Our National Center for Mentoring Excellence continues in its second year with support from the Rehabilitation Services Administration. Beginning with trainees in Nebraska and Louisiana, this transition program for youth aged sixteen through twenty-six will be expanded to four additional states in 2007.
Other activities in our National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute included a career day for over fifty blind youth, parents of blind children, and teachers of the blind and our fourth annual Possibilities Fair for seniors. This event sponsored by Kaiser Permanente brought over four hundred older Americans to the National Center for the Blind to learn about nonvisual techniques and access equipment. We have also been the hosts for the meeting of the Braille Authority of North America, the body designated with the responsibility of determining the nature of the Braille code. We sponsored a Wayfinding Conference to bring together all of the experts in the field of blindness who have studied methods of travel for blind people. We held our annual Celebration, that event which brings together public officials, community leaders, and members of the blind community to celebrate the progress of the blind and to imagine the work we are contemplating for the years ahead.
The Jacobus tenBroek Library, named for the
founder and first president of the National Federation of the Blind, has been
established to provide the most extensive information resource on blindness that
exists anywhere. We have furnished the library and have begun to fill the
shelves. Soon after convention we will be moving displays of aids, appliances,
and literature to the tenBroek Library. These items and many other resources
will be offered to the public through the Independence Market located at the
tenBroek Library.
A vital part of our collection is Dr. tenBroek’s writings along with the
background materials and notes he used to create them. For the first time this
extensive collection is being sorted and organized so that researchers can
examine in greater depth the extraordinary mind and magnificent work of our
founder.
We have been working to pass the Louis Braille Bicentennial Commemorative Coin Act in Congress. This bill will provide more resources and public recognition to promote Braille literacy than anything else that has ever been done anywhere in the world. Recognizing the two-hundredth anniversary of Louis Braille's birth with a unique commemorative coin is a fitting tribute to Louis Braille, but it also signifies the growing power of our movement. Consider what we have done. The House bill, H.R. 2872, was introduced on June 13, 2005; it passed the House on February 28, 2006, with 309 cosponsors. The Senate bill, S. 2321, was introduced on February 17, 2006; it reached the stage for final passage in the Senate in late June with more than seventy cosponsors, and it passed the Senate on the twenty-ninth with that number plus. This is an accomplishment of outstanding proportions for any organization working on behalf of any cause. In the National Federation of the Blind we care about the ability to read and write both for the blind of the present generation and for those who come after us. Let the record proclaim who it is that supports Braille literacy. We do it--we who are the collective voice of the blind of the nation, the National Federation of the Blind.
This year we have worked with the National Council of State Agencies for the Blind and others to develop a bill calling for expansion of business and employment opportunities for the blind based on the Randolph-Sheppard Act. On October 20, 2005, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions held a hearing on the Randolph-Sheppard Program and the Javits-Wagner-O'Day Program. The report from this Senate hearing said that both programs are inadequate because they provide too few employment opportunities and there are substantial inequities in the way they are conducted. Inasmuch as the Randolph-Sheppard Program has created business opportunities for a very substantial number of blind people that would not exist without it, the Senate committee’s report is inaccurate and unnecessarily critical of the Randolph-Sheppard Program. Furthermore, NISH (formerly National Industries for the Severely Handicapped) has wanted Randolph-Sheppard vending sites for itself because lucrative opportunities to support nondisabled managers exist, and NISH wants the money.
Our response is a bill designed to strengthen the existing Randolph-Sheppard Program and build upon its success to make additional jobs possible for blind people. This legislation has been presented to the chairman and the ranking minority member of the Senate committee.
The NFB-NEWSLINE® program continues to grow with forty states on the network including Idaho, Georgia, and Indiana. Ninety-two percent of the population of the United States has access to the 225 newspapers provided through the program including recent acquisitions: the Oregonian, the Indianapolis Star, the South Florida Sun Sentinel, and the Dallas Morning News. Four Spanish-language newspapers and four magazines are available. Recently acquired is the entire content of the Associated Press News Service including news for each state and national and international news updated hourly. The Associated Press is the largest news service in the world. NFB-NEWSLINE® has over 51,000 registered users and provides to them 2.1 million minutes of news per month. Later this summer, television listings will be put onto NFB-NEWSLINE®.
