[Charlotte-Mecklenburg-Chapter] [Brl-monitor] The Braille Monitor, August/September 2025

[gerald moreno]

From: Brian Buhrow <buhrow at nfbcal.org>
Date: September 5, 2025 at 10:00:34 AM CDT
To: brl-monitor at nfbcal.org
Subject: [Brl-monitor] The Braille Monitor, August/September 2025
Reply-To: buhrow at nfbcal.org


The Braille Monitor, August/September 2025
BRAILLE MONITOR

Vol. 68, No. 8 August/September 2025

Chris Danielsen, Editor

Distributed by email, in inkprint, in Braille, and on USB flash drive, by the

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

Mark Riccobono, President

telephone: 410-659-9314

email address: nfb at nfb.org<mailto:nfb at nfb.org>

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Monitor subscriptions cost the Federation about forty dollars per year. Members are invited, and nonmembers are requested, to cover the subscription cost. Donations should be made payable to National Federation of the Blind and sent to:

National Federation of the Blind

200 East Wells Street at Jernigan Place
Baltimore, Maryland 21230-4998

THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND KNOWS THAT BLINDNESS IS NOT THE CHARACTERISTIC THAT DEFINES YOU OR YOUR FUTURE. EVERY DAY WE RAISE THE EXPECTATIONS OF BLIND PEOPLE, BECAUSE LOW EXPECTATIONS CREATE OBSTACLES BETWEEN BLIND PEOPLE AND OUR DREAMS. YOU CAN LIVE THE LIFE YOU WANT; BLINDNESS IS NOT WHAT HOLDS YOU BACK. THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND—IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR OURSELVES.

ISSN 0006-8829

Each issue is recorded on a thumb drive (also called a memory stick or USB flash drive). You can read this audio edition using a computer or a National Library Service digital player. The NLS machine has two slots—the familiar book-cartridge slot just above the retractable carrying handle and a second slot located on the right side near the headphone jack. This smaller slot is used to play thumb drives. Remove the protective rubber pad covering this slot and insert the thumb drive. It will insert only in one position. If you encounter resistance, flip the drive over and try again. (Note: If the cartridge slot is not empty when you insert the thumb drive, the digital player will ignore the thumb drive.) Once the thumb drive is inserted, the player buttons will function as usual for reading digital materials. If you remove the thumb drive to use the player for cartridges, when you insert it again, reading should resume at the point you stopped.

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Vol. 68, No. 8 August/September 2025

Contents

The #NFB25 Convention Roundup

by Chris Danielsen

2025 Presidential Report

An Address Delivered by Mark A. Riccobono

Employment Events at the 2025 National Convention

by Nikki Jackson

Screen Readers and Street Smarts: How Travel Taught Me Tech

by Brett Boyer

Creativity, Persistence, and Hope: Reclaiming Our Stories through the Organized Blind Movement

An Address Delivered by Mark A. Riccobono

Distinguished Educator of Blind Students Award Presentation
Presented by Carla McQuillan

Blind Educator of the Year Award Presentation
Presented by Robin House

The Eighteenth Annual Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards
Presented by Everette Bacon

Jacobus tenBroek Award Presentation
Presented by Pam Allen

Kenneth Jernigan Award Presentation
Presented by Curtis Chong

Remarks of the 2025 National Federation of the Blind Scholarship Class

Resolutions Adopted by the 2025 National Convention

Monitor Miniatures

© 2025 by the National Federation of the Blind

[PHOTO CAPTION: Chris Danielsen]

[PHOTO CAPTION: President Riccobono sits on the floor with a group of blind kids for a chat at the NOPBC seminar.]

[PHOTO CAPTION: Ahsiyah Abdullah and Alicia Crosson swing dance among a crowd of members dancing.]

[PHOTO CAPTION: Jeff Altman gives an O&M lesson to Rebecca Godwin during the NOPBC Cane Walk.]

[PHOTO CAPTION: Emerson smiles while reading the cover of a new Braille book. Many other Braille books adorn the tables around him.]

[PHOTO CAPTION: The exhibit hall packed with members.]

[PHOTO CAPTION: Mother and son, Mandy and Ryan, draw together in the Tactile Art Room.]

[PHOTO CAPTION: At the Museum of the Blind People’s Movement display, Emeline examines a Six Dot Dash medal from the NFB of Colorado. This medal was given to participants of the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado’s 6 Dot Dash in 2024, an annual 5k race that supports Braille literacy for blind children, blindness skills training, and more.]

The #NFB25 Convention Roundup

by Chris Danielsen

Introduction

New Orleans, as both a convention site and a city, has a special place in my heart. The very first national convention I attended was held there in 1991. I was twenty years old and had been selected as a finalist in our scholarship program. I have never forgotten then-President Dr. Marc Maurer’s banquet address, “Reflecting the Flame.” As I have often related, the convention also planted the seed for one of the most transformative decisions of my life: to seek training at the Louisiana Center for the Blind. If the convention itself did not draw me irresistibly into our movement forever, my training at LCB completed the process, and I have never looked back.

Since that first convention, I have only missed one of our annual national gatherings: the 1996 Convention in Anaheim, when I thought it would be wise to hunker down at home and continue studying for the South Carolina bar examination, which I passed later that year. That was the first convention attended by Mark Riccobono, now our national President, whom I would not meet until a few years later. This made our 2025 gathering in New Orleans my thirty-fourth convention and his thirtieth. We both attended the 1997 New Orleans Convention but did not meet there.

It is not just about me, or even our President, of course; it is about all of us in the movement. Like other conventions in the Big Easy, the 1997 gathering was historic. To date, the attendance record of that convention, over 3,300 registrants, has not been exceeded, although we hope it will be yet. It was also historic and memorable for Dr. Kenneth Jernigan’s final banquet address to our movement, “The Day After Civil Rights.” Forty years earlier, at the 1957 National Convention in this same city, Dr. Jacobus tenBroek had delivered not one but two seminal addresses: his rousing defense of our right to organize and his classic banquet address “The Cross of Blindness.” He proudly announced in the former the introduction of Senator John F. Kennedy’s legislation to protect our right to organize, along with a companion House bill. Though neither passed, their introduction paved the way for the ultimate vindication of that right. “The Cross of Blindness,” which addressed the many forms of discrimination the blind faced at the time, some of which are virtually nonexistent today, stands as a reminder of how far we have come, and Dr. Jernigan’s 1997 speech celebrated that progress and suggested that our movement was entering a new phase, “the day after civil rights” of his title. In that speech, he told us that we must not simply lean on our minority status and our legal rights in our quest for equality but become people who not only demand but deserve equal dignity and respect. Almost thirty years after that address, we frame that sentiment as raising the expectations of the blind, both society’s and our own.

One more New Orleans convention took place before the one described below. In 2022, the Federation and the rest of the world were tentatively emerging from the prolonged isolation of a historic global pandemic. Because of that pandemic, we had, for the first time in our history, conducted two conventions entirely online, proving once again that we, as a movement, can meet any challenge. The 2022 Convention passed an amendment to our constitution that formalized our new Code of Conduct and its attendant expectations and procedures, a historic move that helps guarantee the dignity and safety of everyone in and around our organization. And because we had not been together in person for three years, new and joyous memories were made as we once again reveled in each other’s company. New Orleans became, more even than in years past, a place of reunion and rejuvenation. We did not know it then, but one more New Orleans convention awaited us this decade.

That convention began on July 8, 2025. It was also destined to be historic, if for no other reason than that our movement faces unprecedented challenges as our nation’s rehabilitation, civil rights, and other government policies are being reconsidered and face retrenchment. At the same time, there were many signs of hope for a brighter future and plenty of evidence of our movement’s continued progress as well. For the first time, the Access Board, an independent federal agency that advises the government on accessibility, held a town hall meeting and breakout sessions as part of our convention, and we were visited by the highest federal official handling Social Security matters.

The observations below are only a sketch of the full convention based on my own participation and observations as well as some provided by others. We can always use more stories to create a fuller picture of the convention, so I cordially invite everyone to continue sending convention-related items directly to me at cdanielsen at nfb.org<mailto:cdanielsen at nfb.org> or to story at nfb.org<mailto:story at nfb.org>.

Seminar Day and Resolutions Day: The Convention Begins

The first day of any national convention is in many ways a day of preparation, with attendees just arriving and exploring the convention site. This year was no exception. Registration opened for the first time, so that attendees could register in person if they had not already done so online or pick up their badges and banquet tickets if they had. The convention Ambassadors Committee, which facilitates efficient movement and navigation through its members’ invaluable service as “talking signs” and helps with innumerable other convention logistics, met early in the morning, as did the Amateur Radio Group, by longstanding tradition, to prepare for emergencies and for its task of distributing assistive listening devices for deafblind members and those who desire Spanish interpretation. The Federation’s DeafBlind Division held a training for support service providers (SSPs) who would not only interpret for deafblind members throughout the convention but also provide them with information about the convention environment. Behind the scenes, our exhibitors and the National Federation of the Blind Independence Market set up shop in the Napoleon Ballroom, located at the New Orleans Sheraton across Canal Street from the headquarters hotel, the New Orleans Marriott. Your correspondent was helping with the task of setting up our free literature area just outside this Exhibit Hall, refreshed for this year with the name “Federation Free Reads.”

This does not mean there was nothing to do when one was not preoccupied with hotel check-in, registration, convention preparation, or just grabbing a quick taste of New Orleans before things really ramped up. Day one of convention is also known as Seminar Day. As the name implies, it featured daylong seminars by the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children (NOPBC), one of our most active divisions, and the National Blindness Professional Certification Board (NBPCB), which is an entity separate from the Federation but one created at our urging and with our assistance to improve rehabilitation for blind people through Structured Discovery and to implement certification standards and procedures that do not discriminate against blind instructors and other professionals.

This year, the parents’ division designated their gathering an Educate Seminar. The numerous breakout sessions included a workshop on the basics of the Individualized Education Plan (IEP) and the process of creating and implementing it, the need for parents to ensure that blind children are engaging in age-appropriate activities and chores, a workshop on helping blind kids recognize and interpret nonvisual social cues, and one intriguingly titled “Don’t Bubble-Wrap Your Child.” In addition to their seminar, the NOPBC kicked off their week-long set of “Youth Track” activities designed for young people too old for NFB Camp. Youth Track includes activities and discussions focused on navigating blindness as a tween, teen, or young adult.

Meanwhile, the Professional Certification Board held its twenty-fourth annual “Contemporary Issues in Rehabilitation and Education of the Blind Conference.” This was both an educational seminar and an opportunity for blind rehabilitation professionals to network and share experiences. Like other activities of the board, it was designed to further inculcate and advance the principles of the Structured Discovery methods of blindness skills training and to emphasize the competence of blind people to teach these skills to each other.

The National Federation of the Blind Center of Excellence in Nonvisual Accessibility was also busy conducting workshops, including an update on the latest developments in artificial intelligence (AI) that could benefit blind people and a comparison of the accessibility features of Apple and Android devices. Attendees could also visit sessions held by some of our sponsors, including technology companies like Vispero and HumanWare, touting their latest device and software features. The American Printing House demonstrated the newest and anticipated features of the Monarch multi-line Braille and tactile graphics display, including improvements to its chess game and an app that displays and allows interaction with the Periodic Table of Elements.

Some committees and divisions were already active, although most would hold their business meetings later in the week. As just a few examples, the National Association of Guide Dog Users (NAGDU), the DeafBlind Division, the Seniors Division, and the Sports and Recreation Division all held seminars or activities. For the first of two days, a “drop-in art room,” facilitated by Anne Cunningham of the Colorado Center for the Blind, was available for folks to stop by and try their hand at various arts and crafts with a focus on nonvisual techniques.

The day concluded for many with the Rookie Roundup, a lively gathering for first-time convention attendees, and many others who just want an early dose of excitement and a preview of what is to come. Hosted by Federation leaders and members of the National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Fund Committee, which provides sponsorships to first-time conventioneers, this popular event was designed to build anticipation for the week and provide first-timers with practical advice on how to wisely plan their convention time, save what money they could, navigate the historic French Quarter (where our hotels were located) and the rest of New Orleans if they desired, and otherwise take full advantage of their first convention experience. Emceed by Pam Allen, who wears more hats than Dr. Seuss’s Bartholomew Cubbins during convention, the event featured presentations from across the movement. President Riccobono kicked things off and presented Pam with a new elephant to add to her collection. The full significance of this particular elephant, whom Pam named Calliope, became apparent later in the convention. The event was capped off by rousing remarks from Immediate Past President Dr. Marc Maurer, with a warm follow-up by Pat Maurer, the immediate past first lady.

Wednesday morning, July 9, brought the first opening of the Exhibit Hall and Independence Market, as well as the second day of registration. Today, Resolutions Day, also began with a historic first: the US Access Board held its annual town hall meeting as part of the convention. The Access Board holds such a meeting in a city other than its home of Washington, DC, each year, but this was the first time to our knowledge that one of its town halls was held in conjunction with our convention, or that of any disability organization, for that matter. A representative from the office of Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry was on hand and read a statement from Governor Landry himself. New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell attended, along with the city’s disability coordinator. The gathering broke little news, as it was primarily a listening session, but members of the Federation along with residents shared feedback and concerns with the board members and staff. Some of the presentations from residents were particularly poignant; one individual said, their voice breaking with emotion, that they were reluctantly moving out of the city because of its slow progress on becoming disability-friendly, particularly in the areas of public transportation and maintenance of navigable sidewalks. Members and staff of the Access Board remained on hand throughout the week conducting various breakout sessions to familiarize convention attendees with its existing accessibility regulations, recommendations, and standards, as well as to receive more feedback.

The Access Board town hall was the first official convention event to be featured as part of the #NFB25 Virtual Experience, which shared more exclusive content and general sessions of the convention throughout the week. Each meeting or session that was streamed as part of the Virtual Experience included a “pre-show” hosted by the co-hosts of the Nation’s Blind Podcast or other helpers.

Another event that took place Wednesday morning was the annual White Cane Walk sponsored by the NOPBC. This is an opportunity for children who have never used a white cane before, and their families, to find out more about this powerful tool. The children are taught by certified cane travel instructors employing the Structured Discovery methodology. Canes and “learning shades,” otherwise known as sleep shades, are provided, but this year the event was so popular that the division reported running out of canes. Ramona Walhof, a longtime leader in our movement, told the Monitor that she followed a young blind girl from Arkansas and her grandmother. The little girl, whom we will call Sandy, mastered basic cane technique, as well as going up and down stairs and using an escalator, in a single hour. Sandy’s grandmother was too anxious to watch the stair and escalator exercises, but Sandy was quite pleased with herself; when asked to grade her efforts, she awarded a B plus. This is just one anecdote, but it illustrates the joy that kids experience when they get a taste of the independence that the white cane offers.

Members could also use Wednesday to attend more sponsor sessions, learn more about NFB-NEWSLINE® at its “open house” gatherings (including the service’s long-awaited and brand-new Android app), or participate in more “Youth Track” activities.

As the day’s “convention name” indicates, Wednesday afternoon brought the meeting of the Resolutions Committee, which is tasked with considering policy proposals put forth by members and recommending whether the full convention should also consider them. This meeting is always well attended, and we share it as part of the Virtual Experience so that those who cannot attend convention in person can see the democratic process in action and, if they desire, share their opinions about the resolutions on which the convention will vote with their in-person delegates via email or phone before the floor votes later in the week. Although the audience is usually packed, only committee members and resolution proponents speak at the committee meeting. (A proponent is simply someone who speaks in favor of the resolution, often its author or someone else with knowledge of or interest in its subject matter.) If the committee recommends that a resolution be considered on the floor of the full convention, then other members may speak for or against it at that time. The committee this year considered twenty-two proposed resolutions and voted to send all but one to the full convention for its consideration. As President Riccobono reminded everyone at the beginning of the meeting, the failure of a resolution, either in committee or on the convention floor, does not signify that the Federation is adopting the polar opposite of the policy proposed in the resolution; it simply means that the Federation has not adopted the proposal and consequently, for the time being, either has no official policy at all or still has its past policy if one exists.

A priority of our movement is to increase the employment of blind people, and our Employment Committee is dedicated to that mission. Wednesday afternoon brought one of its most important events, the annual convention Career Fair. A report about this event and the other convention activities of the Employment Committee appears later in these pages.

The latter part of the afternoon featured the annual mock trial presented by and benefitting the National Association of Blind Lawyers, always a popular attraction. The lawyers’ division would like for you to know that recordings of past mock trials are available from their website to support the Scott C. LaBarre Equality and Justice Fund, named in honor of the division’s longtime president, a fierce but cheerful warrior who fought for the rights of blind people of all ages until his untimely death in 2023. You can find the recordings for sale at https://blindlawyers.net. The afternoon also brought more division and committee meetings, as well as sponsor sessions from Selvas BLV (formerly HIMS), Microsoft, Google, and more. Your correspondent dropped by a meeting focusing on accessibility improvements at Amazon Prime Video and a demonstration of Aira’s new AI visual interpreter, which is in a “trusted tester” phase but was shown to session attendees by Everette Bacon, Aira’s vice president of initiatives. The rollout of this beta was discussed on a recent episode of the Access On podcast, which was summarized in the July 2025 issue of this magazine. Speaking of that podcast, one of the evening’s activities was a live episode, with attendees able to participate and ask questions of the Center for Excellence in Nonvisual Accessibility staff and others. The recording of this event is now available as an Access On podcast episode. Several groups of Federationists organized around religion, including the National Federation of the Blind in Judaism and the movement’s Christians and Muslims groups, held meetings as well.

The evening also featured many affiliate caucuses, in which members of state and territorial affiliates gather to discuss convention logistics and issues. Some delegates used these caucuses to discuss the resolutions that had been recommended by the committee. Other caucus activities included the planning of convention drawings and other fundraisers that affiliates use to help raise money for their programs and activities. Banquet tickets were collected for affiliate members who wished to sit together at the convention’s finale. These generic banquet tickets would later be exchanged for tickets with specific assigned table numbers.

The National Association of Blind Students, another of our most active divisions and a historic breeding ground for future Federation leadership, met on Wednesday evening. This meeting was the first opportunity for the thirty National Federation of the Blind scholarship finalists to introduce themselves to members of their Federation family; they would have their second opportunity the next morning. The students also heard other presentations and conducted elections and other business.

The evening also included the first of two “legal office hours” sessions, which were an opportunity for Federationists who have experienced discrimination or other legal issues to speak directly with Federation-affiliated attorneys. Demand for such consultations is always high, so preregistration was required before convention. In 2024, a young woman from California named Mary Azatyan-Witmeyer participated in such a consultation; her story of ultimate victory over low expectations and legal barriers is recounted in the July 2025 issue of this magazine and featured in the Presidential Report that follows this article.

Board Meeting Day and More Division Meetings

Thursday morning was the time for the public meeting of the National Federation of the Blind Board of Directors that takes place at each convention. While some business is conducted at this meeting, it is primarily an initial general session in which many committee reports are received and various convention logistics are announced, sometimes including the locations of future conventions. One of the committee reports is the much-anticipated presentation of the Scholarship Committee, whose chair introduces the thirty finalists who will receive recognition at the convention banquet. The board meeting also sets the stage for the elections that will take place as part of the business session later in the convention.

President Mark Riccobono gaveled the meeting to order at precisely nine o’clock and called the roll. All seventeen board members were present. The President then asked us to remember the members of our Federation family whom we have lost in the past year. He read a list of many names but also urged us to remember those whose names he did not read because he had not received word of their passing. He then led us in the Pledge of Allegiance and the Federation Pledge. After calling on all participating in the convention to maintain a safe, respectful, and helpful environment and to be courteous to guest speakers even in the face of disagreements, the President read the names of those board members currently holding the positions that were up for election this year. Those individuals were Jessica Beecham of Colorado, Marci Carpenter of Washington, Marilyn Green of Illinois, Tom Page of Kansas, Grace Pires of Rhode Island, and Tracy Soforenko of Virginia. None of them declined to seek re-election. The five constitutional officers, including President Riccobono, will be up for election next year, as well as the positions currently held by Shawn Callaway of the District of Columbia, Ben Dallin of Wisconsin, Jim Marks of Montana, Donald Porterfield of Arizona, Jamie Richey of Nebraska, and Shelia Wright of Missouri.

