senators came to the packed hotel ballroom to hear
one of the truly great tenBroek speeches.

      In the history of every movement there are crucial events and
landmark years. 1966 was such for the Federation. When the
delegates met at Louisville, there was an air of expectancy. On the
afternoon of the first day, President Russell Kletzing rose to make
his report. He summarized the past four years of organizational
development and concluded by saying that he would not be a
candidate for re-election. Then it was moved that Dr. tenBroek be
elected to the presidency by acclamation. There was pandemonium. As
on that other day in Kansas City, the majority wept. It was a day
of complete rededication and renewal.

      This was in July. In August Dr. tenBroek learned that he had
cancer. The surgery which followed brought hope, waiting, and
ultimate disappointment. As the year progressed and the pain grew,
the end seemed inevitable. He came to the 1967 convention at Los
Angeles in high good humor and tranquillity. It was his last. There
are many who say it was his greatest. When he rose to make the
banquet address, it seemed a fitting climax and valedictory.

      In the fall of 1967 surgery was again necessary. The cancer
was widespread and incurable. On March 27, 1968, Jacobus tenBroek
died. During his years he lived more and accomplished more than
most men ever can or do. He was the source of love for his family,
joy for his friends, consternation for his opponents, and hope for
the disadvantaged. He moved the blind from immobility to action,
from silence to expression, from degradation to dignity and through
that movement he moved a nation.

      No greater summation of his philosophy can be given than his
own concluding words in his speech  Within the Grace of God. 

      In the sixteenth century John Bradford made a famous remark
which has ever since been held up to us as a model of Christian
humility and great charity. Seeing a beggar in his rags, creeping
along a wall through a flash of lightening in a stormy night,
Bradford said:  But for the Grace of God, there go I.  Compassion
was shown; pity was shown; charity was shown; humility was shown;
there was even an acknowledgment that the relative positions of the
two could and might have been switched. Yet despite the compassion,
despite the pity, despite the charity, despite the humility, how
insufferably arrogant! There was still an unbridgeable gulf between
Bradford and the beggar. They were not one but two. Whatever might
have been, Bradford thought himself Bradford and the beggar a
beggar one high, the other low; one wise, the other misguided; one
strong, the other weak; one virtuous, the other depraved.

      We do not and we cannot take the Bradford approach. It is not
just that beggary is the badge of our past and is still all too
often the present symbol of social attitudes towards us; although
that is at least part of it. But in the broader sense, we are that
beggar, and he is each of us. We are made in the same image and of
the same ingredients. We have the same weaknesses and strengths,
the same feelings, emotions, and drives; and we are products of the
same social, economic, and other environmental forces. How much
more consonant with the facts of individual and social life, how
much more a part of true humanity, to say instead:  There, within
the Grace of God, do go I. 

      So Chick spoke in a graphic pronouncement. On another
occasion he said:  Movements are built of principles and of men.
Movements without principles should not exist. Movements with
principles but without men of energy, intelligence, and training to
give them life cannot exist. 

      He was such a man. He gave to the movement all that he had
his time, his energy, and his love. The only thing he took in
return was such satisfaction as he derived from his labors. In the
hearts of blind men and women throughout America and the world, his
memory lives, and will live. In the life and work of Jacobus
tenBroek can be read the story of a man and a movement.

The White Cane

     A significant episode in that story had begun much earlier. It
was in 1964 on October 15 that America, for the first time,
officially observed White Cane Safety Day. In issuing his formal
proclamation, President Lyndon B. Johnson emphasized the
significance of the action and of the visible symbol:  A white cane
in our society has become one of the symbols of a blind person's
ability to come and go on his own. Its use has promoted courtesy
and opportunity for mobility for the blind on our streets and
highways. To make the American people more fully aware of the
meaning of the white cane, and of the need for motorists to
exercise special care for the blind persons who carry it, Congress,
by a joint resolution approved October 6, 1964, authorized the
President to proclaim October 15 of each year as White Cane Safety
Day. 

     That Presidential proclamation marked a climactic moment in
the long campaign by the organized blind to gain national as well
as state recognition of the rights of blind pedestrians. Starting
in the thirties, early leaders of the blind like William Taylor of
Pennsylvania had traveled the country over persuading legislature
after legislature to adopt a White Cane Traffic Law for the
protection of blind persons on the streets and highways. These
pioneer lobbyists were the Johnny Appleseeds of the organized blind
movement, scattering the seeds of white cane consciousness among
the states.