We have also pursued a number of legal cases this year. Although we did not manage the legal work directly, we were involved in the Chris Boone case. When Chris Boone was fired as the director of programs for the blind in Pennsylvania because of blindness, we came to her assistance. Fred Schroeder (a member of the board of directors of the National Federation of the Blind, a research professor at San Diego State University, and former commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration) and Allen Harris, former treasurer of the National Federation of the Blind and current director of the Iowa Department for the Blind, testified on her behalf in court. Jim Antonacci, president of the National Federation of the Blind of Pennsylvania, spoke with public officials, members of the legislature, and representatives of the press. The assistance paid off. Chris Boone won her discrimination suit. It is not surprising that the decision of the court is now being appealed. I believe strongly that Chris Boone will be vindicated and that the judgment she has received will be enforced. The Boone case is notable because, although discrimination against the blind is reprehensible and although it is a violation of the law, few substantial judgments have ever been granted based strictly on blindness discrimination. In this case the jury awarded Chris Boone $3,355,000.
In South Carolina the Commission for the Blind,
then under the directorship of Nell Carney, was seeking to impose upon blind
vendors a set-aside which violated the policies of the Department of Education
and probably other legal principles as well. When this effort failed, the South
Carolina Commission for the Blind agreed with members of the legislature that an
act should be adopted in South Carolina imposing the set-aside by statute.
During the period when this legislation was being considered by the South
Carolina Senate, the National Federation of the Blind was asked to provide an
opinion about the set-aside bill. I indicated that the statutory provisions were
not in accordance with federal law, but certain members of the Senate in South
Carolina seemed to think that this was irrelevant.
When this piece of legislation was adopted, the National Federation of the Blind
of South Carolina moved into battle array. Blind vendors with our advice and
support sued the legislature. In the turmoil that followed many arguments were
propounded, but when the dust settled, the blind vendors and the National
Federation of the Blind of South Carolina had won. The set-aside was
eliminated--one might say it was set aside. The legislature may not adopt a
policy (even one supported by a misguided director of a commission for the
blind) that is in violation of federal law and policy.
Last year I reported to you that on June 30 the County Council of Volusia County, Florida, voted not to install accessible voting machines and that the Federation filed suit to secure our right to an independent secret ballot. We lost in the trial court, but at the argument in the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, we got the right to cast an independent ballot. Volusia County has agreed to install accessible voting machines, and we are being reimbursed for part of the attorney’s fees.
W e continue the court battle with Cardtronics, the largest non-bank deployer of ATMs in the United States. This February the court ruled that ATMs are facilities covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act and that they must be usable independently by the blind. However, Cardtronics continues to ignore the court rulings, behaving as if we will lose heart if they just pretend that the law does not exist. The lawyer for Cardtronics, who has sometimes behaved in a way that can only be described as reprehensible, is a very slow learner. If he believes we will lose heart or diminish in our determination or fail in our faith or change our intention of becoming an equal part of society, he has lost his mind. We intend to see that the law is obeyed. We intend to assure that blind people have access to the same commerce available to everybody else. We intend to see that Cardtronics pays for the litigation. It may be that the lawyer for Cardtronics has no capacity to learn, but the other leaders of the Cardtronics corporation will discover that they cannot avoid the lessons we intend to teach. This too is the meaning of the National Federation of the Blind.
While Mary Jo Thorpe was completing her master’s of education degree at Louisiana Tech University with a concentration in teaching blind students, she contacted the Utah School for the Deaf and the Blind to say that she would be interested in any vacancies that might come open. Impressed by her credentials, but unaware that she is blind, the school contacted her about an opening for an early intervention specialist with blind or deaf-blind infants and toddlers. At her interview school personnel discovered that Mary Jo Thorpe is blind. They peppered her with questions about what alternative techniques she would use. To each question she answered with a number of alternatives. After waiting for some time to learn what decision school officials had made, Mary Jo Thorpe called the school. She learned that she was denied a teaching job because she is blind. The Utah School for the Deaf and the Blind needs some education about what it means to be blind. We have filed suit on Mary Jo Thorpe’s behalf to teach them what they need to know. The course will be known as Education by Lawsuit.
In Pennsylvania a grocery store, Acme Markets, employed a blind person to work near the checkout counter. When a customer tripped over the blind person’s white cane, the customer filed suit on the theory that it is negligence for a retailer to allow blind employees to travel in the public areas of the store unaccompanied or that it is negligence for the store to have a blind employee unaccompanied on the premises unless it posts signs warning the customers of the potential danger. I find it difficult to imagine what the signs would say. Should they contain the message “Warning, dangerous blind employee loose in store!”?
A Pennsylvania jury found in favor of the customer. The National Federation of the Blind, working with our Pennsylvania affiliate, helped convince the judge to reverse the verdict. However, the customer has appealed the decision. We have filed an amicus curiae brief opposing the illogical arguments of the customer. If these arguments were to prevail, judicial decisions in Pennsylvania would stand for the proposition that unaccompanied blind people are a danger to the community. This decision would reverse the public policy established by the White Cane Law and other nondiscrimination legislation. Consequently the customer’s argument must not be permitted to prevail.