President Riccobono then introduced Pam Allen, in her roles as host affiliate president and host committee chair, to welcome us to New Orleans. Pam presented the President with some New Orleans-themed gifts; thanked her affiliate for its work to prepare for the convention and provide hospitality; and warmly welcomed us all to the Crescent City, another of New Orleans’ many nicknames deriving from its position at a bend of the mighty Mississippi River. The affiliate had arranged an evening riverboat cruise on the Creole Queen, so Pam reminded those planning to attend the Friday-night event of the arrangements so that they were sure to be on the boat.

Following Pam’s presentation, President Riccobono, with the assistance of the amazing convention chair John Berggren and Dan Burke, the cochair of the Ambassadors Committee, shared various convention logistics. (Corbb O’Connor, the other cochair of the Ambassadors Committee, received the blessing of a kidney transplant just prior to convention and stayed home to recover from the procedure. Dan and others told him he was missed and wished him well throughout the convention.) Many of the announcements John and Dan shared concerned in-person participation during the week, so they are no longer applicable. However, a few things of which readers will want to be aware follow: There were both a focus group and an exhibit related to the forthcoming Museum of the Blind People’s Movement during the convention. You can find out more about the museum and some of its planned exhibits by visiting https://museum.nfb.org. Conventioneers could shop at the Independence Market in the Exhibit Hall, but everyone can now shop online by visiting https://nfb.org/ecommerce. And finally, now that we have kept you in suspense as the President did, we learned that the 2030 National Convention will take place in Phoenix, Arizona, from Monday, July 1, to Saturday, July 6, at the Sheraton Downtown. The 2026-2029 conventions were announced last year, and all future convention dates and locations are available at https://nfb.org/convention.

Next came a round of committee reports. Ronza Othman, chair of our Code of Conduct Feedback Committee, reminded everyone that the Code of Conduct is a living process and that the committee wants and needs feedback about how it works. That feedback can be emailed to codefeedback at nfb.org<mailto:codefeedback at nfb.org> or shared via telephone by calling 410-659-9314, extension 2284. Personal information about those who submit feedback is confidential. Shawn Callaway, chair of our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, thanked the committee for its work to plan outstanding convention programming and especially thanked the other co-chair, Kenia Flores. Denise Avant, who chairs the Membership Committee, urged members to use the Member Profile feature available on our national website at https://nfb.org/member. If you have never used the feature before, you will need to enter your primary member email address and then reset your password. If you have set a password, you can log in and change information like your address, email, phone number, demographic information, and the language and format in which you prefer to receive communications. You can also learn how to change your Braille Monitor subscription preferences. By clicking on the Membership tab, you can learn about any member benefits that are available, such as the longstanding special rates for the Aira visual interpreting service. Denise also reminded everyone of the recorded Presidential Release intended to be played at chapter meetings, which is separate from the Presidential Release Live. The latest chapter recording is always available at https://nfb.org/presidential-releases.

President Riccobono followed Denise’s mention of member benefits with the announcement of two new ones available from partners of the National Federation of the Blind, one new and one familiar. First, however, he reminded those interested in serving on national committees that they could express that desire at the information table outside the convention hall or on the web at https://nfb.org/committee-interest. He then introduced Patrick Long, the CEO of Innosearch AI, a company that has created a fully accessible shopping experience for blind people and others using artificial intelligence. Mr. Long reminded us that a special link is available on the Member page of the NFB website through which Federationists can create new accounts with the company and receive a $10 discount on their first order. Next at the microphone was Ayan Kishore, the new CEO of Bookshare, the popular e-book service. Mr. Kishore announced that new Bookshare subscribers who are members of the National Federation of the Blind can now receive a 30 percent discount on the subscription price, and existing Bookshare users who are NFB members and who have let their Bookshare subscriptions lapse can renew for 20 percent off. Details are available at https://bookshare.org/nfb and on the Member web page on the NFB website.

President Riccobono next invited Carla McQuillan to the lectern to present the Distinguished Educator of Blind Students Award. The presentation is reprinted elsewhere in this issue, and we will say no more about it here except to note that, because the winner has also coached sports, this was probably the first time that certain athletic equipment has ever been mentioned in a convention session, and perhaps also the last.

Patti Chang was introduced to discuss our efforts to raise money, which she oversees as our director of outreach. Patti was not in the convention hall, as she sadly broke her foot a while back, but gave an enthusiastic run-down of the many ways that we can support our movement. As she pointed out, most of the information that she provided is available at https://nfb.org/get-involved/ways-give, so we will not repeat all of it here. However, she emphasized our Coast-to-Coast Movement Challenge, which includes our participation in both Maryland’s Bay Bridge Run and the California International Marathon to raise funds through runner sponsorships. You can learn more about this effort and how you can participate at https://nfb.org/movers. Patti also mentioned that the site freewill.com<http://freewill.com>, which provides an accessible service that creates a will for those who do not have overly complicated estates, now includes us as a charity that can be designated. Finally, she thanked all the sponsors of our convention. Here is the complete list of fifty-three sponsors that she read, some familiar and some brand new, presented here in order of sponsorship level:

Platinum

  *   Google

  *   Meta

  *   Microsoft

  *   Vanda - Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder

  *   Wells Fargo

  *   WhyAmIUp

Gold

  *   Amazon

  *   Be My Eyes

  *   Oracle

  *   Salesforce

  *   Target

  *   Vispero

Silver

  *   Brown, Goldstein & Levy, LLP

  *   CVS Health

  *   Market Development Group

  *   Uber

  *   Delta Airlines

Bronze

  *   American Printing House

  *   C&P-Chris Park Technology

  *   Centene Corporation

  *   Guiding Eyes for the Blind

  *   HumanWare

  *   Lyft

  *   Mobile Voting

  *   National Industries for the Blind

  *   Spectrum

  *   United Airlines

White Cane

  *   Aira

  *   AccessAbility Officer

  *   AGIGA, Inc.

  *   ABLE today at the National Association of State Treasurers

  *   American Foundation for the Blind

  *   AudioEye

  *   Computers for the Blind

  *   Democracy Live

  *   En-Vision America

  *   Envision-US

  *   Feeldom, LLC

  *   Govivid

  *   IKE Smart City

  *   Independence Science

  *   Innosearch AI, Inc.

  *   Jackson Walker LLP

  *   Leader Dogs for the Blind

  *   McGraw Hill

  *   Mohawk Group

  *   Penny Forward

  *   Personal.ai

  *   PLANETS

  *   Saavi Services for the Blind

  *   Sam’s Club

  *   Selvas BLV

  *   VitalSource

In keeping with the theme of the financial soundness of our movement, another round of committee reports focusing on funds that support our organization followed Patti’s presentation. Sandy Halverson chairs the Shares Unlimited in NFB (SUN) Fund Committee, and we were all glad to see her in person at the convention this year with her husband John. The couple were unable to attend last year because John was recovering from a stroke. Sandy reminded us that, despite its solar denomination, the SUN Fund is, in effect, our “rainy day” fund for times of emergency. She noted that the fund’s assets currently total a little over 1.5 million dollars but expressed the hope that one day we can retain a reserve of around $10 million. Next, Marilyn Green, president of the Illinois affiliate and member of the board of directors, spoke in her role as chair of our Pre-Authorized Contribution (PAC) committee. The PAC program supports our general fund, also known as the White Cane Fund, through monthly contributions made by members through direct withdrawals from their bank account or automatic credit card payments. Marilyn outlined the incentives for members, affiliates, and divisions to increase their individual and collective PAC amounts and read off the then-current affiliate and division standings to encourage friendly competition for the effort’s mascots: the PAC rat, the PAC mule, and the PAC-aderm. Kathryn Webster, who chairs the Jacobus tenBroek Fund, solicited contributions for the effort that maintains our headquarters facility in Baltimore, the NFB Jernigan Institute.

Finally, board member and Virginia affiliate president Tracy Soforenko spoke about the Kenneth Jernigan Fund, which not only provides scholarships to first-time conventioneers but also supports the Kenneth Jernigan Leadership-in-Service Program, a comprehensive training experience for future movement leaders. He introduced the members of the cohort that just graduated the program. They are Pipi Adams, Daniel Belden, Christina Clift, Christopher I. Crawley, Bree Douglas, Corey Grandstaff, Manahil Jafri, Z’Leah Liburd, Stephanie McGary, Michelle McManus, Timi Olukanni, Steve Sawczyn, Charles Tate, Dana Trahan, and Renee Valdez. Tracy also announced proudly that the fund was able to support sixty individuals and twenty families to attend #NFB25.

It was now time for the Blind Educator of the Year Award, presented by committee chair Robin House. The award presentation appears elsewhere in this issue, so we will not drop any spoilers here.

Before the final, much-anticipated presentation, President Riccobono mentioned the activities of our partner organization, the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults. He reminded listeners that the afternoon would feature the annual Braille Book Fair that the Action Fund sponsors, one of its many efforts to provide free Braille books of their own to blind children across the country, noting that kids would be let into the book fair early to get first crack at gently-used Braille books and that adults would not be permitted inside until half an hour later. Those who visit this popular annual event do not have to stuff Braille books in their luggage; volunteers box and ship them. The President also announced that the popular Action Fund Braille pocket calendars for 2026 are now available; indeed, these were at that very moment being given away at the Federation Free Reads table just outside the Exhibit Hall where, this writer can attest, they had been going like hotcakes the day before. Affiliates can order up to fifty calendars for their members if they do so prior to August 31, 2025. Individuals can order up to three calendars at actionfund.org<http://actionfund.org> or by calling 410-659-9315.

In keeping with his usual good humor, President Riccobono pretended to adjourn the board meeting before pretending to remember that one more presentation was expected. He then introduced Cayte Mendez, chair of the National Federation of the Blind Scholarship Committee. Cayte, in turn, introduced the scholarship finalists, who told us briefly about themselves and their educational and career goals. Again, no spoilers here; a full report of the scholarship proceedings appears later in this issue. With no further business, President Riccobono once again turned the microphone over to Pam Allen for some concluding remarks, and then the board meeting was adjourned.

Many divisions of the National Federation of the Blind held their business meetings Thursday afternoon. Divisions function like chapters and affiliates, in that they have elected officers and boards and can raise funds to conduct programs and activities. Groups, which have appointed chairs, also held meetings. As already mentioned, the annual Braille Book Fair of the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults took place.

Thursday evening brought the first of two opportunities for conventioneers to get a glimpse of the kinds of artifacts that might be displayed in the planned Museum of the Blind People’s Movement. Museum project lead Alison Tyler, Braille program manager Jennifer Dunnam, and archivist Nichole Chrissis staffed a hands-on exhibit focusing on the history of Braille and the Federation’s fight for literacy. The exhibit began with examples of other tactile reading methods that were in vogue before Braille became the accepted reading and writing method for blind Americans, as well as artifacts like an early Braille shorthand machine from the 1920s, a tactile profile of Louis Braille, the Louis Braille commemorative coin produced by the US Mint, and more. Alison Tyler told the Monitor that the exhibit was hugely popular, to the point where she was unable to count the number of people standing in line to experience the exhibit. She also shared that the oldest artifact in the exhibit dated from 1889.

General Sessions I and II

By Friday morning the first half of the convention had already sped by, but there was plenty more to come, as the final three days would feature the six general sessions that make up the heart of the convention and its business. Friday morning was the first of these, and some eager conventioneers arrived early to find their seats, even as the crew that sets up the flags designating the seating area for each delegation was still completing its work. Half an hour before the session was set to begin at 9 a.m., the hall was already well on its way to capacity. Dwight Sayer, the past president of the National Association of Blind Veterans who is known, among other fine qualities, for his commanding presence and voice, was summoning all veterans at the convention to the stage, and the affiliate delegations were identifying themselves with loud cheers and chants so that their members could locate and join them. Virtual Experience attendees, meanwhile, were listening to Anil Lewis and Melissa Riccobono, co-hosts of the Nation’s Blind Podcast, preview the morning’s activities.

Precisely at the appointed hour, President Riccobono brought down the gavel and announced that the convention was in order, to thunderous cheers and applause. A door prize of $200 was presented by Kenia Flores, who was handling door prize activities along with Bennett Prows, and then the President introduced Narjis Karimipour, of the faith of Islam, to give the morning invocation. Narjis is a rising eighth grader from the host state of Louisiana and active in her mosque as well as in the Federation. She is the youngest person ever to give an invocation at convention, but her poise and preparation were apparent to all as she offered a beautiful prayer in both Arabic and English.

The invocation was followed by the presentation of colors, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the National Anthem, led by Roy Stinson, the president of the National Association of Blind Veterans. Pam Allen then came to the microphone to welcome everyone to Louisiana. Following her warm words, the Jackson Square All-Stars marched into the ballroom to favor us with some Dixieland jazz numbers. Many conventioneers, already sporting Mardi Gras beads featuring the NFB logo that Louisiana volunteers had been handing out, danced in the aisles and sang along to “When The Saints Go Marching In” when it was played. (Pam told us that the beads were colored purple for justice, green for growth, and gold for power.) Following this performance and a brief presentation about New Orleans history, a delightful gentleman who called himself Captain Louis, and hailed from Jean Lafitte, Louisiana, introduced us to his pet alligator, Elvis. Captain Louis regaled the convention with interesting facts about four-year-old, eighteen-inch-long Elvis and his fellow Louisiana gators, including that they are nocturnal and only have peripheral vision; therefore, they hunt by smell and vibrations created by the movement of their prey. Elvis declined to offer additional remarks, as he was muzzled for safety and probably eager to make his contractually obligated follow-up visit to the children in NFB Camp and then go to sleep for the rest of the day.

The convention then turned from alligators to litigators—NFB and the Litigators—a vocal and keyboard ensemble who presented the newest Federation song, “Who are We? NFB!” The song is now available on all major music services. Roy Stinson then came back to the microphone to introduce the Celebration of Freedom. Veterans attending the convention who had come to the stage introduced themselves and received Freedom Ribbons from the Federation and grateful and patriotic applause from their fellow Federationists.

It was then time for the Roll Call of States. Each affiliate president introduced themselves and provided the national President with the name of the convention delegate, alternate delegate, and nominating committee member, as well as information about their next planned affiliate convention. Of course, many of them also took a moment or four to brag about their affiliate, particularly if they had scholarship finalists, Jernigan Fund scholarship recipients, or other notable individuals in their delegation or recent successes to announce. Like all of the convention, the Roll Call of States was punctuated with loud cheers and applause, an exercise “fit break,” and door prizes at various moments.

Noon brought the end of the first general session and one of two final opportunities that attendees would have to visit the Exhibit Hall. Conventioneers could also take advantage of grab-and-go lunches provided by the hotel and then participate in other breakout sessions or drop by the Baccus Room on the Marriott’s fourth floor for some quiet time if they did not want to brave the elevators to get to their own private room.

Two o’clock, the afternoon session and the Presidential Report. Again, we will not drop any spoilers here; the full report that President Riccobono gave the convention follows this article. However, we urge those who can to listen to the audio version. It is of course included in the audio edition of this magazine, but if you are instead reading this issue in print or Braille, you might want to visit the Convention Highlights page on the NFB website at https://nfb.org/convention to hear the report in President Riccobono’s voice; it is a particularly powerful and emotional presentation.

Following the Presidential Report and the standing ovation it received, the afternoon agenda was modified to accommodate the schedule of an important guest. This was Frank Bisignano, the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration. While we have often been visited by SSA officials, having the Commissioner himself attend our convention emphasized the importance of the issues facing the agency and its relationship with our community. We have reported in this magazine the concerns that the National Federation of the Blind has expressed about dramatic changes within the agency; indeed, we have joined a lawsuit because of these concerns. The Commissioner was doubtless aware of all this and did his best to assure us that, while staff has been reduced at field offices by 4 percent, service is not suffering. He emphasized that the goal is for the SSA to become a “digital first” agency, arguing that cuts are justified because, whereas many more employees were needed when the agency issued checks EXCLUSIVELY by mail, the predominance of electronic payments and internet interactions these days makes digital management of most claims more feasible and desirable. The Commissioner acknowledged the Federation’s collaboration to make SSA’s self-service kiosks accessible and thanked us for it. He also said that he would reach out to Representative Pete Sessions to see if collaboration was possible with respect to the Blind Persons Return to Work Act. He promised that he would remain accessible to Federation leadership. President Riccobono warmly thanked him for his remarks and promised that the Federation would continue to maintain cordial relations while providing candid feedback. All of this was in keeping with our tradition of respecting our guests even when we have disagreements with them.

Jonathan Mosen was introduced next to provide a report on the activities of the Center for Excellence in Nonvisual Accessibility and some of its future, including a planned redesign of the International Braille and Technology Center. This redesign will divide the facility into modules specific to work, home, school, and the like to better contextualize the various technologies on display. Consistent with much other tech-related content, Jonathan also discussed the role of AI in the lives of the blind, acknowledging that one of our challenges and commitments is to work with the industry to establish an ethical framework so that AI image recognition can be used to help blind people identify individuals known to us in images and real-time video while protecting the right of those individuals to privacy and the integrity of their personal data.

In keeping with the AI theme, Maxine Williams, Vice President and Head of Accessibility Engagement for Meta, the company that owns Facebook and sells the Meta Ray-Ban smart sunglasses, came to the platform to speak about the company’s growing collaboration with the National Federation of the Blind. She was followed by Jenny Lay-Flurrie of Microsoft, who reviewed our collaborations over the years and previewed AI developments that the company is planning. Following these three tech presentations, the afternoon session adjourned.

Those not headed down the river on the Creole Queen for a Friday evening cruise had a final opportunity to visit the Exhibit Hall before it closed at 9 p.m. The Independence Market was open as well. The NOPBC continued its Educate Seminar, begun on the first day of convention, with more breakout workshops and Youth Track Activities. Sports and recreation enthusiasts could learn about and play blind hockey and tennis courtesy of the Sports and Recreation Division. A two-hour presentation and discussion entitled “Imagining Our Museum: The Museum of the Blind People’s Movement” also took place, facilitated by Alison Tyler, the Federation’s museum project lead. Other sponsors, committees, and groups also held evening work sessions and gatherings. The Communications Committee meeting attended by this writer featured a fascinating discussion on the various ways that AI services like ChatGPT can be used by affiliates as tools to improve marketing strategies and materials.

General Sessions III and IV: Federation Business

Saturday morning’s general session began with a beautiful invocation by scholarship finalist and Student Division Vice President Lauren Altman, an adherent of the Jewish faith. As the day was the Shabbat, or sabbath, Lauren informed us of the traditions associated with this weekly holy day, including the preparation and eating of the braided bread called challah, symbolizing strength through unity. Following the invocation, the first item on the morning’s agenda was the presentation of the financial report covering last year and the first half of this one. The financial picture was at least reassuring, as the Federation ended 2024 in the black by about $2 million and has so far remained there for the first few months of 2025. However, President Riccobono noted that the twelve million dollars in revenue received in the first half of this calendar year was due to a one-time bequest received by the Colorado Center for the Blind and shared with the national organization. Subtracting that revenue, we broke even before considering convention expenses. President Riccobono noted that our household goods donation program through GreenDrop has ended, that our mass mail program (which is also the source of many bequests) continues to see a steep decline in donations, and there is some risk of losing federal funds for NFB-NEWSLINE®. We have some new revenue streams, but overall President Riccobono stressed the urgency of all of us continuing to ask people and organizations outside our movement for donations. He also urged chapters and affiliates to try to help the national movement more to support our legal program, staff payroll, affiliate support, and unanticipated expenses that might arise, such as the Rideshare Rally in October of last year. He noted that we will need a new telephone system soon and stressed that while we are still committed to the Museum of the Blind People’s Movement, that will not supplant other programs, and forward motion will not continue until specific funds for it are raised. The entire report was presented with candor and what is best described as very cautious optimism regarding the near-term outlook.