     By 1960, Jacobus tenBroek was able to announce in one of the
most important and influential speeches of his career that these
sustained efforts on behalf of white cane laws had borne fruit
everywhere in the land.  It was exactly thirty years ago,  he
wrote,  that the first legislative step was taken to free the blind
from the rocking-chair in which the law still kept them shackled.
This year we are celebrating, not only the thirtieth anniversary of
that first step onto the highway, but the virtual completion of the
campaign which it inaugurated. Today, White Cane Laws are on the
books of every state in the union and for the first time in modern
history, everywhere in the land, the blind person truly `walks by
a faith justified by law.' 

     The text of that 1960 address entitled  He Walks By a Faith
Justified by Law  was to be reprinted several times by the  Braille
Monitor  over the years and has been widely quoted, cited, and
praised elsewhere. In eloquent but informal language, free from
jargon, tenBroek summed up the full significance of the white cane,
as both a  symbol of equality  and a  sign of mobility.  The text
of his speech follows:

HE WALKS BY A FAITH JUSTIFIED BY LAW
      by Jacobus tenBroek

      Nearly a century ago, in a case that has become a landmark,
the chief justice of a New York Court wrote as follows:

      The streets and sidewalks are for the benefit of all
conditions of people, and all have the right, in using them, to
assume that they are in good condition, and to regulate their
conduct upon that assumption. A person may walk or drive in the
darkness of the night, relying upon the belief that the corporation
has performed its duty and that the street or the walk is in a safe
condition.  He walks by a faith justified by law , and if his faith
is unfounded, and he suffers an injury, the party in fault must
respond in damages. So, one whose sight is dimmed by age, or a
nearsighted person whose range of vision was always imperfect, or
one whose sight has been injured by disease, is each entitled to
the same rights, and may act upon the same assumption. Each is,
however, bound to know that prudence and care in turn are required
of him, and that, if he fails in this respect, any injury he may
suffer is without redress.  The blind have means of protection and
sources of knowledge of which all are not aware .

      This resounding opinion is notable today for two oddly
different reasons. On the one side it stands as a monumental
expression of the modern view that the infirm and the disabled have
a right, like any others, freely to travel the public streets and
sidewalks. On the other side it is a rather startling revelation of
that pervasive prejudice of earlier times that the sightless are
different from others not just in degree but in kind different even
from those whose vision is  imperfect  or  injured.  It must have
been a comforting thought in those not-so-innocent days of charity
a thought not unlike that of the  nobility of poverty  that the
blind were gifted by a kindly Providence with wondrous powers which
somehow magically balanced the ledger and made it unnecessary to be
greatly concerned about their welfare.

      But while this curious residue of unconscious prejudice blurs
its message, the real significance of this judicial opinion lies in
its straightforward rejection of an age-old discrimination against
the visually handicapped. This was the assumption that the blind
man's place is in the home or in the asylum, that he takes to the
streets and public places at his own risk and peril, and that in
the common legal parlance of the day before yesterday he is
automatically guilty of contributory negligence in any accident
involving travel.

      In effect, it was held by the courts that the blind were not
only sightless but legally without legs to stand on. If they could
not see, then they should not attempt to walk. In the eyes of the
law, they were immobilized. Their right to be in public places,
often conceded as a matter of doctrine, was stillborn.

      That was not only the case a century ago; it was also very
generally the case, despite the judicial opinion quoted above, as
recently as a generation ago. It was exactly 30 years ago, in 1930,
that the first legislative step was taken to free the blind from
the rocking-chair in which the law still kept them shackled. For
while the New York jurist of 1867 had granted the blind the right
to walk abroad with the expectation that the streets and sidewalks
would be kept in shape, nothing had been done since the advent of
the automobile to enable the blind to leave those sidewalks and to
cross those streets. It was expressly to provide a new right to be
abroad in the new conditions of modern motorized traffic, that the
white cane was inaugurated as a travel aid for the blind. This year
we are celebrating, not only the 30th anniversary of that first
step onto the highway, but the virtual completion of the campaign
which it inaugurated. Today White Cane Laws are on the books of
every state in the Union and for the first time in modern history,
everywhere in the land, the blind person truly  walks by a faith
justified by law.  The great and unique achievement of the White
Cane Laws has been virtually to wipe out the automatic assumption
of contributory negligence on the part of the blind pedestrian, and
so to afford him a legal status in traffic, a protection not
hitherto conferred.