The Pennsylvania Office of Vocational Rehabilitation took the position many years ago that merit scholarships offered to blind students would decrease the amount of rehabilitation funding to pay for the education of the recipients. The National Federation of the Blind of Pennsylvania asked that this decision be reversed, pointing out that it was contrary to definitively stated federal policy, but rehabilitation personnel declined. Serving as the president of the National Federation of the Blind, I asked the Rehabilitation Services Administration for an opinion about the legality of the policy of the Pennsylvania Office of Vocational Rehabilitation. That opinion declared that the Pennsylvania policy was contrary to federal law. However, Pennsylvania officials ignored the ruling. When Lynn Heitz received a scholarship from the National Federation of the Blind, the funding to support her education was reduced, and she filed a complaint. After years of argument the arbitration decision has now been issued. Lynn Heitz won. Rehabilitation officials have been ordered to change their policy.
In conjunction with the Federation’s Merchants Division, ably led by Kevan Worley, we have developed a prototype agreement whereby Randolph-Sheppard vendors may team with Dunkin’ Donuts in Randolph-Sheppard facilities. Several blind vendors across the country are planning to offer Dunkin’ Donuts to their customers using this agreement. One of the first is a vendor in the District of Columbia, who was told by the District’s legal counsel that the teaming arrangement was illegal. We successfully challenged this opinion, and the first Dunkin’ Donuts Randolph-Sheppard partnership in the District is now scheduled to open for business on November 1.
In 2004 I reported to you that we had brought suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana against DaimlerChrysler on behalf of Lee Martin. Before becoming blind in 1999, he worked as a foundry technician at the DaimlerChrysler plant, where he helped to manufacture engine blocks. He had a great work record, and he served as a safety coordinator for his department. When Lee Martin became blind, he obtained training in blindness skills, and he attempted to return to work, but DaimlerChrysler said it was too dangerous. Not only did Daimler say that Lee Martin’s working in the plant would be too dangerous, company officials would not even let him tour the plant to show what he could do. After long argument Lee Martin entered the foundry and performed one of the jobs there effectively and safely--a performance we were able to capture on videotape.
The case went to trial in February. The jury saw the videotape of Lee Martin working at DaimlerChrysler. When three jurors became ill, a mistrial was declared, and the action was rescheduled for later in the spring. Apparently DaimlerChrysler did not want to appear before another jury. Lee Martin received a settlement which DaimlerChrysler insists be secret. However, let it be known that it pays to be a member of the National Federation of the Blind.
Last year I reported that Lynda Waring, who had worked at the Deaconess Medical Center Daycare facility for ten years and who received steady promotions during that time, was dismissed from employment because she is blind. The Deaconess Medical Center said they liked her work, but they were prohibited from counting her in their ratio of children to adults because of blindness, and they fired her. The Washington Department for Social and Health Services said that blind people were unsafe in daycare centers and issued the ruling prohibiting counting blind employees in the ratio.
I am happy to say that the complaint we filed has been settled. Although some of the provisions of the settlement are confidential, Lynda Waring has received more money than she would have earned. Furthermore, the Washington Department for Social and Health Services has agreed to change its policy so that blind daycare workers will not be dismissed because of blindness.
One measure of our growth is the size and complexity of the structures at the National Center for the Blind. Our buildings contain well over 350,000 feet of floor space. At the National Center for the Blind we conduct hundreds of meetings, conferences, gatherings, and classes each year.
We have planted beautiful new landscaping on the
south and west sides of our property. Incorporated within this area is a dog
relief station designed in consultation with the National Association of Guide
Dog Users, a division of the National Federation of the Blind.
In our original building we painted our kitchen floor using a new epoxy coating.
On the third floor of the Johnson Wing we completed a 1,600-square-foot living
space. As we have an increasingly active calendar of events with an increasing
number of people staying at the National Center for the Blind, we are preparing
space in our building that can be occupied permanently so that we will have
people on hand to deal with emergencies.
We replaced much of the second floor Plexiglas
glazing, air conditioning components, and hot water heaters. We have installed
an additional layer of glass along with insulation in my office to provide a
quiet work environment. We have placed a new reception desk in the atrium
custom-built to match the dimensions of this space. On the deck outside the
conference center we have installed a stainless steel grill hood with a chimney
to permit the use of charcoal grills. In our tenBroek Library we have
reconfigured the lighting, built a bulkhead to divide the reception area from
the bookshelves, and added a library desk for meeting researchers and visitors.