Elections were next on the agenda. The Nominating Committee, chaired by Pam Allen, recommended that all board members currently holding office be re-elected to their positions. The Convention agreed, accepting the committee’s report and then electing all by acclamation, with only one floor nomination occurring which was declined by the nominee.

John Ciocca, CEO of a new company called Purple, was the next presenter, and he spoke to us about individual financial management. Purple designs financial tools specifically to be used by people with disabilities, and their offerings are meant to be particularly useful to those of us who must manage our money carefully to comply with the rules of SSI, SSDI, and other benefit programs. Mr. Ciocca said that his inspiration to create the company came from his own experiences helping to manage finances for his brother. Purple is a company that the Federation helped get off the ground. For that reason, and because its services seem very useful, we will publish Mr. Ciocca’s remarks in next month’s issue of this magazine. Those wishing to learn more in the meantime can view or listen to the presentation on the Convention Highlights page or visit https://withpurple.com.

Our friends from the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS) were the next to the platform. In addition to Jason Broughton, the program’s director, we heard from Deputy Director Jason Yasner, who took the microphone first and gave an energetic and upbeat presentation. He told us that the 2026 proposed federal budget still includes funding for NFB-NEWSLINE® (which, he stressed, NLS considers a critical service and remains firmly determined to do everything it can to protect). He further shared that thousands of brand-new wi-fi-enabled digital talking book machines were on their way to network libraries, BARD has been upgraded, new patrons will soon be able to enroll for service online, and the service’s skill for Amazon Alexa-enabled devices will likely feature new enhancements due to the introduction of Alexa+. Director Broughton struck a similarly positive tone. He shared that NLS has moved back to the Capitol complex and that the service has over two thousand Marrakesh titles in twenty-six different languages and emphasized the popularity of the Braille on Demand program, among other things. He stressed the importance of our movement in the face of the challenges of our times and said that “the journey is not only vital but beautiful.” The Federation and this magazine remain alert to changes that may affect NLS and will certainly work with these allies to preserve it.

Having sped through the morning’s business, the session was able to adjourn a few minutes early, following a few more door prizes. President Riccobono reminded us that important business, including the consideration of resolutions, would be done in the afternoon session. Conventioneers then left to take their last shopping excursion to the Independence Market, exchange their banquet tickets, or participate in the other activities scheduled during the lunch break.

The afternoon general session started with a presentation from a blind astronomer. The item was “Building a Constellation of Opportunities: A Blind Astronomer Researching the Cosmos with Multisensorial Perception,” presented by Wanda Díaz-Merced, Astronomer and Director of Science in Braille Global Office of Excellence; Gurabo, Puerto Rico.

Two advocacy-related presentations followed. First, Eve Hill, general counsel to the National Federation of the Blind, outlined the challenges facing blind and disabled Americans as the current administration backs away from enforcement of the laws that protect us. Eve stressed the critical importance of our willingness to act aggressively to protect our rights and the programs that serve us, doing so with a motivational call-and-response presentation. Again, we feel the best service we can provide to our readers is to refer them to the Convention Highlights page to hear the presentation or read the transcript. The convention then received updates from the Advocacy and Policy team that handles legislative, legal, and regulatory issues at the NFB Jernigan Institute, led by John Paré. John and his colleagues, Jesse Shirek, Sanho Steele-Louchart, and Justin Young, provided an update on the status of our legislative and legal efforts while motivating all of us to work harder to achieve positive change.

Then came the consideration of the twenty-one resolutions that had been recommended by the Resolutions Committee for adoption by the Convention. This procedure was briefly interrupted by the hotel’s alarm system; one of the afternoon thunderstorms that had been plaguing us all week was raging outside, and water was leaking into the hotel in at least two locations. Because hotel staff did not immediately notify us that full evacuation of the facility would not be necessary, business stopped, and many began to exit the ballroom. Fortunately, word came to stay put before too many people fled the building, and business resumed. The Convention adopted all twenty-one recommended resolutions, with three requiring roll-call votes by the official convention delegates of each affiliate present. The adopted resolutions appear elsewhere in this issue.

The session adjourned shortly after 5 p.m., but as usual, there was plenty for convention attendees to do Saturday evening. There was a second opportunity for folks to get their hands on exhibits that might appear in the Museum of the Blind People’s Movement in case they missed the crowded session on Thursday night. A memorial service for our departed friend John Cheadle was held by the National Federation of the Blind of Maryland. The Performing Arts Division held the annual Showcase of Talent, which is always very popular.

General Sessions V and VI

The official longest day of the year is usually June 21, that being the Summer Solstice, the day with the most daylight hours. For Federationists, though, the longest day is the final one of convention, as it includes two general sessions and the convention banquet. In this case, long does not equate to dull; the day is full of excitement, with a full day of informative presentations followed by the banquet address, scholarship announcement, and other awards and surprises that might occur during the banquet.

Despite the excitement, the Sunday morning session began with sad news. President Riccobono solemnly announced that Sassy Atwater-Wright, a disability-rights activist known to many of us and more recently a member of the National Federation of the Blind, had passed away the night before. He urged us to keep Sassy, her family, and her partner Bryan Bashin, also a Federation leader, in our thoughts and prayers. This moment of remembrance was followed by a Christian invocation featuring a well-known passage from the New Testament and a thoughtful prayer by Briley O’Connor, the executive director of the Minnesota Center for the Blind. Next was a presentation from Vispero, which is the current name of the company that produces JAWS for Windows, the popular and powerful screen reader, as well as other products. Before Ryan Jones, its vice president of software, described the latest features of JAWS, Glen Gordon, a programmer who was involved with the software when it was first created thirty years ago, shared some memories of his work. None of us, including Glen himself, knew at the time that he had been invited to the convention for another purpose as well, but that came later. Glen’s presentation was full of fascinating history and sound advice, and it will appear in a later issue of this magazine. Ryan Jones then shared improvements that are coming to JAWS, including a new AI feature that will summarize the layout of a web page and answer questions about it so that blind users can get an overview of the page before interacting with its individual elements. This was demonstrated in a brief video, which said that the feature will be available in the fall of 2025.

Sticking with the theme of accessibility, we next heard from Jake Konerza, Senior Director of Digital Accessibility for Target. Those who know their Federation history are aware that we have a long and productive relationship with Target, but that relationship began in 2007 with a lawsuit about its then-inaccessible website. As much as or more than any other entity, Target took to heart what it learned from working with us to resolve that lawsuit, and its accessibility initiatives across its products and services have been outstanding. This now includes fully accessible self-checkout kiosks that will be rolled out by early 2026, which is what Mr. Konerza was at convention to announce, with help from Steve Decker. Many conventioneers had been able to try out the new technology in the Bonaparte Room throughout the week; sadly, this writer was not one of them, so like many of you, I look forward to visiting my local Target to do so. To our knowledge, Target will be the only retail store where blind people can independently scan and pay for the items we purchase without the help of a sighted employee. As President Riccobono said in introducing Target’s presentation, this will be a game-changer.

The convention next heard from Anne Lancaster, Vice President for Innovation and Strategy at the American Printing House for the Blind. As many readers will know, APH is one of the partners who worked with us to produce Monarch, the multi-line Braille and tactile graphics tablet. Anne came to give us an update on the progress of the Monarch, of which she said there are over 1,100 units being used in classrooms around the world, but also to speak about how high expectations are integral to the work that APH does in partnership with the blind. Her heartfelt presentation will be included in a later issue. APH is a leader in education, but we next heard about a different kind of education that is too little discussed: sexual health education and research driven by the blind. The presenter was Mika Baugh, a Federationist from a young age, when she participated in our youth STEM programs. Now fully into her “adulting” phase, she just received her PhD. Mika stressed that the lack of accessible sexual education materials harms blind people not just through denying us knowledge, but in doing so, also transmitting low expectations that feed negative self-perceptions about our ability to have fulfilling relationships. It was a powerful and emotional presentation and will appear in a later issue. So will the final presentation of the morning, which was a panel about the meaning of our planned Museum of the Blind People’s Movement from several perspectives of Federation members and partners, facilitated by the indefatigable Pam Allen. A highlight of this presentation was the participation of Shawn Callaway’s daughter, Camille, whom he calls his “princess.”

After the lunch break, which was the final opportunity to exchange banquet tickets and contained the fewest activities and breakouts of any lunch period during the convention, the afternoon session began with the presentation of the eighteenth annual Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards. This presentation appears later in this issue. The convention then learned about XR Navigation, a company that has developed a unique audio-based interface for producing and exploring accessible maps, from its CEO, Brandon Biggs, who demonstrated the technology live from the convention platform using maps of our hotels and the surrounding streets.

This writer was humbled to be the next convention presenter, the first time I have ever had such an honor. It is impossible for me to be objective about my own remarks, as it would be for anyone, so I will just say here that I am grateful for the warmth with which my Federation family received them and the many kind words that many of you have since shared with me. I also hope that readers are exploring the new Early Access blog articles that were announced as part of the presentation.

President Riccobono noted that he met the next presenter when this guest was chief executive officer of Guiding Eyes for the Blind, the only guide dog school to financially sponsor our Rideshare Rally in October of 2024 in which we protested continued discrimination against guide dog users by rideshare drivers. Thomas Panek, who is blind, has since the Rally become CEO of the Lighthouse Guild. This is a welcome development, as leadership by blind people of agencies serving the blind is something which the Federation strongly encourages.

The final presentation of the afternoon was entitled “Perspectives on Growing Pains in the Organized Blind Movement: A Panel of Student Leaders.” Anil Lewis, the Executive Director for Blindness Initiatives at the NFB Jernigan Institute, facilitated the discussion. The three student leaders on the panel shared, with courtesy and candor, the difficulties that young people sometimes have in integrating into the larger movement, particularly their affiliates, as they transition from student life into their careers. Their discussion will appear in a future issue of this magazine.

The Convention Banquet and the Elephants in the Room

As John Berggren had reminded us just before the final panel, it was then time for the gathered Federationists to clear the convention hall as quickly as possible so that the hotel staff could prepare the room for our celebratory banquet. During the two-hour break before the banquet began, Federationists who had decided to brave the elevators to get back to their rooms and change into formal wear did so. All had an opportunity to visit the portrait studio during its final session so that they could be photographed in their finery.

There was a slight delay in completing the seating process before the banquet began. Those who were seated early enjoyed more authentic live New Orleans music. The banquet was gaveled to order shortly after 7 p.m., with Pam Allen, still cheerful and energetic as ever, serving as emcee. She began the proceedings by introducing Daphne Mitchell, who delivered an invocation consisting of both song and prayer. After an initial door prize drawing, a video was played thanking the sponsors of the thirty scholarships that would be presented later in the banquet. Pam then introduced Corbb O’Connor, joining us virtually from Minnesota. Corbb announced that the Lead and Drive in 2025 campaign leading up to and during the convention had raised a total of $35,000 and drew the name of the contributor who had won the grand prize—a trip to next year’s convention complete with registration, hotel, banquet ticket, and a thousand dollars in cash. After another door prize drawing and a fifty-fifty drawing from the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children, Marilyn Green announced the winners of the PAC animals and other prizes. The NOPBC took home the Pac Mule; Nevada took home the PACaderm; and the PAC Rat headed to Tennessee. Marilyn announced that total PAC donations were at $472,746.32 as of the end of convention.

After Pam introduced the officers and other dignitaries at the head table, including her new elephant Calliope that President Riccobono gave her at the Rookie Roundup, it was time for our President to give his banquet address. Its theme was truth and its reclamation, the process by which marginalized groups take back control of the narrative about themselves from the culture that marginalizes them. He used the well-known fable of the blind men and the elephant to illustrate the concept. The speech appears in full in these pages, but we encourage those who can do so and who did not hear it presented live to listen to the audio from the Convention Highlights page, as it has unique features that are best appreciated in this format.

Following the banquet address and the audience’s enthusiastic response to it, longtime friend of the Federation Dr. Ray Kurzweil, who worked with us to pioneer groundbreaking print-reading technology and continues to support our scholarship program and other endeavors, offered brief remarks. In keeping with a recurring theme at the convention, Dr. Kurzweil shared some insights about AI. He concluded by telling us that he is writing his autobiography and devotes significant space to his involvement with the National Federation of the Blind. He said that our movement has changed, uplifted, and motivated him more than any other organization with which he has interacted.

Two more award presentations took place before the scholarship winners were announced. The Jacobus tenBroek Award is presented annually, and this year Pam Allen did the honors. The Kenneth Jernigan Award is presented when a deserving individual is identified, and Curtis Chong made the presentation. Both presentations are included in this issue.

Pam then handed over the microphone to Scholarship Chair Cayte Mendez so that she could complete the process of turning the scholarship finalists into scholarship winners. Cayte first called the finalists to the stage in alphabetical order and then announced which scholarship each would receive. The recipient of the Kenneth Jernigan Scholarship then addressed the banquet. An article describing all the scholarship proceedings at the board meeting and banquet appears elsewhere in this issue.

Pam then gave a way a few more high-dollar door prizes. In keeping with tradition, the top prize was $2,025, reflecting the convention year. She then turned the convention back over to an undoubtedly tired but still exuberant President Riccobono, who asked us to close the proceedings with an elephant-sized Federation cheer. We did so, and the banquet was adjourned.

Conclusion

The 2025 New Orleans Convention will be our last in that city for a while, but it will doubtless echo through our history as past New Orleans conventions have. In the meantime, there are conventions in new and old venues to look forward to, and much work to be done before we convene in Austin, Texas, next year. President Riccobono reminded us several times that our movement is more critical now than it has been since our founding in 1940. Our vigilance and willingness to lead courageously and champion collective action is urgently needed to protect what we have and to lay the groundwork for an even brighter future. Nonetheless, we all took to heart the repeated New Orleans cry of “Laissez les bon temps roullez!” (“Let the good times roll!”) in 2025, and our love and hope will doubtless continue to bring us joy moving forward.

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[PHOTO CAPTION: Mark Riccobono]

2025 Presidential Report

An Address Delivered by

Mark A. Riccobono

National Federation of the Blind

New Orleans, Louisiana

July 11, 2025

During the past year, the organized blind movement has provided critical consistency for blind Americans living in a nation beset by uncertainty and rapid change. This movement’s gift is its constancy: blind people have a movement they can rely on, a security in knowing that other blind people will have their back, and a resource in the power of lived experience and shared understanding. This certainty for the blind was not an accident nor is it possible without continuous effort. The organized blind movement gives us hope because it is powered by people with giving spirits. The organized blind movement gives us strength through the self-determination shared among members. The organized blind movement gives us power because we know the truth about blindness, and we share it with others in our communities. Our blind predecessors first made this commitment in 1940 and, year after year, challenge after challenge, and opportunity after opportunity, we have shown up to build the future for ourselves. Yes, the blind of our nation have certainty. We always work together to have the backs of blind people. We always come prepared to exercise the truth about blindness. We always speak and act for ourselves. We are the National Federation of the Blind.

Nicole Vega Cruz is a blind woman from New Jersey. She had not known about the National Federation of the Blind when she lost custody of her almost six-month-old son, Nicolah, due to difficult circumstances and overt discrimination. Fortunately, she discovered that we had her back before all was lost. The New Jersey child welfare agency cleared Nicole of any wrongdoing, but the court, operating on misunderstanding about the capacity of blind people to parent, continued to restrict her time with her child and required supervision. We can only imagine the heartbreak and stress the uncertainty caused Nichole and her baby. We stepped in to assist Nichole by educating the family court judge about the techniques blind people use in parenting and the protections afforded to parents with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Federation member Sandy Halverson also gave her time and experience to support Nichole, testified in the case, and traveled from Virginia to New Jersey for court hearings. Through the expertise and support of the Federation, the court has now approved a plan granting increasing amounts of unsupervised time and overnight visits until September 1—when Nichole will regain full custody of her son. That is not all. Recognizing the value to this family, the court specifically granted mom and baby permission to attend this convention, and we welcome them today as first-timers to the Federation family. We will continue to give blind parents the certainty that we have their back.

Through our advocacy work, we create certainty for blind youth that they can compete on terms of equality. For example, through our legal program we assisted a blind high school student in Michigan to receive blindness services from vocational rehabilitation instead of their school district, which did not have an adequately trained teacher of blind students and refused instruction in key skills of blindness. In another instance, we assisted a blind Texas high school student who was facing obstacles to getting a Braille version of their advanced placement exam so they could graduate on time. Yet many barriers persist; to overcome them, we are building a network of educational advocates with generous support from the Lavelle Fund for the Blind. Our first cohort of advocates, trained in 2024, has helped more than twenty families, and we recently completed training our second cohort of advocates to double our team of barrier breakers. But we need to build even more capacity as more than one hundred people across thirty-seven states were on the waiting list for our 2025 IEP Advocacy Academy. We will continue to seek partners and resources to further strengthen and bring to scale our Federation network that is eliminating barriers in education, one blind child at a time.

We continue to urge the federal government to fulfil its promise to families that our nation will ensure equitable access to high-quality education for all students, regardless of their background or circumstances. In the final months of the Biden administration, we challenged the United States Secretary of Education with our concerns about the apparent dismantling of the Digital Accessibility Unit in the Office of Civil Rights. Earlier this year, the Trump administration issued an executive order calling for closure of that department and changes to its current programs. We sent a letter to the new Secretary of Education on March 25, detailing our concerns about the future of programs that affect blind Americans. We received a response on April 11, from the Acting Secretary of Education for the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services indicating that there will not be harm to any of the programs for the blind. However, significant uncertainty about the future of these programs and our broader protections remains.

Earlier this year, the Department of Education drastically reduced its oversight personnel in the Office of Civil Rights, significantly limiting the relief blind people can seek when schools discriminate. Meanwhile, seventeen states have filed suit against the Department of Health and Human Services challenging the agency’s 2024 update to the regulations under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The states seek to have Section 504 deemed unconstitutional, arguing that it expands the scope of disability rights beyond what is permitted under the Act. In February we began to mobilize Federation members in the seventeen states to push back on this outrageous assertion to the court. On March 4 we sent a letter to each of the attorneys general, and we asked members to undertake local advocacy efforts. As a result of our effectiveness, by April many of the states were publicly asserting that their intention was not to challenge the law’s constitutionality. Similar statements were included in the status briefing to the court later that month, yet the original filing remains unchanged, and we remain ready to act.

For decades we have been pushing institutions of higher education to fulfill their obligations under the law by assuring their programs, including their digital platforms and instructional materials, are accessible and provide an equally effective experience. However, the current political climate favors deregulation, and some higher education leaders seek to leverage the opportunity. The American Council on Education, with a long list of co-signatories from higher education, wrote to the administration on May 12 requesting, among other things, that implementation of the Department of Justice’s ADA Title II Web Accessibility regulation be put on hold. On hold! That is the only appropriate four-letter word I could think to put in this report. The request of the higher education leadership is outrageous, shameful, and demonstrates none of the rigorous intellectual values these institutions claim to share. Contrary to their letter, the website regulation provides exactly the clarity state and local government institutions, including educational institutions, have been requesting during the fourteen years of consideration, public input, and adjustment that went into the final rule.

With certainty, the blind of this nation are on alert, and we will not cease our advocacy until our programs are protected and our rights are secured. To those challenging the constitutionality of our rights, we respectfully ask you to stand down, or we will stand up in an even more aggressive campaign to counteract your attack. To the American Council on Education and its supporters, we are prepared to wrestle with you in the regulatory process, but we are also prepared to shine light on your harmful approach. We will talk with you about the error of your ways if we can, and we will show up to demand you cease if we must.

We continue to use all of our tools to advance equality in higher education. Along with our West Virginia affiliate, we are supporting Federation members Miranda Lacy and Harold Thomas Rogers in suing West Virginia University for its failure to provide blind students accessible materials, readers, and accommodations for their online social work master’s program. These outstanding blind students are taking a stand to ensure that other students do not face the same discrimination.