      The white cane is therefore a symbol of equality and still
more clearly a sign of  mobility . Nothing characterizes our
streamlined modern civilization so much as its atmosphere of rapid
transit and jet propulsion. More than ever, in urbanized and
automobilized America, the race is to the swift until it almost
seems that even the pursuit of happiness takes place on wheels. In
the routines of daily living, as at a deeper social level, the
keynote of our way of life is  mobility : the capacity to get
around, to move at a normal pace in step with the passing parade.
In this race, until very recently, the blind were clearly lagging
and falling ever farther behind. In terms of their physical
mobility, as in the broader terms of economic and social mobility,
this lag was long regarded as the permanent and inescapable
handicap of blindness. But today the blind of America are catching
up. Just as they are gaining social and economic mobility through
the expansion of vocational horizons, so they are achieving a new
freedom of physical mobility through the expansion of legal
opportunities centering around the White Cane Laws.

      For blind people everywhere, the white cane is not a badge of
difference but a token of their equality and integration. For those
who know its history and associations, the white cane is also
something more: it is the tangible expression not only of mobility,
but of a  movement . It is indeed peculiarly appropriate that the
organized movement of the National Federation of the Blind should
have as its hallmark this symbol of the white cane. Nor does this
take away in any degree from the vital and continuing contributions
to the White Cane Laws of the Lions Clubs of America. The Lions
have been, and are, staunch allies in the movement of the blind and
companions on the march which began a generation ago. During the
decade following the introduction of the white cane, statewide
organizations of the blind began to emerge in numbers across the
country, in the first wave of a movement which was climaxed by the
founding of the National Federation in 1940. Through the adoption
of the White Cane Laws, the blind have gained the legal right to
travel, the right of physical mobility. And at the same time,
through the organization of their own national and state
associations, the blind have gained the social right of movement
and the rights of a social movement.

      This is a striking parallel, and an instructive one. For the
right to move about independently  within  the states, which the
White Cane Laws have steadily won for the blind in the courts, is
intimately bound up with the right of free movement  across  state
boundaries, which the organized blind are steadily achieving
through the reduction or outright abolishment of the residence
requirements governing state programs of aid to the blind. In
short, it is no empty phrase of rhetoric to say that the blind are 
on the move.  Thanks to the White Cane Laws, they now move freely
and confidently not just on the sidewalks but across the streets.
Thanks to the legislative reforms instigated by the Federation,
they are moving also more freely than ever from state to state, as
need and opportunity dictate; they are moving  upward , into new
careers and callings; and they are moving  forward , into the main
channels and thoroughfares of community life. The blind of America
walk by a faith ever more justified by law.

      I have said that the White Cane Laws enhance the freedom and
confidence of the blind person by affording him a status of legal
equality. But it is not, of course, the laws alone but the white
cane itself which contributes to his confidence and
self-sufficiency. This distinctive cane is several things at once:
It is a tangible assist to the blind person in making his way; it
is a visual signal to the sighted of the user's condition; and it
is a symbol for all of a legal status and protection. Let us
immediately concede, however, that the white cane is no magic wand
or dowsing-rod, no substitute for sight, and no guarantee of
immunity against disaster. The cane cannot read signs or
distinguish lights; it cannot traverse all areas immediately ahead
and above, and even where it does, it cannot make judgments for its
user. In short, it is only a cane not a brain. And finally it is,
of course, not always and universally recognized by the sighted as
the legal device of a blind person, although such recognition is
already wide and rapidly increasing.