Although we took possession of the National Federation of the Blind Jernigan
Institute in 2004, we have discovered that some of the tile in our atrium area
is loose. We are working with the contractors to replace it and to ensure that
the walls that support it have the strength to carry the weight. This process is
estimated to be completed by the fall. I am sorry to have to report that this
will delay the installation of our Wall of Honor, which I had hoped would be in
place by the time of this convention.
We bought our property in Baltimore in 1978. It needed a new roof. This was installed within the first few years that we were in our building. The roof is now more than twenty-five years old, and once again it will need to be replaced. This should be completed before our next convention.
With all that we do in the National Federation of the Blind, the National Center for the Blind is an enormous asset. We would be unable to accomplish the kinds of programs and to promote the kinds of advocacy we do without this asset. The National Center for the Blind is the best facility of its kind in the nation, and it belongs to us.
In 1985 we established the Louisiana Center for the Blind, our first independently run rehabilitation program for the blind. We were planning to celebrate its twentieth anniversary in 2005, but a hurricane interrupted the preparations for the festivities. At the convention of the National Federation of the Blind of Louisiana in April of 2006, we celebrated the first two decades of progress in independently directed Federation rehabilitation. At the banquet, with our president, Pam Allen, and the founding director of the Louisiana Center for the Blind, Joanne Wilson, we rang the freedom bell, letting the word go out to this generation and to all who come after it that the blind will be free.
Last year I reported to you that Professor Matt Maurer would be working with the National Federation of the Blind during a sabbatical year to promote education excellence for blind students. When we began this project with Professor Maurer, a teacher at Butler University and my brother, we did not know what to anticipate from his research. He came to the subject of teaching blind students from an education-based background. He had not lived through the struggles many of us have known in obtaining an education for ourselves or for our children. The research he has conducted will be published in the next few months, and it leads to some fascinating conclusions. I believe that education for blind children will receive significant advantages from the work we have done. There will be a report of Professor Maurer’s activities later during the convention.
We continue to conduct the ongoing work of the Federation. Through our Materials Center we have circulated in the neighborhood of two million items--aids, appliances, and materials to blind people, to families of the blind, and to agencies for the blind. Our thirtieth Kernel Book, Freedom, is being released at this convention. Total circulation for the Kernel Books is well over six and a half million. These little volumes contain first-hand accounts of blindness which present the lives of blind people as they are, with the full range of abilities that blind people have. Volume thirty-one in the series, Revolution, will be released later this fall.
We continue to publish the Braille Monitor, with a circulation of 35,000 per month; Future Reflections, a magazine for parents and educators of blind children, with a circulation of more than 10,000 per quarter; the Voice of the Nation’s Blind, our online publication; and the newsletters of divisions, affiliates, and chapters. We have welcomed to the National Center for the Blind more than 4,900 visitors this year from our own country and thirty-one other nations.
Since we last came together in our convention, Mrs. Hazel tenBroek has died. The first of our first ladies, Dr. tenBroek’s loving companion, and a fiercely dedicated Federationist, Mrs. tenBroek helped to shape the future of blindness in the United States and around the world. At this convention we will be remembering her contributions and celebrating the spirit she helped to form.
The National Federation of the Blind has never been in better health--has never looked to the future with greater anticipation. Our organization, formed in 1940 and built over the years with loving hands, offers the greatest opportunity for change in the lives of the blind that has ever existed because we who are the Federation demand that this be so. We have come together to support each other, to dream of a future that is bright for us. At one time others made decisions on our behalf, but we have found our voice. If we need a program, we have the power and the will to create it. If we need a product, we have the intellect and the means to cause it to be invented. If we want a future filled with independence, we have the capacity to build it.
For some time now I have served as president of the National Federation of the Blind; you have accorded me the greatest honor that can be offered. To provide leadership to our movement is my responsibility and my joy. I pledge to you that you have all of my energy, my imagination, my enthusiasm, and my commitment. You have a responsibility as well. It is to believe in what we are and what we do, to act on that belief, and to support me as I pursue the policies we have established. To achieve our goals, we must dedicate our resources, our minds, and our spirit. However, I have no doubt that we will do whatever we must to attain those ends which are the meaning of the National Federation of the Blind. Once again this year I have traveled throughout our country; I have met with Federation members; I have planned, and worked, and contemplated the future. Because I know the people of the movement, because I know the hearts of those who make our organization what it is, I am absolutely certain that the future belongs to us. This is my faith in the National Federation of the Blind, and this is my report.