In pursuit of STEM careers, Federation members Natalie Charbonneau, Jennifer Doran, and Ashley Neybert enrolled in Oregon State University. Each of these blind women came to the university with a proven record of significant academic achievement. Yet OSU’s failure to ensure an equal educational opportunity for blind students thwarted their professional pursuits. For example, OSU routinely failed to provide accessible materials to blind students before the start of courses and, when it finally provided them, they were often not accessible at all. The Federation did not fail; we showed up for these blind students and, through structured negotiations, we aim to resolve the issues for these students and to transform the university’s accessibility practices going forward. Our negotiations continue, and we seek another model agreement for schools to follow in ensuring equal access for blind students. We stand with blind students in fighting for the equal educational opportunities they deserve.

Our national advocacy agenda includes mobilizing blind people to influence change in the United States Congress and leveraging local advocacy expertise across our fifty-two state affiliates. We champion important proposed federal legislation to protect equal access to websites and software applications, improve accessibility in home-use medical devices, eliminate harmful work penalties in the Social Security program, and create new tax credits for blind people to purchase access technologies needed to support our full participation in society.

We also want elected public officials at all levels to know that the voting power of blind people matters. We provide technical assistance to states on nonvisual access to voting, and we continue to advocate and negotiate to provide blind people with equal access to all forms of voting, including electronic delivery and return of ballots to ensure the highest level of privacy and independence. In addition, we respond to regulatory reviews, show up at Congressional hearings, monitor government programs, and assist Federation affiliates with state-level advocacy concerns. Often, technical assistance and negotiation are not enough.

For too many years, I have reported to you on our extensive work to get rideshare companies to put an end to discriminatory ride denials. Both Lyft and Uber have failed to adequately address this issue. But the blind were organized long before these companies existed, and we will be standing firm for blind people long after these companies are replaced by something new, like shared autonomous vehicle fleets. To protect the rights of blind passengers, we leveraged White Cane Awareness Day 2025 to bring our concerns to the public on the streets of San Francisco. The National Federation of the Blind’s Rideshare Rally brought hundreds of blind people, many accompanied by guide dogs, together to publicly express our outrage. We invited guide-dog training programs to join in our effort. Only one, Guiding Eyes out of New York, sponsored our rally and publicly expressed solidarity with our cause. We applaud agency leaders like Thomas Panek (a blind person himself) who believe in blind people and stand with us. We also thank our California affiliate for providing critical support to this public action. At Uber in the morning and Lyft in the afternoon, blind people marched and chanted while carrying signs with slogans like, “respect our right to ride,” “two paws up for equal access,” and “don’t flee without us.” Our rally received coverage from multiple outlets including NBC Bay Area, ABC 7, KCBS Radio, and Wired, as well as extensive social media traffic. Most importantly, the rally got the attention of both companies. As a result, each company has added a feature for self-identification for travelers with a service animal. In coordination with our National Association of Guide Dog Users, we made it clear that this feature must be voluntary for riders, information must be shared only after a driver has confirmed acceptance of the ride, and riders must not be penalized for electing not to use this feature. We continue to monitor the effectiveness of this approach while pushing for these companies to do more. We strongly encourage all blind people to share data with the Federation about these incidents and to file complaints through the ADA.gov<http://ADA.gov> website. Additionally, during the coming months, we will put together resources to assist individual blind people in filing small claims cases against these companies for ride denials. And we are prepared to take any other action needed to hold these companies accountable. To Lyft and Uber, we state with more energy and certainty than ever before: we will not back down from our rights. A complete report of our advocacy and policy work will be given later in this convention.

Another source of uncertainty for blind people is the continued discrimination by employers in the hiring process and in failing to accommodate blind people in the workplace. The same employers who give no thought to how much they spend on lights in a month claim that it is too difficult when blind people request to use screen-reading software and a Braille display. Highly qualified blind people are barred from applying for jobs due to the requirement of a driver’s license—even though the position does not include driving as an essential function—and highly qualified people who go blind find their employers reacting as though all their talents have instantly gone away. Through our legal program, we assist blind people in navigating the discrimination they experience and give them greater confidence in their self-advocacy. During the past year, nearly a quarter of the requests for support we received have been regarding employment discrimination.

One example is Ashlen Johnson—a blind kindergarten teacher in Mississippi’s Long Beach School District. She had always worked out any needed accommodations informally with her school administration. In October 2021, the school’s new principal advised her to seek formal accommodations for her disability. On January 4, 2022, she was terminated for seeking these accommodations, which her principal conceded were reasonable. The Federation filed suit on behalf of Ms. Johnson, and we reached a settlement providing monetary damages, changes to her personnel record, a positive letter of recommendation, and a requirement that staff making decisions about employee accommodations must annually attend a conference on the ADA.

A significant employer that continues to generate concerns about discrimination is Amazon. With coaching from the Federation, many blind people have been able to overcome the barriers. One example is Jerusalem Crawley of Michigan, who went to work at Amazon to support himself while going to school. Like so many other blind people, the company failed to provide Jerusalem with accommodations and placed him on unpaid leave. The Federation taught Jerusalem about the filing requirements for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, what to include in a charge of discrimination, and how to effectively self-advocate in a mediation. As a result of our support and his hard work, Amazon gave him all the back pay he was due; agreed to provide appropriate accommodations, such as visual-interpreter services and an accessible workstation; and moved him to the warehouse closest to his home. Due to his outstanding advocacy and his performance at the warehouse, Amazon offered him an additional position as an accommodations coordinator. We will continue to organize and stand with blind Amazon employees to ensure equal opportunities in the future.

Some other examples of our employment advocacy include a case of discrimination against a blind physical therapist with fifteen years of work experience in the field; assisting a newly blind engineer whose employer refused to accommodate him when he became blind; protecting the rights of a United States foreign service officer in receiving adequate accommodations to perform her service to our nation; standing with a blind teacher whose school district refuses to provide her instructional materials in Braille; continuing the fight for fair wages in sheltered employment settings in Ohio; and challenging systemic discrimination in Colorado, where the state uses inaccessible timekeeping software.

Through our Employment Committee, chaired by Lia Stone of New Jersey, and with the support of our Federation staff, we host a series of events and enrichment opportunities to boost employment for the blind. Over the past year, we made connections between more than three hundred blind jobseekers and fifty employers. In our Where the Blind Work Webinars, we highlighted blind professionals working in STEM, human services, language interpretation, and blindness rehabilitation. In November, we held our latest Dare to Be Remarkable Conference, a three-day professional development bringing together more than one hundred rehabilitation and education professionals who work with blind youth and adults. This spring, the unexpected reduction in the federal government workforce left many hard-working blind people without a job and with great uncertainty. With the generous time and energy of many Federation members, we quickly spun up a Career Development Boot Camp series—a virtual weekly experience to provide federal employees with the support, tools, and resources to assist them with transitioning to a new career. Our powerful network continues to demonstrate the truth that the Federation shows up for blind people.

We are building a strong pipeline for the future through our work to prepare the next generation of blind youth for success. Examples include our support of the National Association of Blind Students Regional Student Seminars, where we connected more than one hundred blind youth with our Federation network through engaging presentations, interactive workshops, and opportunities for relationship building. In addition, through our Career Mentoring Program, we have held a Career Quest program at the Washington Seminar and at this convention. Blind students from Mississippi, New Mexico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Virginia have participated in immersive experiences including insightful presentations, educational seminars, and social and professional networking experiences—all to support their future success in competitive integrated employment opportunities in the career of their choice. Meanwhile, in Nebraska, we are raising expectations through monthly virtual seminars and in-person workshops where we present a variety of employment topics informed by the lived experiences of blind people. We seek to expand all of this work during the coming year.

Another area of employment we seek to boost is the community of blind entrepreneurs operating small businesses in all sectors of our economy. In addition to the typical small business challenges, blind owners must overcome accessibility barriers in managing payroll, tracking inventory, balancing the books, maintaining a website, and dozens of other key aspects of commerce. Despite these barriers, blind business owners are successful every day. Our movement is committed to amplifying these businesses and helping them to thrive through the support of our community. I am pleased to announce the first phase of our new work in this area: the Blind-Owned and Operated Marketplace, BOOM. This marketplace is now a live directory that offers an easy way to discover and support blind-owned businesses. Working with our National Association of Blind Merchants, we will add more businesses and build out additional phases of this project. Visit nfb.org/boom and, with the support of our movement, blind-owned business will be booming.

Through our national education programs, we seek to raise the expectations for blind youth, build a network of expertise through parents of blind children, and enhance the possibilities with a strong corps of teachers who have deep experience with the organized blind movement. However, for us it is not about managing programs; it is about building a movement. All of our efforts must be coordinated to give the next generation of blind leaders security, equality, and opportunity. Examples of our coordinated work in the past year include outreach to families through our early childhood initiatives, which serve blind children from birth to age eight. During the past year we provided Braille literacy materials and resources, early travel resources and child-sized white canes, and made meaningful connections for over four hundred families.

Through our NFB Braille Enrichment for Literacy and Learning® (BELL) Academy we provide hundreds of young blind people with literacy skills and blind mentors. These programs take great energy, detailed logistics, strong educational practices and procedures, and precious financial resources. They would not happen without the dedicated blind volunteers who are committed to the next generation having it better than we did. Thank you to all of the members of this movement who make these programs a reality. This summer’s programs are already underway, and together we are “Celebrating Two Hundred Years of Braille and Blind Innovation.”

We are now in our third decade of providing blind-centered educational opportunities in science, technology, engineering, art, and math. In our STEM2U program, blind youth learn under the mentorship of blind adults. In 2024 we delivered activities centered around the James Webb Space Telescope, which is designed to conduct infrared astronomy, allowing for conversations about discovery in the nonvisual light range. Our theme this year centers on the scientific method. Whether the young blind people in these programs choose a future career in science or something else, they will utilize the problem-solving skills and Structured Discovery techniques they learn from the Federation in their everyday effort to live the lives they want.

We further strengthen our movement by building a community of teachers of blind students whose belief in blind people is grounded in the certainty of our lived experience. During the past year we added nineteen teachers to the Federation’s Teacher of Tomorrow community, including our first two participants from Puerto Rico. This yearlong enrichment, guided by a diverse community of blind leaders, provides a foundation of high expectations and challenges participants to dream big for their students. As one teacher wrote in appreciation of the program, “While the entire Teachers of Tomorrow experience was wonderful, the most beneficial parts involved learning from blind individuals and recognizing just how high my expectations for my students need to be. And now I have a whole support group of teachers who I can ask for advice and support when needed.” We continue to appreciate the partnership of our Louisiana Center for the Blind and the Professional Development and Research Institute on Blindness at Louisiana Tech University in building the power of this program. Let us take this opportunity to acknowledge all of the commitment of those dedicated professionals who are allies in the organized blind movement and have joined us here at this convention.

Following last year’s convention, we initiated a restructuring of our technology-related priorities to increase the important leadership role the Federation plays in advancing built-in accessibility for the blind. We hired our first executive director for Accessibility Excellence, and during the next year we will continue implementing programmatic enhancements. In time for our eighty-fourth anniversary, we launched the Access On podcast. This is a platform to hear breaking news about technology that affects us, tips and tricks from technology experts, and grassroots feedback from Federation members.

We work to keep access on the priority list for the top technology companies. The Federation’s expertise and authority is well respected, and we enjoy frank but cordial relationships with all of the major technology players. We have built a trusted loop with these companies where they seek our informed perspective, and we provide feedback that directly results in product improvements. We also continue to work closely with smaller companies and emerging start-ups to be sure they are grounded in the understanding of blindness that we share through our lived experience.

We operate the Nonvisual Accessibility Initiative, a public-private partnership between the National Federation of the Blind and the Maryland Department of Disabilities. One example of our partnership work is our production of accessibility boutiques and half-day seminars covering a wide range of relevant topics for blind individuals. We hope to expand our partnerships beyond Maryland by working strategically with Federation affiliates in the coming year.

We continue to actively seek, acquire, and evaluate new accessible devices to fulfil our commitment to maintaining a comprehensive blind-centered consumer reports technology lab at our headquarters in Baltimore. One example of our evaluation work is at the forefront of exploring new navigation solutions for blind users. We aim to have as many indoor navigation systems live at the National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute as possible. This allows visitors to try these technologies for themselves and for our staff to provide meaningful feedback. In addition, demand is increasing for our Blind Users Innovating and Leading Design (BUILD) program, which provides a trusted process for matching blind people prepared to test technologies with companies seeking user testing. The time and knowledge of blind users is valuable; thus, we always ensure testers are compensated.

In the coming year we will establish a new Committee on Accessibility and User Innovation. This committee will provide perspectives and recommendations on strategic technology matters and the coordination of Federation technology efforts to maximize their effectiveness for all blind people. One objective is to curate useful intelligence on emerging trends and accessibility issues that might require the attention of the organized blind movement. As with all Federation committees, we seek to ensure that we are maximizing the power of our individual efforts, collectively focused. It is essential that we continue to be the source of trusted information and that we define meaningful accessibility in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

The members of the National Federation of the Blind make this organization the powerful vehicle for collective action that it continues to be. Membership is built through local chapters in our fifty-two state affiliates. During the past year, we have welcomed and onboarded nearly one thousand new members. Through our national office, we support affiliates in membership and leadership development. This includes helping affiliates build capacity by creating resources for elected board members, establishing model policies and practices, ensuring that critical governance documents are preserved, and appropriate government documents are filed. Some training activities happen at our headquarters facility, and many others are hosted in local communities. Our consistent investment in leadership development is critical to our success. We provide regular training to elected leaders as well as to members who show interest in growing into leaders. Additional resources are provided to leaders through our online NFB Portal. Our affiliate finance group is in the final stages of onboarding all affiliates to QuickBooks Online to assist in stronger financial tracking and more consistent financial reporting.

A priority for our movement is ensuring blind people have equal access to information. We continue to lead advocacy efforts to protect the critical work of, and funding for, the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, including distribution of free, refreshable Braille devices and a catalog of content that is broad and diverse, allowing blind people the widest possible reading choices. Through NFB-NEWSLINE, our free accessible information service, we currently offer 436 state newspapers, 15 national newspapers, 57 breaking-news sources, 23 international newspapers, 83 magazines, and an Associated Press feed from every state and the District of Columbia; that is more than 600 unique publications available through numerous access options, including the long-awaited Android application now available in the Google Play Store. We are committed to continued enhancements and finding additional sponsors so every blind person in our nation has access to the diverse content sources needed to be informed citizens.

One of the critical information services blind people need is the content created through the lived experience of blind people themselves. Far too many blind people have not yet encountered the hopeful message and blind wisdom that is captured in the stories of blind people living the lives they want. We continue to seek new ways of distributing the rich content that Federation members have created. Earlier this year, we launched NFBRN—our around-the-clock broadcast platform for content from the National Federation of the Blind. On NFBRN, you will hear legendary speeches, recent podcasts, live events, and more. In addition, we have onboarded a new editor to our flagship publication, the Braille Monitor, the magazine of the blind people’s movement. Thank you to Gary Wunder for his tremendous stewardship as editor of this publication during the past fifteen years. The Braille Monitor provides a consistent platform for detailed and well-researched articles as well as contemporary stories about the blind experience. We will now seek ways to enhance and streamline our communication across our magazine publication, our online blog content, and our dynamic podcasts. Stay tuned for our new Braille Monitor Early Access blog, where we will publish Braille Monitor articles online and on NFB-NEWSLINE before the full physical issues, so we can share timely information and news as it’s available. As always, the contributions of members of the Federation are encouraged and needed to ensure our content reflects the concerns, hopes, and dreams of a diverse range of blind people. In an effort to engage a new generation in our shared history, today we have released the trailer for a new Walking Alone and Marching Together podcast. The book of the same name brings to life the history of the National Federation of the Blind from 1940 to 1990 and has been available in several different formats. But its sheer size and depth can make it daunting to approach. That’s why we are bringing it to you in a multi-episode format this fall—breaking it down into manageable, compelling chapters that allow you to experience the history in a way that fits into your life.

During the past year we updated our plans for our national archives, which are maintained through our Jacobus tenBroek Research Library in Baltimore. We have added eighteen new oral histories to our collection. We have accelerated the cataloging of our archives and have identified new priorities for digitization of critical historical items. We have also begun the process of planning for a comprehensive organizational asset management system that will facilitate our effective use of our archival content and also streamline other organizational resources. Our strategic work here includes reimagining NFB.org and how we effectively deliver both current and historical content and make it easily discoverable. We continue to operate NFBnet, which is the most extensive electronic archive of information shared between blind people. As part of our strategic direction, we will begin the work of evaluating what the next generation of NFBnet might be, in order to further enhance our communication and information-sharing systems.

All of this is happening while we plan for the future sharing of our stories. We have made the bold commitment to establish the Museum of the Blind People’s Movement as a tool to share the achievements and struggles of our blind predecessors. In the coming months we will complete the schematic design phase of our museum planning, which will help solidify the concepts for three galleries, major topic areas, and themes—all aligned to our overarching goal of building an institution that will transform the public understanding of blind people. This development work and the efforts to raise the additional $16 million to achieve our dream is happening alongside the day-to-day effort of our library and national archives program. The museum will simply be the next big expansion of how we share the everyday stories of blind people and how they worked together to make society better. That history is found in our stories shared through nearly seventy years of the Braille Monitor, through artifacts displayed throughout our national headquarters, through the minutes and records of our state affiliates, and that history is being made every day through our work together—work that is far too extensive to cover comprehensively in this report.

But I would be remiss if I didn’t share one of our most powerful stories this year—one that fills me with the certainty that we are stronger together. Mary Azatyan-Witmeyer is a blind individual from California who was adopted as an infant by a foster parent. In high school, Mary was sent to live at the California School for the Blind where incredibly she graduated without receiving a high school diploma. There is no reason to suspect that Mary would not have been able to earn a standard diploma. When she became an adult, Mary’s adopted foster mother gave her a choice—enter into a legal conservatorship giving Mary’s rights over to the foster mother or exit from the adopted foster family, which would leave Mary homeless. The conservatorship would grant the adopted foster mother the right to control Mary’s Social Security benefits, financial decisions, healthcare decisions (including reproductive care), housing decisions, and the right to choose a partner in marriage. No, this is not the 1920s; this story is from today’s America.

Mary did not want to give up these rights but, faced with great uncertainty as an eighteen-year-old and lacking independent legal representation, she reluctantly agreed. The court placed her under a legal conservatorship. Fortunately, this is where Mary’s story intersects with ours.

Mary met members of the National Federation of the Blind who encouraged her to seek training at the Colorado Center for the Blind. At the center, Mary found a chosen family who gave her the skills, education, and belief in herself that she had not received from her public education. As a center student, she attended her first full national convention last year in Orlando. There, she took advantage of our legal office hours, where she asked Tim Elder about her rights. With the support of the Federation, she petitioned to terminate the legal conservatorship against the wishes of the conservator. On May 8, 2025, the court granted her petition, and Mary, with her rights fully restored, is now free to pursue her dreams with the skills and confidence she found at our training center in Colorado. Mary is not here at this convention because she is completing in-person classes to get her GED so that she can go to college. We can expect Mary at our 2026 Convention with her diploma in hand thanks to the certainty her Federation family has gifted to her.

Let me end with where I started: the gift of having a blind-centered movement we can rely on, the security that other blind people will have our back, and the powerful resource of lived experience and shared understanding that comes from linking arms with each other. It is a deep honor and humbling experience to serve as your President on a daily basis. While I have the joy and challenge of leading and reporting on our work, I never forget that it is work carried out by thousands. Our work together continues to enhance my life and gives me great hope even as we live in challenging times. Thank you for what you do every day, and please know that you continue to have my full commitment to give my best to this movement every day. Most significantly, you have my heart—I love this movement and you, the people who power it. Although our individual stories are not identical, there is a common bond of experience and faith in each other that ties our stories together. My story is your story, and together they are our story.

My Federation family, this is my report for 2025. This is the story of our collective progress.

This is the certain future we build for ourselves with love, hope, and determination. This is the blind people’s movement.