      Despite all these necessary and obvious reservations, it is
or  should  be indisputable that the white cane is an extremely
effective aid to blind people in their daily movements. In fact,
however, this conclusion is still disputed and not by the sighted
only but even by a few who are blind. No less a personage than
General Melvin Maas, president of the Blinded Veterans Association
and head of the National Committee on Employment of the Physically
Handicapped, has now seen fit to speak out sweepingly against the
white cane and all its works including the White Cane Laws and the
whole principle of White Cane Week. The white cane, says the
general, is utterly valueless as a signaling device unless it is 
elevated at least to the  horizontal  level,  which  would present
a real hazard to oncoming pedestrians.  Apparently General Maas is
suggesting that the blind person must point his cane horizontally
ahead of him like a swordsman. What the laws provide, in terms of
elevation, is rather that the cane be  vertically  raised and
extended as far as arm's length. Again, according to the general, 
the cane would need to be of such size and shape as to be readily
discernible by drivers of vehicles.  But this is surely no
objection; obviously the cane ought to be as visible as possible,
consistent with its portability and convenience. General Maas
indeed goes so far in his opposition as to argue that  many cane
users do not now use white canes, but use collapsible metallic
ones.  What he does not say is that there is nothing about
collapsible metal canes which prevents them from being colored
white (like that which I am carrying today). Finally, the general 
clinches  his case with the contention that  the volume and speed
of traffic now makes dependence on the cane most hazardous.  There
is no doubt, certainly, that traffic hazards are greater today, for
everyone, than ever before. But what is the inference? Should the
blind then retreat once more to the rocking chair and never venture
forth? This is, to be sure, a viewpoint not yet dead among us; as
witness the opinion of a Milwaukee district judge, just two years
ago, that blind people should stay at home because they only
endanger traffic by moving around by themselves. Would General Maas
subscribe to that retrogressive doctrine? If, on the other hand,
the blind are to be permitted to retain their hard-won right of
independent travel, should they now be stripped of the paramount
aid and legal protection they have gained?

      There are two different questions to be settled here: one of
fact and the other of right. The factual question is simply whether
the white cane and White Cane Laws are, or are not, a genuine help
to blind pedestrians and sighted motorists. On this score the
evidence is clear and overwhelming. When, for example, the New York
legislature was considering enactment of a state White Cane Law a
few years ago, a questionnaire on the merits of the proposal was
dispatched to several hundred chiefs of police, attorneys general
and safety officers in other states. A very high proportion took
the trouble to answer, and the verdict was that White Cane Laws,
when properly publicized and administered, are a definite and
powerful help to blind and sighted alike. No one, of course,
proposed them as a substitute for prudence and common sense on
either side; but all agreed that in the presence of ordinary
caution and in the service of judgment the white cane is
unmistakably a good thing.

      Some of the efforts to improve the usefulness and efficiency
of the white cane, and to define its proper handling, are
fascinating (if not always edifying) to recount.

      A Milwaukee city attorney, for example, has proposed that all
white canes should fly a flag in traffic whether at full or
half-mast is not revealed. A still more colorful suggestion has
been made by a policeman who investigated the most recent traffic
death involving a white cane. The carrier, he said, should be
enabled upon entering traffic to press a button releasing a set of
dangles, whose glitter would presumably attract the eye of the most
inattentive motorist; when not in use, the dangles would politely
recede into the shell of the cane. Still others have suggested that
the white cane ought properly to be at least one and one-half
inches thick to improve its visibility a suggestion which will, no
doubt, be happily received by all sightless weight-lifters.

      Meanwhile legal minds have labored long and hard over the
meaning of the term  raised or extended position  set forth as a
requirement by the White Cane Laws of most states. Does  raised 
mean, as one city attorney has proclaimed,  pointing upwards ? Does 
extended  mean, as General Maas appears to suggest, pointing
forward? And does the requirement involve both raising  and 
extending the cane, simultaneously or alternately, in the manner of
a drum-major? (If the cane in these circumstances also flies a flag
and trails dangles, nearly all the elements of a one-man parade
would appear to be present.)

      There has been no less argument concerning the sanctions most
profitably to be included in the White Cane Laws. Some states
impose only civil sanctions, thus making it easier to secure the
conviction of sighted offenders. Others make allowance for penal
sanctions, including jail sentences; but this approach, while
apparently more effective, automatically grants to defendants all
the protections of criminal law, and by its very severity renders
juries reluctant to bring in convictions against negligent drivers.
Then, too, there is the question of the right of way to be accorded
the blind user of a white cane. In at least one state his rights
would appear to be virtually unlimited even by such normal barriers
as traffic signals. Illinois provides that  Any blind person who is
carrying in a raised or extended position a cane or walking stick
which is white in color or white tipped with red, or who is being
guided by a dog, shall have the right of way in crossing any street
or highway, whether or not traffic on such street or highway is
controlled by traffic signals. The driver of every vehicle
approaching the place where a blind person, so carrying such a cane
or walking stick or being so guided, is crossing a street or
highway shall bring his vehicle to a full stop and proceeding shall
take such precautions as may be necessary to avoid injury to the
blind person. 

      At least six other states impose the full-stop requirement,
universally insisting that non-blind pedestrians, as well as
drivers, must heed the approach of a blind white caner and come to
a stop when approaching or coming into contact with him. Such
provisions as these would seem to make the blind pedestrian
virtually all-conquering.

      It should be clear that the legal symbol and physical
helpmate of the white cane has not magically solved all the
ambulatory problems of the blind. It cannot at a gesture convert a
crazed motorist into a sane one; it cannot make the sea of traffic
part at its command; above all, it cannot absolve the blind
pedestrian from his civilized responsibility to move with prudence
and ordinary caution: to  speak politely, while carrying a big
stick.  Let us claim no more for the white cane and the White Cane
Laws than is their due. The paramount right which they confer upon
the blind pedestrian is not so much a right-of-way (for that is
limited and contingent), nor even a guarantee of safe conduct, but
simply a right of  passage  the right to travel independently in
public places, to move in the thick of things, with the confidence
of legal status and the reasonable assurance of recognition. Before
the era of the white cane, the blind man everywhere ventured forth
at his peril and proceeded at his own risk; today  he walks by a
faith justified by law. 

      Nearly a hundred years ago an American writer, Obadiah Milton
Conover, composed a short poem which no blind person could then
have read with conviction. This year, as we celebrate the
anniversary of the white cane and the newly found independence
which it signifies, each of us may affirm the poet's boast:

      Alone I walk the peopled city,  Where each seems happy with
his own;  O friends, I ask not for your pity   I walk alone.

     With those words of confidence, Jacobus tenBroek looked
forward in the first year of the sixties to a future of continuous
progress in the social sphere symbolized by the white cane. But by
the mid-decade it was apparent to him and his fellow leaders that,
in terms of real mobility and the rights of travel, the blind were
no longer catching up but falling behind. In the words of a 1966
convention resolution, the existing white cane laws were inadequate
to meet the greatly changed traffic and traveling conditions of the
freeway era. Moreover, it was maintained that  some court decisions
have had the effect of stripping blind pedestrians of their right
of free and unhampered movement, and almost made of them
trespassers upon the public ways; and state motor vehicle
enforcement officials have failed to act positively in upholding
and enforcing the spirit of White Cane Laws. 

     The result was the development by the National Federation of
the Blind of a landmark legal innovation the Model White Cane Law
which was to be one of the most important legislative achievements
of the era. The conceptual and research basis of the model law was
provided in a major article by Dr. tenBroek,  The Right to Live in
the World: The Disabled in the Law of Torts,  published in the 
California Law Review  in April, 1966. This meticulously researched
study represented a survey and analysis of legal doctrines and
provisions governing the right of the blind and the otherwise
physically disabled  to full and equal access to places of public
accommodation, resort, and amusement; to use the streets and
highways with reasonable safety in automobile traffic and amid the
normal sidewalk hazards; to ride upon buses, trains, airplanes,
taxis, and other public conveyances and common carriers; to have
entry to and use of public buildings and other public places free
from architectural barriers that especially interfere with the
physically disabled; to have the benefit in their travels of guide
dogs and white canes. 

     The tenBroek article constituted a reinterpretation of
conventional legal concepts in the light of modern conditions,
especially the policy of integrating the blind and physically
disabled into the normal life of the community. More to the point,
it defined the  right to live in the world  and still more
specifically the right of free movement and access as a  civil
right  deserving of the same equal protection as the right to vote,
the right to privacy, and the right to education. The keynote of
tenBroek's study was struck in its opening paragraph:

      Movement, we are told, is a law of animal life. As to man, in
any event, nothing could be more essential to personality, social
existence, economic opportunity in short, to individual well-being
and integration into the life of the community than the physical
capacity, the public approval, and the legal right to be abroad in
the land.