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[PHOTO CAPTION: Nikki Jackson]

[PHOTO CAPTION: Chrichelle Brown (DC) smiles and speaks with a career fair table. Mason Fessenden (CA) stands next to her.]

Employment Events at the 2025 National Convention

by Nikki Jackson

From the Editor: Nikki Jackson is the energetic employment programs lead at the National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute and works in collaboration with our Employment Committee chaired by Lia Stone. Here is Nikki’s report of employment-related events that took place at the National Convention:

Employment Committee Meeting

The Employment Committee met on the morning of July 8 and served as the kickoff event for three employment-related sessions held during the National Convention. Led by Lia Stone, Chair of the Employment Committee, the meeting began with an overview of the committee’s projects and accomplishments over the past year. Highlights included the planning and execution of a virtual career fair as well as additional career fairs at the 2025 Washington Seminar and 2024 National Convention. The committee also hosted virtual preparatory sessions for jobseekers and supported the continued success of the quarterly "Where the Blind Work" webinar series. Most notably, the committee worked to support blind federal employees who were adversely affected by recent government layoffs. In response, the committee organized a series of Career Development virtual sessions aimed at sharing information and easing the employment transition for those impacted.

The meeting also included a time for open discussion, during which attendees shared feedback on current initiatives and proposed ideas for future projects. A diverse group—employers, jobseekers, and professionals—was present and engaged.

One particularly significant topic that emerged was the inaccessibility of AI-driven application and interview platforms, especially within the private sector. Attendees reported that many employers are requiring candidates to complete digital tasks that are not accessible to blind applicants—a practice that presents clear barriers and perpetuates discrimination. In response, the committee discussed initiating the development of a resolution to hold companies accountable for inaccessible hiring practices. Lia Stone committed to following up on this action item to determine appropriate next steps.

Seeking Success Seminar

Held on July 8, the Seeking Success Seminar featured a series of dynamic and informative presentations centered around career growth, exploration, and transition. A representative from the National Blindness Professional Certification Board opened the session with a presentation highlighting career opportunities in blindness rehabilitation. The speaker emphasized the critical importance of this field within the blind community and encouraged attendees to consider it as a meaningful career path.

A standout moment was a panel discussion moderated by Lia Stone and featuring Jennifer Wenzel (Wisconsin), Briley O’Connor (Minnesota), and Robert Parsons (Michigan). The panelists shared personal stories about pivoting careers and finding success in new industries. Attendees praised the session as highly engaging and motivating.

Lia Stone also delivered a well-received presentation on LinkedIn best practices, offering actionable strategies for jobseekers to enhance their presence on this popular career-focused social network. She shared her own journey—from resisting LinkedIn to becoming an enthusiastic advocate for its value—and emphasized how the platform can serve as a vital tool for networking and career development, especially for blind professionals.

The seminar concluded with inspirational testimonials from Derique Simon and Lina Howard (both of Maryland), who participated in the 2024 National Convention Career Fair and successfully secured employment as a result. Now working as instructors in the Adult Adjustment to Blindness Training Program at Blind Industries and Services of Maryland, they shared practical tips, lessons learned, and the importance of persistence during the job search process.

Career Fair

The 2025 National Convention Career Fair was held on July 9, featuring nineteen participating employers and nearly two hundred jobseekers. Notable attendees included Marriott, the NFB-affiliated training centers (including the newly renamed Minnesota Center for the Blind), and several other organizations committed to inclusive hiring. A major highlight of the event was the participation of Bloomberg LP, joining the career fair for the first time. Their engagement and enthusiasm quickly made them the standout employer of the event. Jobseekers expressed a growing interest in pursuing careers aligned with the corporate sector, signaling a clear need to continue building strong relationships with corporate employers. The event reaffirmed the importance of expanding access, creating meaningful connections, and ensuring blind professionals have the tools and opportunities to pursue equitable and fulfilling careers.

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[PHOTO CAPTION: Brett Boyer]

Screen Readers and Street Smarts: How Travel Taught Me Tech

by Brett Boyer

From the Editor: Brett Boyer has been a Federationist since childhood and a technology instructor at the Colorado Center for the Blind for seven years. The following article is adapted from remarks he presented at a breakout session of the Contemporary Issues in Rehabilitation and Education of the Blind Conference held by the National Blindness Professional Certification Board as part of the National Convention, and also at the meeting of the Technology Trainers Division, which he serves as the new president, that took place later in the week. He emphasizes that Structured Discovery is more than a way of teaching cane travel and explains how it can be applied to teaching the use of a screen reader. Here is what he had to say:

Before we jump in, let me tell you a little about who I am—because this isn’t just something I teach. It’s something I live.

I was born blind and grew up in a mainstream school in New Jersey. My first O&M instructor was Joe Cutter—before he became a Structured Discovery advocate. So in 1985, what I got was route-based travel: memorized steps, buzzwords like “square off” and “outdoor technique,” fixed directions, and not much room for creative problem-solving. I was a pretty precocious kid, which thankfully meant I must’ve been an explorer at heart. I was definitely the kind of kid who’d run full speed into the unknown without a cane, without permission, and definitely without a backup plan. I wasn’t asking, “Will I be okay?” I was asking, “What’s the worst that could happen?” Spoiler: sometimes, it was a chain-link fence. I used to rollerblade around my quiet little street, totally blind, just vibes—and regularly upsetting the neighbors. So yeah, I guess I was wired for Structured Discovery before I had a name for it. Because when I came to the Colorado Center for the Blind for the first time as a summer student, something clicked. Structured Discovery just made sense. I didn’t need anyone to define it—I just knew it matched how I wanted to move through the world.

When I came back later as an adult student, my travel instructor was Eric Woods—a tough, no-nonsense Structured Discovery guy from the street. He didn’t sugarcoat anything, but he trusted me to figure things out. And that trust? It changed everything.

Now I get to work at an NFB center where Structured Discovery is everywhere you look. It’s how we teach, how we learn, how we live. And I know that’s a privilege—not every trainer is in that kind of environment. A lot of folks are still fighting for Structured Discovery to be taken seriously in all aspects of blindness training, but especially when it comes to technology instruction. I know teaching tech is not the most popular subject. I don’t know how many of you here are tech trainers or thinking about becoming one. But even if you’re not, I hope this talk sparks something. Because once you start seeing the connections between cane travel and tech, you can’t unsee them.

Let me paint a picture. A student nails every step of a JAWS lesson—opens the file perfectly, finds the edit box, uses Tab like a pro. Everything's smooth. But then File Explorer crashes. Or the webpage doesn’t load right. And suddenly, they freeze. That’s not a tech problem. That’s a teaching problem. We trained them to follow a route instead of learning to read the map.

But if you’ve ever taught cane travel using Structured Discovery, then you already know the answer. We don’t need students who can just get through the lesson. We need students who can recover, who can explore, who can say: “I don’t know what this is... but I can figure it out.” It’s time we stop treating technology like a list of commands and start teaching it like we teach travel.

Structured Discovery changed how we teach cane travel. We stopped handing out memorized routes and started asking: “How would you find it? What do you notice?” We taught concepts: how to judge traffic, how to listen critically, and how to troubleshoot when the environment throws you something weird. But when it comes to tech, too many trainers are still stuck in route mode: Press Insert+F7. Press Alt. Press Right Arrow three times, then press Down Arrow. Then press Control+Right Arrow. Tab four times. Check the checkbox. Say a prayer. Hope nothing changes. That’s not independence. That’s just screen-reader Simon Says—with bonus anxiety.

Day one of tech class, I teach something simple: Insert+T—title of the window. If you don’t know where you are, how can you know what to do? Just like in cane travel, orientation comes before problem-solving.

In screen-reader terms, orientation means listening for landmarks: “Edit box,” “button,” “menu,” “combo box,” “list view.” These are the street corners of tech. When a student hears “edit box,” they should already be thinking: “Is this a place I can type? Is it multi-line? What happens if I arrow down?” You don’t need a script. You need a question and the guts to follow it.

Here’s what I don’t care about: whether they remember Control+W. Here’s what I do care about: If they accidentally close a tab, do they know what just happened? Can they back out? Reopen it? Move forward?

One example I use in class: Windows File Explorer just closes randomly. No warning. Just poof. Most people panic. But my students? They stop. They check the open windows to see if the screen reader just lost focus. File Explorer’s gone? Okay. Think. Hit Windows+E. Get back in. No drama. Why? Because we practiced how to respond to the unknown. That’s the skill that matters. That’s what gets them through a college exam, a broken app update, or an inaccessible job portal. Just like when there’s a sign on the sidewalk or a truck parked halfway across the curb. Do we tell our students to go home and try again tomorrow? Seriously—do we?

I’ve seen tech training turn blind students into obedient robots. Press this. Then this. Then this. Don’t explore. Don’t experiment. Just memorize. That’s not teaching. That’s programming.

I’ve also seen trainers back off when things get hard. “This is too advanced,” they say. “Let’s keep it simple.” Let me be blunt: That’s not kindness. That’s sabotage. Independence is not born from safety. I want to say that one more time: Independence is not born from safety. It’s born from struggle; from exploration; from trying, failing, and trying again. If I’m walking through a foyer and I find a long table in my way, do I stop and wait for someone to tell me it’s okay? Do I stand there and hope the table magically moves out of the way? I don’t know about you, but I go around the sucker. I mean, I could try to go over it or under it, but that might get real interesting real fast.

Structured Discovery isn’t about making life harder—though I’ve had plenty of students who might argue otherwise. It’s about building confidence, that inner voice that says: “I don’t know this, but I can figure it out.” That’s what cane travel teaches. That’s what tech should teach too.

When a student says, “Can I try something?” instead of “What do I do?”—That’s when I know I’ve done my job. When they start talking to the screen reader like it’s a teammate—saying things like “Okay, let’s figure this out”—that’s when I know they’re not just using tech. They’re owning it. That’s when I see real growth.

If you’re teaching technology—whether full-time or just as part of your rehab work—you’re not just handing out commands. You’re teaching mindset. You’re not teaching “press Alt.” You’re teaching: “Listen for a menu.” You’re not teaching “Tab three times.” You’re teaching: “Look for your landmark.” You’re not just building skills. You’re building courage.

So here’s my challenge to you: Stop asking, “Did they memorize the shortcut?” Start asking, “What will they do when nothing looks familiar?” Because that’s where independence starts. That’s when we stop training followers … and start building explorers. Thank you.

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[PHOTO CAPTION: Mark Riccobono]

Creativity, Persistence, and Hope: Reclaiming Our Stories through the Organized Blind Movement

An Address Delivered by

Mark A. Riccobono, President
At the Banquet of the Annual Convention
Of the National Federation of the Blind
New Orleans, Louisiana

July 13, 2025

Live the life you want,

Nobody can stop you;

Shoot for the sun,

And break on through.

So you’re blind, you’ll be fine;

We got good news:

You can live the life you want,

Yes, we know the truth.

Do you know our truth? How did you learn it? Have you recently examined, tested, and rediscovered our truth? Or have you taken it for granted, settled for the convenient truth of the moment, or internalized what others have convinced you is the truth? Are you still seeking to find the truth among uncertainty?

Author Robert Green wrote, “If you view everything through the lens of fear, then you tend to stay in retreat mode. You can just as easily see a crisis or problem as a challenge, an opportunity to prove your mettle, the chance to strengthen and toughen yourself, or a call to collective action.” In response to the early challenges of the twenty-first century, President Barack Obama observed, “For we have always understood that when times change, so must we, that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges, that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.” Related to standing for your truth, Desmond Tutu shared, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” And, of elephants, comedian Seth Meyers noted, “It’s nice to have an elephant in the room. There’s nothing more helpful than something everybody’s thinking about.”

The banquet of the National Federation of the Blind offers an opportunity to examine our shared truth. Often we do this by contrasting our lived experience as blind people against what is said and perceived about blind people throughout society. I have been contemplating what we mean when we say we know the truth. After all, there are those outside of our Federation who would claim they also know a truth that is very different from our own. As I have been examining my understanding of truth in a highly divided America, I want to share with you the continued strength I find in the unity of the organized blind movement. Tonight, I ask that each of us reflect upon our truth, and I encourage us to activate that truth in a way that builds ourselves and our community. This is a call to reclaim our truth.

In linguistics, the concept of reappropriation or reclamation is the cultural process by which a group reclaims words or artifacts that were previously used to limit or disparage the group. As a movement of blind people we have done this many times. Examples include showing pride through the use of the word blind and finding innovative ways to advance the importance of Braille literacy. Tonight, we will consider what to do with the parable of the blind men and the elephant, as a means of rallying the collective action that is called for in this moment in our history. If you are not familiar with the parable, let me offer you a very short overview:

A group of blind men heard that a strange animal known as an elephant had recently been brought to their town. None of the men were aware of the animal or what it was like. Their curiosity excited, they ventured together to examine the elephant by touch. The first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said, “it is much like a thick snake.” The next man, who happened to touch the elephant’s ear, shared that he believed it to be much like a type of fan. Another, whose hand first found the elephant’s leg said, “the elephant is a pillar like a tree trunk.” The man who found the elephant’s side exclaimed that it was like a wall. Meanwhile, another man felt its tail and thought of it like a rope. The final man felt its tusk and described it as being firm, smooth, and like a spear.

Let me pause there to say that the roots of this parable go back dozens of centuries, with the earliest written versions appearing in Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain texts, likely as interpretations from stories shared in the oral tradition. The parable has been retold in literature around the world, in religious teachings, in the explanation of scientific concepts, in the training of leaders in corporate settings, and in popular media appearing in a variety of artistic forms.

Parables are tools that are used to convey some truth through story so that complex ideas and profound aphorisms can be more easily understood. In this example, many have said that the parable is meant to demonstrate humankind’s tendency to rely upon siloed experiences to claim absolute truth, often responding violently in the face of equally true, yet seemingly opposing experiences. There are those who will claim that it is the ultimate message of the parable that matters. But think for a moment about what that requires. To achieve this enlightenment, you must first accept, internalize, and know to be true, that blind people are, by their nature and circumstance, foolish. The very basis for the parable requires it. Is it not ironic that a story meant to convey the perils of narrow understandings, misconceptions, and stubborn adherence to one’s own limited experience would so thoroughly underestimate the true capacity of blind people?

The ending of the parable and its intended moral have a number of variations. In most versions, the blind men discover their disagreements about the elephant, suspect the others not to be truthful, and angrily confront each other. Variations exist as to how the elephant’s body parts are described, how violent the conflict becomes, and how the conflict is resolved. An even deeper layer of complexity can be brought to the parable depending on whether the storyteller presents the elephant as the literal animal or one of its many symbolic representations. Nearly every version plays on the misconception that blind people are inherently limited in their understanding of the world. In one stark example, one of the blind men describes the elephant as soft and squishy, when he encounters not the elephant itself but what it left behind. In fairness, there are versions of the story in which the blind men start listening to each other and collaborating to understand the entirety of the elephant. However, the popular narrative ends with a nonblind hero entering the scene and describing the entire elephant; the conclusion being that all the blind men were wrong—sight is right. After all, historically this parable has been shared through the words and understandings of nonblind people—not the blind themselves. But we know a different truth.

The truth about blind people has historically been defined by ocular-centric norms and the systems of truth established to support those norms, within the vision industrial complex. For centuries, blind people were understood to be incapable of contributing to society, and we, as blind people, had no power to test the validity of that truth out in the world. The parable of the blind men and the elephant reflects a supposed truth carved in stone through centuries of low expectations the world over, which contributed to limiting opportunities for the blind. The establishment of formal programs of education for the blind that emerged in the late years of the eighteenth century and took hold in this nation in the nineteenth century, created new possibilities to examine the accepted truth. However, few tools existed for the blind to effectively share information, and it was difficult to join together outside of institutions run by nonblind people. By the early part of the twentieth century, blind people began to find ways to organize and share their aspirations for the future. A series of dramatic events including world wars, the Great Depression, and the establishment of transformative social programs, significantly shifted the reality of the human experience. From those circumstances rose a generation of blind people who recognized that in order to reach the tipping point for sustained progress, we needed to build a vehicle for collective action on a nationwide basis. On November 16, 1940, sixteen blind leaders came together from seven state organizations to establish the National Federation of the Blind.

At our beginning, the primary concern of the organized blind movement was to create a foundation to discover our truth by making it possible for everyday blind people to get out from under the care of their families and realize their own potential. Jacobus tenBroek, a blind scholar of the United States Constitution, was elected as our first President, and under his leadership we put ideas, words, and relationships into action to give momentum to our movement.

The parable is premised on the belief that the blind men come to the elephant with limited experience. The story also relies on the classical belief that blindness is isolating. It does not take into account that blind people might work together and show up with inherent skills, experience, and problem-solving techniques. Dr. tenBroek, for example, was mentored by a blind professor named Newell Perry, who prepared him for building the organized blind movement by instilling in him the value that we are stronger together. In those early days, the system of agencies for the blind exerted powerful control over the perception of blindness and what it meant to be blind. To the agencies, the burgeoning movement was likely the elephant in the room: the unacknowledged but certainly inescapable effort toward self-determination and equality by blind people.

The parable does not align with our experience in this movement in other ways. In every variation of the parable I encountered, the blind people are always men. As an aside, some will argue that this was the true limitation of the individuals involved—not their blindness. From the beginning, the National Federation of the Blind has been comprised of leaders of diverse backgrounds and experiences who all happen to be blind. Our experience has been that our truth is more evident and guides us to more effective collective decisions when it is built on a strong diversity of personal characteristics, brought together in unified purpose. Please do not misunderstand; working collectively is not always easy. It takes real effort, emotional intelligence, and patience. But we are all better when it is successful. While we still have work to do to reach blind people who are underrepresented within our membership, we can confidently say that the blind men in the parable, devoid of a diversity of experience, are not reflective of our truth and the power of our individual actions collectively focused.

By the middle of the 1950s, it was clear that the system of agencies for the blind felt threatened by the truth that came from the National Federation of the Blind. In the parable, a central problem is the blind men remain divided and mistrustful of each other. They were not organized and did not understand that they shared a common goal. The principle of “divide and conquer” was used to maximum effect by the vision industrial complex to challenge the very right of blind people to freely associate in an organization like the National Federation of the Blind. From our perspective today, we must recognize that history can and will repeat itself if we do not continue to seek to understand the truth.

The nature of the attack on the organized blind movement is best documented and articulated in Dr. tenBroek’s presentation, “The Blind and the Right to Organize.” Delivered in New Orleans at our convention in 1957, this presentation was not given at the banquet, but it is as significant as any of Dr. tenBroek’s banquet speeches. Here is what he said, in part, on that occasion—his forty-sixth birthday:

“The right of the blind to organize is equally based in law, in morality, in history, in logic, and in common sense. It is at once a human right, a constitutional prerogative, and a public duty. It fulfills the legitimate personal needs … and at the same time clearly serves a public purpose. The right of organization for all men is a vital prerequisite of democratic government and a necessary condition of mature social life. The right of organization for the blind is no less than this, but it is also something more: it is an immediate and urgent obligation if the opportunity of self-expression and self-determination is not to be ignobly lost—for our generation at least, and perhaps for generations to come.”

Despite the warning, the power structure of the vision industrial complex continued to grind away at dividing the blind of this nation. Some blind people did not trust the collective wisdom of blind people and brought the organized blind movement dangerously close to fulfilling the classic teachings of the parable. However, the blind of our movement came with experience, and they valued working together. Through the 1960s, our elected blind leaders focused our collective action on understanding the nature of the elephant and reclaiming power from the agencies. We did not fulfill the ancient parable; our blind predecessors wrote a new story, gave power to our truth, and handed down to us a legacy that we must continue to teach. Although the echoes of that embattled time in our history are now very faint, we continue to feel some of the scars that slowed our progress in the 1960s and 70s. We must not let our collective movement be divided again, even in a society where division, rather than unity, often feels like the norm.