     Of special interest to many readers of the tenBroek article
was an  Author's Note  which appeared as a footnote as the bottom
of the first page:

      Author's Note: If the blind appear in these pages more than
other disabled, it may be because the author is blind and has a
special interest in his kind. He thinks not, however. The fact is
that the blind individually and collectively are a very active
group of the disabled, if not the most active. If the National
Federation of the Blind appears in these pages more than other
organizations and agencies composed of the blind or dealing with
their problems, it may be because the author founded that
organization in 1940, served as its President for 21 years, and is
still an active leader in it. He thinks not, however. The National
Federation of the Blind is an aggressive, militant, activist
organization of the blind themselves which in a quarter of a
century has achieved a great deal, legislatively and otherwise, and
has always been in the thick of the fight. If the  Braille Monitor 
is cited more often than other magazines, it may be because the
author is editor of that journal. He thinks not, however. That
journal specializes in information and coverage which have a
special relevance to the issues here discussed.

      This article is amply flexed with footnotes, citing a wide
range of formal materials. The views expressed, the author
believes, are verified by his personal experience as a disabled
individual far more than by all the footnote references put
together.

     The Model White Cane Law which was derived from that law
review article first appeared as a proposal, drafted by Dr.
tenBroek and Russell Kletzing, presented to the Federation's 1966
convention in Louisville. Following the presentation, a convention
resolution was unanimously adopted endorsing the model legislation
and urging members to lobby for its enactment in their respective
states.

     Following is the text of the Model White Cane Law as it was
originally presented.

MODEL WHITE CANE LAW

      1. It is the policy of this state to encourage and enable the
blind, the visually handicapped, and the otherwise physically
disabled to participate fully in the social and economic life of
the state and to engage in remunerative employment.

      2. (a) The blind, the visually handicapped, and the otherwise
physically disabled have the same right as the able-bodied to the
full and free use of the streets, highways, sidewalks, walkways,
public buildings, public facilities, and other public places;

     <_>(b) The blind, the visually handicapped, and the otherwise
physically disabled are entitled to full and equal accommodations,
advantages, facilities, and privileges of all common carriers,
airplanes, motor vehicles, railroad trains, motor buses, street
cars, boats, or any other public conveyances or modes of
transportation, hotels, lodging places, places of public
accommodation, amusement or resort, and other places to which the
general public is invited, subject only to the conditions and
limitations established by law and applicable alike to all persons;

      <_>(c) Every totally or partially blind person shall have the
right to be accompanied by a guide dog, especially trained for the
purpose, in any of the places listed in section 2(b) without being
required to pay an extra charge for the guide dog; provided that he
shall be liable for any damage done to the premises or facilities
by such dog.

      3. The driver of a vehicle approaching a totally or partially
blind pedestrian who is carrying a cane predominantly white or
metallic in color (with or without a red tip) or using a guide dog
shall take all necessary precautions to avoid injury to such blind
pedestrian, and any driver who fails to take such precautions shall
be liable in damages for any injury caused such pedestrian;
provided that a totally or partially blind pedestrian not carrying
such a cane or using a guide dog in any of the places,
accommodations, or conveyances listed in section 2, shall have all
of the rights and privileges conferred by law upon other persons,
and the failure of a totally or partially blind pedestrian to carry
such a cane or to use a guide dog in any such places,
accommodations, or conveyances shall not be held to constitute nor
be evidence of contributory negligence.

      4. Any person or persons, firm or corporation, or the agent
of any person or persons, firm or corporation who denies or
interferes with admittance to or enjoyment of the public facilities
enumerated in section 2 or otherwise interferes with the rights of
a totally or partially blind, or otherwise disabled person under
section 2 shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.

      5. Each year, the Governor shall take suitable public notice
of October 15 as  White Cane Safety Day.  He shall issue a
proclamation in which:

      <_>(a) he comments upon the significance of the white cane;

      <_>(b) he calls upon the citizens of the state to observe the
provisions of the White Cane Law and to take precautions necessary
to the safety of the disabled;

      <_>(c) he reminds the citizens of the state of the policies
with respect to the disabled herein declared and urges the citizens
to cooperate in giving effect to them;

      <_>(d) he emphasizes the need of the citizens to be aware of
the presence of disabled persons in the community and to keep safe
and functional for the disabled the streets, highways, sidewalks,
walkways, public buildings, public facilities, other public places,
places of public accommodation, amusement, and resort and other
places to which the public is invited, and to offer assistance to
disabled persons upon appropriate occasions.