Examining what history has said about us and reclaiming the narrative was a signature of Kenneth Jernigan, who served as the second long-term President of the National Federation of the Blind. He had the benefit of mentorship from the collective wisdom of the first generation of Federation leaders. Most notably, he took the truth of blind people and put it into practice within an agency for the blind. He demonstrated that an agency need not be in opposition to the organized blind movement but rather can contribute to it by providing quality training and opportunities built upon high expectations. In addition, his writings expose how the historical narrative about blind people, like the parable we have been thinking about tonight, do not reflect the experience of blind people themselves but rather the misunderstanding internalized through society’s low expectations. While the teachings of Dr. Jernigan met great resistance from some of the most powerful players in the vision industrial complex, we found that our truth set us free. As the movement grew in power, an increasing number of professionals in the field began to question their own understanding of blindness. As blind people emerged from Dr. Jernigan’s training program in Iowa and began taking leadership roles around the nation, many professionals realized that our truth might be very different from the prescribed narratives taught in the blindness field.

By the time the third generation of the Federation came into leadership, the blind were well positioned to advance our truth. In 1986, our Convention elected Marc Maurer—a lawyer, advocate, and bold leader to carry our movement forward into the new century. As the Federation’s longest-serving President, he led us through a tremendous period of growth and influence. We amplified the dissemination of our stories with powerful materials like our Kernel Book series, through increased engagement with traditional media outlets, and via an aggressive agenda that would ensure the blind had access to information in a digital era. Blind leadership in teaching became a central theme as the Federation’s affiliated training centers in Colorado, Louisiana, and Minnesota (all lead by blind women) began to raise the expectations within the organized blind movement and challenge the narrative of the vision-centered approach. The techniques used by blind people were formalized into the Structured Discovery methodology, and the success of blind people shattered the traditional narrative. While the vision industrial complex expected that blind people were the subjects of research to be studied and fixed, we reclaimed the narrative. Our movement elevated blind people to be the architects of research projects based upon the possibilities rather than the misconceptions. We changed the narrative in education, rehabilitation, and employment. However, we did not stop there. Parables are one thing; the laws of our nation are another. We took ownership, shaping the laws based upon our true experience. We have led the way in legal discourse by affirming the truth that blindness is respectable, and we have helped to organize the disability-rights community to carry this truth forward into the future. While our truth is not fully codified in federal and state laws, without a doubt the narrative of 2025 is now much closer to our truth as blind people.

Today, the human experience is undoubtedly different from what it was just a few short years ago. Interactions have been monumentally changed with the growth of social media platforms driven by algorithms tuned to dividing, not uniting. Economic pressures heightened by a worldwide pandemic have pushed society toward isolation, not collective action. For all the progress we have made, our truth has still not reached all of the people who need it. At the same time, our success, which has come through collective action by the blind, may, in turn, make it easier for some blind people to believe the false narrative that a movement is no longer needed. Add to this the complexity that the convergence of artificial general intelligence in the years ahead may leave some feeling like the computers, rather than the people, will write the narrative of the future.

Tonight, I ask each of us to examine our truth. Our understanding of what it means to be blind is not etched in stone. It is a reality that takes continued cultivation in an ever-changing world. Have we discovered all there is to know from the wisdom of blind people? Only if we believe that we have found the limits of what is possible when we work together. Will the emergence of artificial general intelligence mean that we have nothing more to learn about being human? Only if we believe that the machines are a replacement for the heart and the connection that comes uniquely in the human experience.

At no time since 1940 has it been more critical that we commit ourselves to the power of collective action. Yes, not even when the very existence of our movement was in question was it more important than it is to us today. Our truth has emerged from working together, teaching each other, believing in each other, and questioning centuries of misunderstanding. And that truth grows because of the power we continue to give it.

In a relatively short period of time, we have made significant progress. In a relatively shorter period of time, that progress can be significantly diminished. As Dr. tenBroek wrote, “the right to live in the world is something more than the right to remain in it.” We cannot go back to a time when we were relegated to being passive recipients of another’s charity, and presumptions of incapacity overruled lived experience. So far this year we have suffered both innuendo of inability and outright attacks on the hard-won protections afforded to us under the law. Our truth lives within a society that is divided along so many lines. If we allow our community, our understanding of the true capacity of blind people, to be divided in the same way, we are doomed to be defined by the historical ending of the parable of the blind men and the elephant.

The commitment to work together starts with each of us recognizing that we all have something to gain or lose. The Federation, our movement, is built through the will and power of the people. How the parable is rewritten continues to be up to each of us through our choices and everyday actions.

This banquet marks the end of my thirtieth consecutive convention. When I first walked into this convention in 1996, I thought I knew the truth and that it was a certainty. I had convinced myself that accepting my own limitations was the best way for me to live my life. Blind people who did not know me opened their hearts and their own understanding of the truth to me. They invited me to consider something different, even though it would dramatically shatter my truth. Year after year, I have returned to this convention, and each year this movement motivates me to not simply accept the truth as a certainty but to test it. Every time I have accepted that challenge—even when it was uncomfortable or when I was fearful about what I would find—the wisdom of blind people has made me better and more open to continuing my own changes. I could not have ever imagined how our collective truth would fulfill so much of my life. I have lived within the organized blind movement longer than I have lived without it. Yet, I can easily remember what the truth used to be like, and I never want to go back to not knowing the power and wisdom of our Federation family.

I want to invite each of you to make that same deep reflection in your own life. Ask yourself whether you have discovered the full truth about living blind in America or whether you have settled for what is most comfortable. Then I want you to ask yourself whether you are creating space to teach others about the understanding we share; not weaponizing the truth or shaming others into understanding but taking the careful, loving steps needed to invite people to experience the truth for themselves. This is what happens daily in our affiliated training centers, in our chapter meetings, and in the small moments of members reaching out to members, people sharing their power with people. When you reflect, I hope that your understanding will be that a movement of blind people is critically important in your life and that we must reclaim the narrative within society. That is my commitment and reflection as I anticipate the next thirty years of our time exploring our truth together.

When the parable of the blind men and the elephant was handed down from storytellers to those who first wrote it down, blind people had no means of organizing and sharing. By the time of the founding of the National Federation of the Blind, blind people had figured out ways to get the experience needed to begin rewriting the historical narrative. Today, blind people have a choice to leave the crafting of the narrative to someone else or to be part of the effort to build the truth and share it throughout society. I have made my choice, and it is to trust this group of people to help me discover the truth of living the life I want as a blind person. While some may say we should reject the parable based on its known misrepresentation of the truth, I say we should reclaim it and use it as a tool reflecting our truth. Here is my attempt at rewriting the parable based on the experience of the National Federation of the Blind:

The Blind Explorers and the Elephant

A group of blind travelers—of all ages and genders—arrived in a village where the people spoke in awe of a strange and magnificent creature: an elephant.

Rather than speculate, the group decided to investigate for themselves. While some of the blind people were nervous, they trusted the more experienced travelers.

“Let’s not just touch it randomly,” said Amina, a thoughtful woman with a knack for orientation. “Let’s ask good questions, make observations, and compare notes.”

They agreed on a plan. Using the Structured Discovery method, each person explored the elephant systematically. They moved with intention, asked questions, and examined multiple parts: trunk, tusks, ears, legs, tail, belly, and back.

Carlos, feeling the long, flexible trunk, remarked, “It moves like a strong hose—but it’s warm, and the skin is textured.”

Maya, crouched near a massive foot, noted, “This leg feels like a pillar—but it ends in a padded, round base.”

David climbed carefully with help and said, “Up here it’s wide and flat—I think I’m on the back!”

Linh, exploring an ear, said, “It’s huge and thin—it fans out like a blanket waving in the breeze.”

Jabari, examining the tusks, added, “These are smooth and curved like polished horns.”

Afterward, they sat together in the shade.

“I think I understand only part of it,” said Carlos. “But hearing what you all experienced helps me build a better picture.”

“Yes,” said Maya. “It’s not a snake or a wall or a fan—it’s an elephant, and it’s all those parts and more.”

Together, they built a shared understanding that none could have formed alone. They drew a detailed map, created a tactile model, and even taught others in the village what they had learned.

The villagers, amazed, asked, “How did you figure it out?”

“We explored,” said Amina. “We asked questions, shared what we learned, and listened to each other. We cannot wait for opportunities to come to us, we must seize the moment even when it is uncertain. That’s how discovery works.”

I believe this version of the parable better represents the experience of blind people in the National Federation of the Blind, although it would be even better if more blind people had contributed to the rewriting. It is essential that we, the blind, reclaim responsibility for shaping and sharing our stories. The blind must be the ones to write the narratives, sing the songs, and perform the plays telling the truth about our experience. Then we must share them throughout society. We must continue to utilize our movement to raise expectations for the blind during a very disruptive period of human existence. This will not be without disappointment and sacrifice. The road to equality has plenty of pitfalls, and there are bound to be setbacks. But our story is filled with the sound of hope as it has been since the beginning of our movement in 1940.

Our shared truth is not yet as well known as we would like. Our hope for the future has not yet moved a critical number of allies to make its acceptance a certainty. Our stories are not yet celebrated among the best of the human experience. This is why we declare with firm conviction that a movement of blind people is more relevant and necessary today than at any time in our shared history. We know that movements are not powered by perfection. They are powered by persistent people. Our movement advances because blind people and our allies make a commitment to our truth; a truth that evolves as we test the limits and raise expectations generation after generation; a commitment that requires us to show up, make sacrifices, listen to and teach each other, and speak up through personal stories. Through the bond of faith we share together in this movement, our story will change the world.

My Federation family, let us be proud of the movement we share. Centuries of misunderstanding created the narrative that blindness was our limitation and that we needed someone else to care for us. We organized and began reclaiming our narrative. Under no circumstances will we again allow our stories to be misrepresented, and under no circumstances will we stop crafting our true narrative. Every day we struggle against persistent low expectations, but we do so with hope and our truth that it is respectable to be blind. But equality in society is not yet ours. We deserve a world where every heart and mind know the truth of our story. The only way we can get to that future is together through the courage, determination, and creativity of a diverse, shared movement. This is the commitment we make to each other. This is the love, hope, and determination felt in our movement. This is the bond of faith that fuels our hope for our tomorrows. Let us go together to find those blind people who have not yet discovered the power of their story. Let us show that we belong in the world and that we make it better. Let us sing our song of truth:

You and me, NFB,
Let’s dream together.

NFB, you and me,
Lives on forever.
You will see, yeah!

Let us go build the National Federation of the Blind.

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Plan for the Future

“What if I was never blind? In April 2013 I received a diagnosis of Stargardt Disease. I often felt adrift, uncertain of how to chart a course towards a fulfilling life. At that time, I was employed at McDonald’s and had temporarily paused my undergraduate studies. If I hadn’t received that diagnosis, my life might have followed a completely different trajectory. I would have continued working at McDonald’s, feeling stuck and uncertain about my future, but without the guidance and support that I found through the National Federation of the Blind, I might have struggled to navigate the challenges of vision loss. Instead, that diagnosis became a turning point for me by forcing me to confront my circumstances and seek out resources and communities that could help me thrive despite my blindness. The NFB helped me realize that my vision loss didn’t have to define me or limit my aspirations. By believing in my abilities, by entrusting me with leadership positions, and through intensive mentorship, the Federation changed my life. My community helped me excel beyond where I would be if I were sighted.

Mentorship is what has brought me to this point in life thus far. Without my mentors I am not sure where I would be right now. I just hope I can pay it forward someday.” - Dustin

Blind children and adults are making powerful strides to live the lives we want every day across the United States, but we need to continue helping blind people like Dustin. For more than eighty years, the National Federation of the Blind has worked to transform the dreams of hundreds of thousands of blind people into reality. With support from individuals like you, we can continue to provide powerful programs and critical resources now and for decades to come. We hope you will plan to be a part of our enduring movement by including the National Federation of the Blind in your charitable giving and in your estate planning. It is easier than you think.

With your help, the NFB will continue to:

  *   Give blind children the gift of literacy through Braille.

  *   Mentor young people like Dustin.

  *   Promote independent travel by providing free long white canes to blind people in need.

  *   Develop dynamic educational projects and programs to show blind youth that science and math careers are within their reach.

  *   Deliver hundreds of accessible newspapers and magazines to provide blind people the essential information necessary to be actively involved in their communities.

  *   Offer aids and appliances that help seniors who are losing vision maintain their independence.

Below are just a few of the many tax-deductible ways you can show your support of the National Federation of the Blind.

LYFT Round Up

By visiting the menu, choosing Donate, and selecting the National Federation of the Blind, you commit to giving to the National Federation of the Blind with each ride.

Vehicle Donation Program

We accept donated vehicles, including cars, trucks, boats, motorcycles, or recreational vehicles. Just call 855-659-9314 toll-free, and a representative can make arrangements to pick up your donation. We can also answer any questions you have.

General Donation

General donations help support the ongoing programs of the NFB and the work to help blind people live the lives they want. You can call 410-659-9314, extension 2430, to give by phone. Give online with a credit card or through the mail with check or money order. Visit our online contribution page at: https://nfb.org/donate.

Pre-Authorized Contribution

Through the Pre-Authorized Contribution (PAC) program, supporters sustain the efforts of the National Federation of the Blind by making recurring monthly donations by direct withdrawal of funds from a checking account or a charge to a credit card. To enroll, call 877-NFB-2PAC, or fill out our PAC Donation Form https://www.nfb.org/pac.

Plan to Leave a Legacy

The National Federation of the Blind legacy society, our Dream Makers Circle, honors and recognizes the generosity and imagination of members and special friends who have chosen to leave a legacy through a will or other planned giving option. You can join the Dream Makers Circle in a myriad of ways.

Percentage or Fixed Sum of Assets

You can specify that a percentage or a fixed sum of your assets or property goes to the National Federation of the Blind in your will, trust, pension, IRA, life insurance policy, brokerage account, or other accounts.

Payable on Death (POD) Account

You can name the National Federation of the Blind as the beneficiary on a Payable on Death (POD) account through your bank. You can turn any checking or savings account into a POD account. This is one of the simplest ways to leave a legacy. The account is totally in your control during your lifetime and you can change the beneficiary or percentage at any time with ease.

Will or Trust

If you do decide to create or revise your will, consider the National Federation of the Blind as a partial beneficiary.

Visit our Planned Giving webpage (https://www.nfb.org/get-involved/ways-give/planned-giving) or call 410-659-9314, extension 2422, for more information.

In 2024 our supporters helped the NFB:

  *   Host three career fairs connecting blind job seekers with potential employers.

  *   Send 261 Braille Santa and Winter Celebration letters to blind children, encouraging excitement for Braille literacy.

  *   Distribute over six thousand canes to blind people across the United States, empowering them to travel safely and independently throughout their communities.

  *   Deliver more than five hundred newspapers and magazines to more than 130,000 subscribers with print disabilities free of charge.

  *   Give over seven hundred fifty Braille-writing slates and styluses free of charge to blind users.

  *   Mentor 222 blind youth during our NFB Braille Enrichment for Literacy and Learning® Academy.

  *   Award thirty scholarships each in the amount of $8,000 to blind students.

Just imagine what we will do this year and, with your help, what can be accomplished for years to come. Together with love, hope, determination, and your support, we will continue to transform dreams into reality.

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[PHOTO CAPTION: Carla McQuillan speaks about the Distinguished Educator of Blind Students winner Dan Kelley of Ohio. Dan smiles beside her and holds up his award.]

Distinguished Educator of Blind Students Award Presentation

Presented by Carla McQuillan

From the Editor: Carla McQuillan is a longtime leader in the National Federation of the Blind. Although she stepped down from the board of directors last year, she continues to be active as board chair of the Minnesota Center for the Blind and as chair of the Distinguished Educator of Blind Students Award Committee. It is in that latter capacity that she made the following presentation at the board of directors meeting that took place on the morning of Thursday, July 10, as part of the 2025 National Convention. Here are Carla’s remarks followed by those of the award recipient:

Thank you all. It’s great to be back with our Federation family. I’d like to begin by thanking the members of the Distinguished Educator of Blind Students Award Committee in no particular order: Emily Gibbs from Texas, Corey Grandstaff from Washington, Michelle Chicon from New Mexico, and Cassie McKinney from Tennessee. So this year we had nine nominations for the Distinguished Educator. In my ten years on this committee, we have never had nine people nominated and it deserves applause. And I’ll tell you who else deserves applause; Karen Anderson and the Education Department for the Teachers of Tomorrow Program because I believe this is truly going to make a difference in the educators we see in the future. So it was a difficult decision for the committee. We had nine very, very good applicants, many of whom were well known to members of the committee. And so then we had to stop and think to ourselves, what is it that we consider distinguishing characteristics of the people that we want to represent us in this organization in that capacity? Well, we took a look at these people and we’re really looking for something more than just that they’re good teachers, they’re good in their field, their students appreciate them. It’s got to be above and beyond. And I’m going to tell you, I believe that this year’s winner is a winner. He represents exactly that, the above and beyond. As the plaque says, this year’s recipient of the Distinguished Educator of Blind Students Award goes to Dan Kelley of Ohio.

[Applause] Now, I’m not done yet. He’s like, is it my turn? No, no, I’m not done. So one of the things that distinguishes Dan from his colleagues is that he was the sports coach at the Ohio State School for the Blind for years. In fact, Corey Grandstaff was one of his students. So I called Corey and I said, “Hey, give me some stories..” And he goes, “Well…” (Dan’s over here chuckling.) I said, “Give me some stories.” And he says, “Well, he was the soccer coach, the hockey coach, the goal ball coach.” And he said, “I don’t know that I have any stories that are appropriate for a crowd like this.” And I said, “Come on, give something up.” So for your interpretation, Corey said something about teenage athletes, athletic cups, and a baseball bat. So that’s great, draw your own conclusions.

But in addition to being active coaching students at the school for the blind in Ohio, Dan also was a mentor to teachers in training and got rave reviews about his incredible knowledge of technology and assistive devices. But in my opinion, what distinguishes Dan above and beyond was that he created a marching band at the Ohio State School for the Blind. Oh, but it gets better. It gets better. So I didn’t know this, so I’m going to tell you who may not know this. So Ohio State University at their games, the marching band comes out and forms Ohio with the members of the band in cursive writing. And the tuba player is the dot on the I. I did not know this. Well, Dan got his blind marching band—the best blind band in the land is what they call themselves—to march out on the field at Ohio State. And guess what? They spelled out Ohio in Braille. But wait, there’s more. Dan received an award from the Accessibility and Disability Commission for the city of Pasadena, California, for bringing his best blind band in the land to march at the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California. So I’m going to close with a comment that was in one of his letters of recommendation: “I could go on for pages telling stories about Dan, but I’d like to close with this. It is my firm belief that every student, whether elementary, college, or adult, will be better for having worked with, learned from, and been mentored by Dan Kelley.

So I now would like to present Dan with a plaque, and give me one second so I can switch off technology. I probably should have asked Dan for some advice on this. All right, we have a plaque and a check for one thousand dollars, and Dan will be presenting for the Parents of Blind Children meeting this afternoon. Here. Dan, I’m going to let you hold this plaque up. I’m sure they’re going to want to take some photographs. And the plaque reads in both print and Braille: “The National Federation of the Blind Honors Dan Kelley, Distinguished Educator of Blind Students, for your skills in teaching Braille and other alternative techniques of blindness and for empowering your students to perform beyond their expectations. You champion our movement, you strengthen our hopes, you share our dreams. July 10th, 2025.” And now the man himself.

Dan Kelley: Good morning everyone. Good morning. Thank you so much. Today I’m deeply, I’m deeply honored. I’m grateful, and I’m very humbled. And being recognized as a distinguished educator of blind students by the National Federation of Blind has very deep meaning for me. I’m so proud to be carrying out our mission for our young students to be able to live the lives that they want to live. As a teacher—we talked about this earlier—it’s more than just teaching a skill or a concept. It involves how to apply those skills in life. As I reflect on the work that’s brought me here, one word rises above all the rest. And that’s collaboration. I’m not talking about cooperation. Cooperation is important too, but true collaboration. Cooperation says “I’m going to help you do your thing.” And we’re not going to do cup checks this week, just so you know.