      6. It is the policy of this state that the blind, the
visually handicapped, and the otherwise physically disabled shall
be employed in the State Service, the service of the political
subdivisions of the state, in the public schools, and in all other
employment supported in whole or in part by public funds on the
same terms and conditions as the able-bodied, unless it is shown
that the particular disability prevents the performance of the work
involved.

     The history of the Model White Cane Law over the years since
its formulation in 1966, both in the legislatures and in the court,
was active and for the most part progressive. By 1972 some 24
states and the District of Columbia had enacted versions of the
model law; but in several cases there was a conspicuous omission
that of the section on contributory negligence. The significance of
this omission the motives behind it and its damaging effects upon
the rights of blind pedestrians were emphasized by Kenneth Jernigan
in a letter of 1974 responding to a Federationist's appeal for
guidance in the matter. This is what President Jernigan wrote in
his letter:

      NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND  OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT 
Des Moines, Iowa, October 3, 1974

      Dear Shirley:

      I have your letter of September 25, 1974, and I thank you for
writing me. The section of the Model White Cane Law which you
underlined reads,   and the failure of a totally or partially blind
pedestrian to carry such a cane or to use a guide dog in any such
places, accommodations, or conveyances shall not be held to
constitute nor be evidence of contributory negligence.  I can
understand how insurance companies might oppose this section, but
for the life of me I cannot understand why any blind person would.
In the past, insurance companies have sometimes argued that blind
persons have no business traveling on the streets at all and that
(even if the blind person is obeying every law and is in the
crosswalk) he should not receive any insurance payment if he is hit
by a car the driver of which may be drunk, speeding, or just plain
careless. The argument is that the blind person is negligent by
being on the street at all.

      A modification of this argument says that a blind person is
negligent unless he has a clear identification (cane or dog) that
he is blind. For my part, I carry a cane when I am on the streets
or roads. However, I do not wish to be penalized by law or deprived
of my rights if I do not have a cane in my hand or am not
accompanied by a dog.

      According to our Model White Cane Law, a blind person would
still be guilty of contributory negligence if he is careless or if
he is not abiding by the law that is, if he is jaywalking or going
against the light or doing any other such thing. Our Model Law
simply provides that he cannot be deprived of his legal rights
simply because he does not have a cane in his hand or a dog by his
side.

      Consider the following possibilities: (a) I am walking with
a sighted friend and holding his arm. We cross the street at a
crosswalk, properly obeying the traffic signal. A drunk driver runs
us down, and we are both injured. If our contributory negligence
section is not enacted, my friend can collect, but I may be
deprived of any insurance payment on the grounds that I am guilty
of contributory negligence because I do not have a cane or dog.

      (b) I am walking on the streets of Chicago and (as once
happened to me) my cane falls through a grating, and I am without
it. Suppose I had been hit by a car as I crossed the next street.
If I am crossing properly, should I lose all of my legal rights
because I do not have a cane?

      I carry a cane, and I think I should alert drivers to the
fact that I am blind. I believe I should abide by the law. However,
I do not wish to be required (under penalty of losing all of my
rights) to carry a cane or use a dog.

      Perhaps I should say one more thing. Some blind people do not
carry a cane because they are ashamed of blindness and think it is
not altogether respectable. They have not verbalized it in this
manner, but that is how they feel. They say with real pride,  I
behave so normally that my friends tell me they forget I'm blind. 
They also make much of the fact that they associate with sighted
people and think and act like sighted people, whatever that may
mean. I think this sort of attitude is pathetic.

      In other words, I think it makes good sense (all other things
being equal) to use cane or dog when one is walking alone or, for
that matter, when one is walking with a sighted person. I also
think it is quite respectable and acceptable to take the arm of a
sighted person when walking down the street.

      We should not be so emotionally uptight that we make an
international incident out of every triviality in our life. It is
all a matter of balance. I think it makes good sense to carry the
cane or use the dog, but I don't want somebody discriminating
against me if I don't do it.

      Cordially,  Kenneth Jernigan  President  National Federation
of the Blind

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