Collaboration says, “Let’s build something bigger and better together.” Everything that I’ve been part of, every project, every success has come from bringing people together, not just to share space, but to share vision and to share ideas, and whether it’s families or educators, advocates or the remarkable individuals that we serve. The magic happens when we bring our unique strengths to the table. We challenge one another and we create something that none of us could do on our own. This award may have my name on it, but it belongs to all of us who make the choice to lean in, to listen deeply, and build something intentionally. To my colleagues, my mentors, my partners in this work, I just want to thank you for showing me what’s possible when we stop asking “How can I help?” and we start asking “What can we create together?”

Nine people were nominated for this award this year, and that is incredible. Nine of us were able to read those letters of recommendation that our colleagues wrote on our behalf, and that was very special, not only to me, but to all of us who had that experience. And we will increase that number, right? Next year we’re going to have eighteen, right? Because it’s so important that people who live the expanded core curriculum are certified and they’re able to provide instruction, mentoring, and helping our young people grow. So with utmost gratitude, I accept this award and I will continue to work personally and professionally to build quality education teams at our district level, work with students and their families so that they are empowered, they strive for excellence in and out of the classroom, and promote advocacy and self-determination. Thank you, National Federation of the Blind for this. And I want to thank you all for the work that you do every day that allows all of us that opportunity to live the life that we want to live. Thank you very much.

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[PHOTO CAPTION: Maurice Peret smiles with Robin House for a photo. He holds his Blind Educator of the Year Award.]

Blind Educator of the Year Award Presentation

Presented by Robin House

Robin House: Thank you, President Riccobono. Good morning everyone. It is my pleasure to serve on the Blind Educator of the Year Award Committee. I would like to thank the committee members. They include Vernon Humphrey, Adelmo Vigil, Cayte Mendez, and Melissa Riccobono. The Blind Educator of the Year Award has been presented for many years now and is an important award that we present here at the National Federation of the Blind. And I want to tell you a few things about this year’s recipient. This individual is nationally certified as an orientation and mobility instructor and he has a long resume and part of the nomination and his resume include his work with the Maryland Rehabilitation Services for the Blind as a private contractor in the field of orientation and mobility. And many of you know him in his work with the National Federation of the Blind, with the Jernigan Institute, where he served as coordinator of career mentoring and education programs.

And the different work he’s done has led him to his current position, which is very exciting. He lives in our fiftieth state. So he is from Honolulu, Hawaii. That’s where he is currently working at the Ho’opono Center for the Blind, where he serves in many capacities, including his work with individuals who are blind, in all ages and different abilities. He serves as a mentor. He serves as a role model. He promotes Braille literacy, orientation and mobility, and Structured Discovery. His students admire his work as a role model. He helps them live the life they want by building their skills. He helps them build their confidence and he meets his students where they are, which is very inspiring. He has worked with individuals who have had substance abuse or are dealing with the transition to blindness or who are encountering any difficulties. So he’s really impressive in both his resume and his nomination for this award. So the Blind Educator of the Year, I’m proud to announce, goes to Maurice Peret.

So I’m going to ask Maurice to hold on a minute. Maurice is going to receive a plaque that is both inscribed in print and in Braille, and I will read that plaque momentarily. He will also receive a $1,000 check and then he will have a chance to say a few remarks as far as the plaque goes. He is our Blind Educator of the Year, “National Federation of the Blind presented to Maurice Peret for outstanding accomplishment in the teaching profession. You enhance the present, you inspire your colleagues, you build the future. July 10, 2025.” Maurice Peret is the Blind Educator of the Year.

Maurice Peret: So maybe for the first time in my life, I don’t have any words, but I don’t know what to say. I didn’t know this was going to be coming. So Lou Ann and I—Lou Ann, we’re going to have to talk about this because I didn’t know this was coming. Thank you, Robin. Thank you for the committee. There’s so many deserving people out there who I look up to who are my mentors. I’ve been doing this for twenty-five years, and passion is what drives me. What I’ve learned in twenty-five years is that I don’t know much. What I do know, I learned from my mentors. I won’t start naming them because I’ll forget people, but there are people in this organization that showed me and had belief in me to give back something that I needed and need to give back to the people I work with. And what I’ve learned in life are these three simple things; Living is learning, loving is learning and teaching, and Structured Discovery is lifelong learning. So thank you and let’s go build the National Federation of the Blind.

Robin: Congratulations. Maurice, here’s your plaque. You’re welcome.

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[PHOTO CAPTION: The 2025 Bolotin Award winners pose for a photo with the Bolotin committee members. Left to right: Steve Jacobson, Mary Ellen Jernigan, Mika Baugh, Casey Robertson, Sam Seavey, Jessica Beecham, Donald Porterfield, Lee Martin, Everette Bacon, and Diane Graves.]

The Eighteenth Annual Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards

Presented by Everette Bacon

From the Editor: Everette Bacon is second vice president of the National Federation of the Blind and the third chair of the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award Committee. Until 2008, most of us had never heard of Dr. Jacob W. Bolotin (1888-1924), although he was a well-known figure in Chicago and throughout the Midwest in his time. To our knowledge, he was the first medical doctor who was born blind. Each year, in collaboration with the Alfred and Rosalind Perlman Trust and the Santa Barbara Foundation, we are pleased to present awards in his honor. Here is the presentation that Everette led as the first item on the final general session agenda:

Everette Bacon: For eighteen years now, we have been recognizing accomplishments in the many fields of blindness. I say fields because there are many aspects to being a blind person and many aspects of different types of ways that you and people can achieve in blindness. Let’s think about some of them: Braille, cane travel, independent living, access technology. Those are just some of the aspects of blindness. So many of them exist out there and there are so many different accomplishments that blind people are doing. Now, let’s think about what blind people are doing outside of the fields of blindness, whether that be architecture, whether that be medicine, whether that be space travel, so many different aspects of blindness and many achievements of blind people out there.

And that’s what the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award recognizes. Dr. Jacob Bolotin, the blind doctor, the first-ever blind doctor that we are aware of, accomplished many different things in his very short life. I always like to recognize one of those things. He wanted to go to college. He was a smart man, knew he could do great things in college, and he wanted to go to college and eventually medical school. He was immediately told, “No, no, we can’t get you into college.” He kept persevering, he kept fighting, trying again. Eventually he was given an opportunity and he went to college and from there he was told by professor after professor, “No, we can’t accommodate you. No you can’t. We don’t have any type of way for you to do your schoolwork.” And he figured out ways to do it. He figured out ways to make his books accessible. He figured out ways to do the work in order to get where he needed to go, and eventually he became an administrator of a hospital leading the way in the field, in the Chicago area, in blindness and as a medical doctor. So this is a pretty awesome award and a pretty awesome thing to be recognized by this. I’m very honored to be a part of the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award and to chair the committee. I followed in the footsteps of two outstanding chairs in Gary Wunder and James Gashel, two people that I very much recognize and honor. I have an outstanding committee that works with me on the Bolotin Awards. Mrs. Mary Ellen Jernigan is part of that committee. Dr. Natalie Shaheen is part of that committee. Steve Jacobson is part of that committee. Donald Porterfield is part of that committee, and Jessica Beecham is part of that committee. We reviewed over fifty applications and different nominations. So thank you so much for all of your nominations out there. We reviewed over fifty and we came up with four finalists this year, so I want you to take some time now to learn about these finalists. So Will, let’s roll the video.

AD: During the following presentation, names and logos of organizations appear on screen as they are mentioned and pictures of individuals appear as they speak.

Narrator: Federationists and guests, the National Federation of the Blind is proud to introduce the recipients of our eighteenth annual Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards, made possible in part by the generous support of the Alfred and Rosalind Perlman Trust and the Santa Barbara Foundation. These winners have broken down barriers faced by blind people in innovative ways, changed negative perceptions of blindness and blind people, and pushed past existing boundaries to motivate blind people to achieve new heights. The 2025 winners are: Mika Baugh, for the Sexual Health Education Research and Training Initiative specifically designed for blind people.

Mika Baugh: Certainly I appreciate the support of the committee and of the blind community for myself and the work that I’m doing here, but I think on a larger scale, I am so grateful for the investment that we are putting into ourselves into this area, which is, it is tough, right? It’s not as easy as saying we need to learn about science or we need to get jobs or we need to have access to Braille, which are certainly all very important things. This is a little bit more of a sensitive area. It’s a high-priority area, but it’s hard. And so I’m so proud of us as a community for investing in this education, but also in this research so that we can learn how do blind people drive educational opportunities, whether it’s sexual health education or any other kind of education as well.

Narrator: Lee Martin for the National Federation of the Blind Newsline Indiana television show, which he produces and co-hosts.

Lee Martin: I would like to see our initiative with this programming to extend itself to our youth, to get them involved more in journalism, to get them involved in media or television. It has a lot of challenges, but they’re good challenges to overcome.

Narrator: Casey Robertson for her tireless and groundbreaking work to teach Braille to teachers and paraprofessionals as well as blind children.

Casey Robertson: Literacy is my love, and if everyone else has access to literacy, then so should blind people. So I have made it my life’s work to make sure that we can teach people Braille in the best possible way, because one of the myths we always hear is Braille is hard, and that is not true.

Narrator: Sam Seavey for his Blind Life YouTube channel demonstrating access technology and emphasizing blind people living the lives we want.

Sam Seavey: My channel is mostly known for assistive technology. It’s one of the top resources for assistive technology information pretty much anywhere. But I also like to focus on the life side of the blind life. And so I love to get out and interview amazing people in our community or amazing people working with our community or amazing companies that are helping to further accessibility and advocacy within our community. And so I think the award will help me do that much better.

Narrator: These winners will each receive a trophy and a monetary prize to advance their work to help blind people live the lives we want. Now, the National Federation of the Blind proudly presents them with their Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards.

Everette Bacon: All right, that sounds like some pretty exciting award winners, doesn’t it? Yes. All right, well let’s learn a little bit more about them. The first award that I want to give out is to the National Federation of the Blind of Indiana Newsline television show. For over a decade, this blind-hosted television show has reached over seven million viewers and listeners. NFB Indiana Newsline has been on the air for over ten years now and has interviewed many blind dignitaries including President Riccobono, Dr. Marc Maurer, and Pam Allen, just to name a few. Many state and local legislators and officials have been guests. They have been proud to tackle the critical issues facing blind people in Indiana and throughout the United States. I am excited to award this Bolotin Award to Lee Martin and Diane Graves of Indiana for their outstanding achievements and also to honor them with a $5,000 award. Lee—we’re going to hear a few minutes from Lee—and here’s your award, sir. Thank you so very much. The podium’s right here.

Lee Martin: I’d like to give honor to my Heavenly Father for this opportunity. There are so many other individuals that I need to acknowledge, but the chairman told me I only had a minute or two minutes, and so I’ll just give my acknowledgements. I had to keep this a secret from my affiliate members and a lot of family. Mr. Bacon, the chairman, told me that you had to keep this a secret. So I went back to my military days and if you’re ever captured you just say your name, rank, and serial number, and that’s what I did. So now, but I want to thank our national President. I want to thank Dr. Maurer for all the encouragement that he’s done over the years. He doesn’t realize how much of an impact he’s had on my life. I want to thank or acknowledge my president for a number of years in the state of Indiana and his lovely wife, Mr. Ron and Jean Brown. I’d also like to give acknowledgements to my better half, Ms. Pamela Martin, for enduring and endearing with me over the years. My co-host, Ms. Florence Myers. We’ve both worked pretty diligently on the last ten to twelve years during this project. Serving and service is our initiative. So I am very thankful to be able to be serving. There is so much that we can do, so much that you can do. I never thought I would be up here at this podium saying anything to my Federation family from across the country. And I say to each of you, be innovative, be inclusive, be collaborative, and be dedicated to the movement. And also as you move forward, as Dr. Jernigan was saying, bridging gaps of visible differences as you live the life you want. So find your niche in the organization. Continue to serve and understand that God is our refuge. Take good care and God bless you.

Everette Bacon: All right, thank you so much Lee. Our next award recipient, Sam Seavey and TheBlindLife.net<http://TheBlindLife.net>. TheBlindLife.net, created and founded by Sam Seavey, offers a comprehensive resource guide for the blind and low-vision through YouTube channels and podcasts. Sam shares personal experiences with blindness, provides in-depth reviews of access technology, and offers practical tips of independent living. Overall, the platform aims to inspire and inform the blind and low-vision with a positive message and a humorous approach. The Blind Life is such a comprehensive resource guide and has such a widespread following that numerous technology companies pay to have their products featured on The Blind Life. Heather Looney and eighteen other blind people nominated Sam for this award. Yeah, that’s extremely impressive, and it demonstrates the value he has brought to so many. So I want to recognize Sam Seavey with this award and also with a $5,000 monetary award.

Sam Seavey: Hello, NFB. Wow, this is incredible. They told me I needed to be quick. So first, I want to thank the leadership of the NFB. I want to thank the committee, the award committee for this prestigious award. I definitely want to thank my good friend Heather for the nomination, and I need to thank my family; without their supports over all of these years, me making my crazy videos, none of this would’ve been possible. But more importantly, I need to thank everybody out there, my fellow VIPs. Without your support, without your trust in me, obviously none of this would’ve been possible, and I truly appreciate that. When I started The Blind Life twelve years ago, I never thought it would turn into this. Over a thousand videos on my YouTube channel, creating content exclusively for the blind and visually impaired across all social media platforms, including the podcast and being recognized as one of the top resources online for information about assistive technology for the blind. I am humbled by this and I truly appreciate it. And thank you guys again. And remember, get out there and keep living your best blind life.

Everette Bacon: All right. Okay. Mika Baugh created the first ever blind-focused sexual health, education, research, and training program. This program was debuted at the 2024 National Convention of the National Federation of the Blind, and it provided an opportunity for participants to receive a hands-on approach to a subject that rarely has any focus designed with blind people in mind. Norma Crosby stated that this program could have devolved into silliness and inappropriate behavior, but because of the well-thought-out design and careful planning by Mika Baugh, people were provided an education to help them be more informed: more informed partners, more informed about their health, and more informed about how to advocate for their needs. The Dr. Jacob Bolotin Committee is excited to give this award to Doctor—well, soon to be Dr. Mika Baugh, and also a $20,000 monetary award to help her with her outstanding research. Mika Baugh, congratulations. Mika, here’s your award and the microphone’s right in front of you.

Mika Baugh: Well, this is fun. Deep gratitude breeds great joy. So it is a lot of fun. I’m so happy to be able to be part of the celebration of all of the work that we’re doing as a blind movement. I very much appreciate Norma Crosby, Pam Allen, and Jessica Beecham for their leadership and love and caring and feedback when we needed it. And I also appreciate the fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, however many of you facilitators that were there last year, but mostly the almost two hundred of you that came and participated with us that were brave and walked in the room to learn about things that are sometimes a little bit difficult. So thank you to everybody. I appreciate it. I appreciate the committee’s commitment to research. Sometimes research isn’t fun, sometimes it takes a long time and there’s a lot of numbers and things that aren’t very interesting, but it’s so important for us to generate the data that we want to use to change the world. So thank you.

Everette Bacon: You did great. We could have just replayed her speech from earlier. That was pretty impressive. All right, our last award recipient, I’m really excited to give this award to Dr. Casey Robertson. [Applause] Just by hearing that applause, Casey is one of the most distinguished teachers of blind students in the country. She has taught hundreds of other teachers, students, and paraprofessionals and has pioneered her approach to teaching through a natural order of contractions. She demonstrates that learning Braille is easy and is fun. It is not difficult as society has proliferated over decades. Blind educators and students across the country have benefited from this approach, and we are now seeing a revolution of understanding that Braille truly is beautiful. And that is because of people like Casey. For years, Casey has privately taught a fifteen-week summer class that both parents and professionals have completed. She offers this class freely and of her own time. Casey embodies, Casey is the embodiment of being blind at heart, and I can’t wait to see what she is going to do next with this award. I’m proud to honor this award to Dr. Casey Robertson and to give her a $20,000 award to continue her research.

Casey Robertson: Oh my heavens. So he said two minutes, but I’m a little speechless right now, so it won’t take that long. I want to start by thanking our Heavenly Father for giving me this small baby twenty-four years ago, my niece that was blind, it was the first blind person I ever met and she transformed our entire family’s life. I’d like to thank Dr. Edward Bell and the PDRIB staff for training me and teaching me what it means to be blind. And I would thank each of you, every single person out there, for accepting me into a family like no other. So on the count of three, we’re going to say Braille rocks. 1, 2, 3. [With audience] Braille rocks! All right!

Everette Bacon: Okay, let’s give one last Federation huge round of applause to these outstanding award winners. Thank you so much to the committee, Mr. President. That is my report.

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[PHOTO CAPTION: Pam Allen and Julie Deden smile together. Julie holds up her Jacobus tenBroek Award.

Jacobus tenBroek Award Presentation

Presented by Pam Allen

Pam Allen: Each year, the National Federation of the Blind honors an individual whose leadership, service, and spirit embody the legacy of our founder Dr. Jacobus tenBroek. This award is not given lightly. It is reserved for those whose work reshapes the landscape for blind people and whose life stands as both a challenge and an invitation to the rest of us to do more, to expect more, to give more.

The person we recognize this evening has spent decades building not just programs or partners but people. They understand that confidence grows through opportunity, that independence thrives in high expectations, and that belief—true belief—in the capacity of blind people is the most powerful force in our movement. This leader has mentored countless individuals in large and small ways, always going above and beyond, often sacrificing personal time, whether through an encouraging word or providing a chance to conquer a fear. Their fingerprints are on dreams realized and barriers broken. Their approach is both imaginative and deeply personal, believing in people before they believe in themselves, holding fast to the idea that blindness is not the characteristic that defines a person or their future.

To this individual, that is not just a tagline. It is a way of life. Many in this room recognize immediately this individual’s voice, warm laughter, compassionate heart, and insistence on excellence. Many more know the ripple effect of this person’s work, even if they don’t realize it came from this person. Tonight, we honor a woman whose career and character exemplify the values of Dr. Jacobus tenBroek. She has served with humility and kindness, led with wisdom and integrity, and lifted others with a fierce and loving determination. I first had the true honor to work with her during an incredible opportunity the NFB had to provide training to blind people in Poland and I knew, like so many here tonight, that my life would be forever changed because of her. It is my distinct privilege to present the 2025 Jacobus tenBroek Award to Julie Deden. [Cheers and applause]

As Julie is making her way up here, I want to thank Norma Crosby and Barbara Manuel who are on our committee. Julie has spent over twenty-five years as the executive director of the Colorado Center for the Blind. [Applause] Under her leadership, the Center has grown and expanded its reach. Lives are transformed every day. Students walk in and see what is possible and walk out knowing they can change the world.

They have the skills and, most importantly, grounding in the philosophy of the National Federation of the Blind. Julie lives that philosophy every day through her words and her actions. Julie’s impact goes far beyond the Center. She has been a key leader in the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado, holding various leadership positions at both the chapter and affiliate level, helping shape the direction of the affiliate through her advocacy, mentorship, and engagement.

She is also an officer in the National Association of Blind Rehabilitation Professionals. Julie’s articles and presentations continue to make a positive and long-lasting difference in the field of blindness. She has a powerful voice in state and national conversations about what blind people can do and should expect from rehabilitation, education, and society. But what truly distinguishes Julie is her heart. She believes in people. She helps students transform fears to hope, encourages staff through her patient example, and motivates everyone she meets to find the best in themselves. Through trial and triumph, Julie perseveres. Her leadership is not about the spotlight; it is about the people. All who know Julie recognize how important her family is in her life, both her human family and her four-legged family members. Her husband Dan is a constant source of love and support. Julie is a loving mother to her son Robert and a cherished sister and daughter. Her family is her foundation and a testament to the values that guide her every step. Julie is also a loving and loyal friend, of that I can attest. We have probably spent thousands of hours on the phone together and shared so many experiences through laughter and tears, so many memories.

I am so grateful. Julie, you have shown us what leadership looks like when it’s rooted in love and faith and unshakable belief in the human potential. Your work has changed lives. Your leadership has changed this movement. We thank you. We celebrate you. We love you. And tonight, we honor you with the highest recognition the Federation can bestow.

[Applause] I will present Julie with a beautiful Braille plaque that I’m going to hold up. It’s absolutely—this is produced by 64 Oz. Games and it is imprinted in Braille.

It is absolutely gorgeous. I’m going to hand this to you.

Julie Deden: Okay, thank you.

Pam Allen: It’s heavy. And I will read it—I will read the plaque to everybody, so you know what it says. It has our logo on it. A tactile logo.

“Jacobus tenBroek Award, presented to Julie Deden for your dedication, sacrifice, and commitment on behalf of the blind of this nation. Your contribution is measured not in steps but in miles, not by individual experiences but by your impact on the lives of the blind of the nation. Whenever we have asked, you have answered. We call you our colleague with respect. We call you our friend with love. July 13, 2025.” Congratulations. [Applause]

Julie Deden: It is with—I’m so honored to be standing up here in front of all of you, my NFB family. And I walked into my first convention in 1978 in Baltimore, Maryland. I walked into the hotel, and there were two amazing, wonderful people from Texas there to greet me. And I felt immediately at home with the National Federation of the Blind. I wouldn’t be here, though, if it weren’t for so many of you. And I’ll just thank a couple because we have to finish the banquet up.

But first of all, I would really love to thank my mentor and the woman that I love and my role model, Diane McGeorge. [Applause]

Diane taught me from the very beginning about the wonder of the National Federation of the Blind. From the very beginning when I started my journey here, I had an opportunity to go to Idaho, to demonstrate so we could have a BEP program at the courthouse. I got to picket many a time against the National Accreditation Council of Agencies Serving the Blind. And I got to attend so many Washington Seminars and everything else. And that’s how I grew up in the National Federation of the Blind. [Applause]

I also—I wouldn’t be standing here if it weren’t for my husband that I just love so much, Dan Burke. Dan has been with me and has really propelled me to continue on being the director at the Colorado Center for the Blind. And I cannot tell any of you how much I have gained from my work in the National Federation of the Blind. I have gained so much from all of you. I can never, ever give back what you all have given to me in the National Federation of the Blind. I love all of you so much. And I just—I’m shaking up here. And I’m so surprised. I just want to tell all of you how much I love you, and thank you to my NFB family. Thank you.

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[PHOTO CAPTION: Curtis Chong stands holding the Kenneth Jernigan Award while Glen Gordon addresses the banquet.]

Kenneth Jernigan Award Presentation

Presented by Curtis Chong

Curtis Chong: Good evening, my fellow Federationists. I’m trying not to pop my Ps here. Tonight, I am both honored and humbled to be able to present the Kenneth Jernigan Award. When in the late 80s and early 90s blind people were able to use the text-based, keyboard-driven, disk-operating system DOS to work successfully, a lot of us thought that our lives with respect to computers couldn’t get any better. When in the early 90s we heard about Microsoft taking the world by storm with Windows and its graphical icons instead of text and the mouse in place of keyboard commands, those of us who used a keyboard and text-based interfaces had no idea how we would make it in this new graphical world.

Fortunately for us, several companies decided to build and sell screen readers for Windows. One such company, Henter-Joyce, already had a screen reader for DOS called JAWS for DOS. Recognizing the need to move to the Windows world, they hired a blind graduate from UCLA with a master’s in business administration, a blind person with the lived experience of a blind person needing to make productive use of a computer. For the last three decades, our award recipient has been the primary architect behind the innovation JAWS for Windows that has kept many of us employed and ensured that hundreds of thousands of blind people around the world could gain efficient access to email, word processing, may I say it, the World Wide Web, and other applications used in employment and daily life. He is also unparalleled in his ability to understand the technical intricacies that enable screen readers to obtain information from the systems and applications that we, the blind, must be able to use to compete with our sighted peers on a true basis of equality. Anyone who has ever worked on nonvisual access for Windows and Windows programs is well aware that our ability to use systems and programs that are originally designed for people who can see the screen rests on a delicate and cooperative exchange of information between screen reading software, the operating system, and the programs that actually accomplish the work we need to have done. Our award recipient understands this delicate exchange of information better than most people I know. It is my privilege therefore to introduce Glen Gordon. [Applause] Glen, can you make your way up here?

I first became aware of Glen Gordon when he spoke at a Microsoft Accessibility Summit held way back in 1995. What impressed me then was his deep understanding of the cooperative connections that must exist between applications and systems designed for the sighted and screen readers used by the blind. I was also impressed by Glen’s ability to speak the language that the nerds at Microsoft used and understand. [Laughter] As evidenced by Freedom Scientific’s FSCast podcast, which Glen hosted for a few years, Glen is exceptionally articulate and easy for us mortal human beings to understand. Glen has spent three decades, you heard him talk today, ensuring that blind people can live and work using computers and systems designed primarily for people who can see. We celebrate not just one man’s work but the ripple effect of his accomplishment in changed lives and expanded opportunities. Yes, indeed. I’m not using a refreshable Braille display. I’m using real paper. [Applause]

Glen, it is both to honor you and to convey our heartfelt appreciation for who you are and what you have done that we present you with the Kenneth Jernigan Award, give you this plaque, and invite you to the microphone. [Applause] It’s in print and in Braille.

And I’m going to read it first before you get your shot at this, okay?

So it has the NFB logo and says: “Kenneth Jernigan Award. For your dedication to the highest ideals, for your commitment to blind-centered innovation, for your leadership in expanding access to information, we, the organized blind movement, confer upon Glen Gordon the Kenneth Jernigan Award. [Applause] You were ready for every challenge, your commitment to accessibility excellence is unmatched, you are a friend to the blind the world over. National Federation of the Blind, July 13, 2025.” [Applause]

Glen Gordon: Thank you, Curtis. I think this was bait and switch. [Laughter] I was just told I was coming to do a presentation. And in fact, I’m not ready for a challenge—the challenge of actually feeling like I’m worth accepting this award. [Applause] It seems like only yesterday that I was attending a meeting where Jim Thatcher and Rich and some of the early screen reading pioneers were speaking, and I was this young kid, you know, trying to ask intelligent questions.

And now it’s thirty years later. Where has the time gone? And I just, you know, sort of fixed bug after bug [Laughter] and helped move things forward. But this came as a complete surprise. Ryan and others managed to hide it well. I should have suspected when my colleague Karl Wise, who I have worked with for thirty years, suddenly appeared this afternoon. [Laughter] But I thought Ryan was just bringing him to have a reunion with me. So this comes as a complete surprise and a tremendous honor. Thank you very much.

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[PHOTO CAPTION: The 2025 Scholarship Class : Left to right, back row: Erin Daley, Daniel Hernandez, Zoe Marsh, Gene Kim, Juna Gjata, Andrew Lee, Waseem Aljanazreh, Sergio Arvizu Arguelles, Noor Subhi Khraisat; Middle row: Katiana Urbina, Mary Nix, Kashonia Graham, Kaleb Calhoun, Rasheedah Kenner, Toby Harnish, Millie Rivera, Emily Schlenker, Riley Letterman, Joy Orlando; Bottom row: Ryan Lukowicz, Ghania Oussaci, Mandy Smith, Ren Lovegood, Kaelyn McColl, Nicole Quibol, Akliesia Teshome, Caitlyn Head, Lauren Altman, Izzy Bailey.]

Remarks of the 2025 National Federation of the Blind Scholarship Class

From the Editor: One of the highlights of the board of directors meeting, and indeed of the entire convention, is hearing the members of each year’s scholarship class introduce themselves and share their stories, achievements, and goals. Cayte Mendez of New York chairs the scholarship committee. Here is how she introduced the 2025 scholarship class as the final agenda item of the board meeting on July 10:

Cayte Mendez: Good morning, Mr. President and members of the board of directors. Good morning to everybody in the room and everybody out there on Zoom. All throughout the morning, members of the scholarship class have been sending me text messages letting me know they’re nervous, and I’ve been all, “Oh, it’s okay, don’t stress.” But now I’m up here and I’m nervous. Might have something to do with the fact that I’m six inches from the edge of the stage! Everybody keep your elbows in because one good shove and I’m on the floor! [Laughter] We determine these scholarships based on merit. We don’t consider need. Every year, we receive hundreds of applications. It is a tremendous project on the part of the amazing scholarship committee to winnow that huge pool of applicants to the top thirty. There are so many deserving applicants. So for the thirty of you who are selected this year, it’s really a feather in your cap. And it’s a testament to the academic aptitude you’ve demonstrated throughout your scholastic career and your contributions as individuals and as a community.

For everyone’s informational purposes, the scholarship class is stretched across three banks of seats in the front row here. They’re going to stand up, take about three steps forward, and they’re going to turn around.

This is so that they can be facing the audience rather than having their back to all of you. So, scholarship folks, that’s your cue! [Laughter]

Okay. They were in alphabetical order. Hopefully at the end of this process, they still are, and we’ll pass a microphone. I’ll introduce them first name, last name, home state, school state, vocational goal, and they’ll each have twenty-five to thirty seconds to introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about what they are as scholars and future leaders. All right, all set to go.

I’m going to—so Tracy took the words out of my mouth earlier, and Tracy reminded everyone in the room to please hold your applause until the end. It’s been a long meeting, we want to hear from these folks, but we need to make sure we do one giant round of applause rather than thirty individual rounds. All right.

Here we go.

So our first scholarship finalist this year is Waseem Aljanazreh, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, special education.

Waseem: Good morning, everybody. I’m a person who believes in turning challenges into opportunities, and for a few years, I’ve been dedicated to supporting people with disabilities and students with special needs, not just by teaching, but also by designing awareness campaigns and inclusive materials and advocating for inclusive education and pursuing a master’s degree in education to deepen impact and serve others while growing as an educator committed to lifelong learning. Thank you.

Cayte: Lauren Altman, New Jersey, Louisiana, teacher of blind students.

Lauren: Hello, all, it’s such an honor to be here today. As Cayte mentioned, I’m from New Jersey, I just finished up my bachelor’s and am currently relocating to Ruston, Louisiana, where I’ll be starting at Louisiana Tech in the fall. I’m very excited. I absolutely love to work with students. I love the lightbulb moment that goes off in people’s heads when they learn something new. I can’t wait to continue doing that throughout my life. And I’m also proud to serve as vice president of the National Association of Blind Students. [Applause]

Cayte: Sergio Arguelles, New York, law.

Sergio: It’s a pleasure to speak with you all today. I hope to have a positive impact on society. I hope to bring into law my empathy and compassion. I hope to go into public interest helping underserved communities, especially elderly, disabled people of color, LGBTQ, every underserved community, I hope to just help and bring my willpower and empathy and everything that I can to the table and help out.

Cayte: Izzy Bailey, Maine, Maine, social work.

Izzy: Hi all, I’m so excited to be here today. I’m starting my journey this fall at University of Maine studying social work with a concentration in disability studies. In the meantime, I’m working towards outdoor equity initiatives in my beautiful home state of Maine. As a blind Indigenous woman of color, I feel very empowered by exploring the outdoors. And I think everyone deserves that right.

I am a first-time convention-goer and I’m new to the NFB. I’m new to the blind community, and I feel so empowered by the people I’ve met here and I hope to reciprocate the energy that I’ve found here, and that I’ve found in my identity as a blind woman for the rest of my days.

And I hope to give that back to the NFB as well.

Cayte: So, as you all know, or those of you who attend this meeting regularly, I always like to throw in a few fun facts about the class. This year was an excellent year to be born in October. Seven of the scholarship finalists this year have birthdays in October. I don’t think we’ve ever had seven [offstage noise]—goodness—okay, that was not me falling off the stage, just to be super clear! [Laughter] I don’t know what that noise was, but that was not it.

So this next finalist is, I thought actually that this person was our youngest finalist, but actually he’s not. Kaleb Calhoun, Virginia, Virginia, cybersecurity.

Kaleb: So, hi, I’m honored to be selected as a finalist by the NFB, and this is my first time at the convention. A little bit about me. At age fourteen, I joined the Virginia Department of Blind and Vision Impaired student program, where I gained skills in IT, advocacy, and self-determination. Today I mentor students traveling similar journeys in their vocational skills. Now I’m entering William and Mary College of Virginia this fall as a freshman. I’m excited to keep learning from this amazing NFB community, and thank you.

Cayte: Erin Daley, Colorado, Colorado, assistive technology consultant.

Erin: Hi, everyone, I was one of the luckiest people in the world to be born to a blind father of the National Federation of the Blind. I was raised by a blind single father. I think I was at the convention in ’97 with President Riccobono in Anaheim. But we didn’t cross paths, I was more interested in Disney at that age. I currently serve as secretary of our Denver Chapter. I absolutely love to travel. I did a Braille Monitor piece on my trip to Antarctica. So I’ve been to six continents and I would love to share that passion with blind people. I think that we, you know, now that we have more control of our destiny in this country, we need to explore the world.

I’m looking to become a consultant in assistive technology, because of the discrimination I received by employers. I feel like we can have whatever passion or dream we want, standing here and everyone sitting down.

But if our expectations are raised but the employers are not, that doesn’t help us. I want to go out, build the Federation, build generational wealth for everyone, and give everyone the tools to have whatever dream they want and achieve that goal.

Cayte: Erin, Antarctica is on my bucket list, let’s talk. This year’s class has four tenBroek Fellows. Jacobus tenBroek was our first President of this Federation. If you have won a second National Federation of the Blind scholarship, you’re considered to be a tenBroek Fellow. The first of these is Juna Gjata, Massachusetts, California, content strategy in entertainment.

Juna: Hi, everyone, I went to Harvard for my undergrad and majored in cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary psychology. Yes, I have never used that a day in my life. After I graduated, I pitched a health podcast to my local NPR station because I was super into fitness. So for six years my job was hosting a podcast. That was awesome, because I love to talk. Last year, I became the senior producer of The Mel Robins Podcast, the number one podcast hosted by a woman in the world, which is really exciting, and this September I’ll be starting my MBA at Stanford and after that I would love to work with the entertainment industry on how people with disabilities are represented in movies and TV shows.

But I truly believe the best parts of my life are outside of work. I love snowboarding, the gym, jiu jitsu, and most of all my ten-pound Pomeranian Pooh Bear.

Cayte: KaShonia Graham, Michigan, Michigan, human services.

KaShonia: I’m from Michigan. I see the delivery guy who often describes himself as a Greek god, so I’m a caramel goddess from Michigan. I want to get students started on their vocational goals. That is my career goal and I’m honored to be one of the scholarship winners. Thank you.

Cayte: Our scholarship class includes people from twenty-four states, including this next finalist, Toby Harnish, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, software engineer.

Toby: Good morning, everyone. I’m so privileged and glad to be picked as one of the scholarship finalists at the 2025 Convention program.

Growing up I faced many discriminations because I was born in an environment where disability is viewed as a problem to society. But ever since I have been introduced to NFB, it changed my life, and I am—I want to use my skills to improve others’ lives as well. So for this fall, I’m going to be majoring in software engineering so that I can create digital solutions that can benefit other blind people.

Cayte: Caitlyn Head, Ohio, Illinois, professor of music.

Caitlyn: Hi, everyone, I just got a notification from my Apple watch that my heart rate is way up, so we’ll see how this goes. [Laughter] I started my undergrad career and spent three great semesters at one college and then moved to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Ideally, I will be the music professor who encourages students regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, because that’s important, whatever it is, that they can do whatever they want. Thank you guys, this is an incredible opportunity.

Cayte: Daniel Hernandez, Arizona, Arizona, clinical psychologist. [Cheering]

Arizona doesn’t follow directions!

Daniel: Good afternoon, everyone, I’m Daniel Hernandez, this is my second time at the NFB Convention. I’m a SAAVI Services for the Blind alumni and a fourth year PhD student. I’m studying clinical psychology to be a therapist, but my ultimate goal is to be a professor as well, doing research and teaching. That’s currently what I’m doing now, going into research. I mean, I hope to, I really really hope to sort of bridge the disparities for students, both blind and underrepresented minorities like the Hispanic/Latino population. And, yeah, those are my goals, and I’m really really grateful to be a scholarship finalist. Thank you so much, everyone.

Cayte: I’m busting Arizona’s chops here, but do remember that at some point we want to eat lunch before division meetings. So please hold applause till the end. Rasheedah Kenner, Kentucky, Alabama, social work.

Rasheedah: I’m an October baby as well. My background is in nursing and music. I lost my eyesight during the pandemic, and it was very traumatizing. I looked for a therapist that I could see myself in, being in Kentucky, and going through everything I was going through. I couldn’t find a therapist. So I thought maybe I should put a change to that and take my previous nursing skills and clinical psychology skills and help other people. Also, getting a master’s in social work, I would love to continue advocating for our community and ADA rights as well too.

Cayte: Noor Khraisat, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, law.

Noor: Is it morning still? Good morning, everyone. I’m Noor—they said not to say my name, sorry, I’m nervous! I’m at University of Pittsburgh studying political science. Everyone I’ve met at convention and commiserated about the elevators with has been the coolest. And no, I’m not just talking about the temperature of the hotel. It’s so exciting to be part of such an incredible organization. I love the NFB so much. Thank you.

Cayte: This next finalist is another one of our tenBroek Fellows.

Students, let’s see how well you follow directions. Gene Kim, California ... [Cheering] … Not well! Massachusetts, computer science.

Gene: Since I found the Federation six years ago, I’ve learned many things: how to plan and execute student seminars, how to design and engineer complex tools. But I’ve also learned that there are many out there who believe that blind people are incapable, broken, and in need of technology to fix us. But we in this room believe that it is respectable to be blind, and because we believe this, I’m going to bring wisdom, the wisdom of the blind-led organization. I’m going to bring the conviction of the blind people’s movement, and the love of my Federation family to MIT, where I will be pursuing my PhD at the computer science and artificial intelligence laboratory. I’m going to leverage my lived experience as a blind Federationist and the technical skills that I’ve learned at Stanford University to make sure that STEM is accessible to blind people. As long as it is called today, I will make sure we have a seat at the table to influence the technologies of tomorrow. [Cheering]

Cayte: Andrew Lee, Georgia, Georgia, entrepreneur.

Andrew: Hi, everyone, I’m Andrew. Right now I’m studying at Georgia Tech, where I’m pursuing my undergraduate degree in computer science. I had heard about the NFB for a long time, but didn’t actually get involved until about three years ago, when I joined the Student Division, and now serve as secretary for the Georgia Student Division. I look forward to getting much more involved in the years to come. Again, thank you so much for this opportunity, and I’m excited to see what comes next.

Cayte: Earlier, I thought Kaleb Calhoun was our youngest. He’s got a fun birthday, which is April Fool’s. But our next finalist is actually the youngest. Riley Letterman, Michigan, Michigan, music therapy. She’s got you beat, Kaleb, by about three weeks.

Riley: NFB, hello, thank you so incredibly much for this opportunity. I’m beyond thrilled to be here speaking to you today. So for some background, like, about me, I have always been someone who is very precocious, some might say. I have always been the one who will ask questions, who will speak up, and who will fight for what I want.

Which is why, when in second grade, when I developed a stutter, I found it very difficult. And for a number of years, I would shy away from any sort of confrontation, because, well, other people, they were saying the same things, so why did it matter?

But then, as I got involved in more things, dance, music, mock trial, forensics, so on and so forth, I began to face struggles with gaining, like, equal access.

And I realized, in order to create change, in order to fight for what we want, we need people like us at the table, speaking up for people like us. And through my involvement with various leadership, I realized that while being part of a team bigger than yourself, you have a unique voice. Each and every one of you in this room brings something different to the team. And so through that, I discovered that I want to use my voice to inspire others to find theirs. Whether that is sitting at the table as a lawyer, making decisions for people like us and being part of that discussion, or whether that is as a music therapist inspiring others to find their voice, we must speak up. Because we bring so much, and only we can say things in our unique way.

Thank you everyone, so much. [Applause.]

Cayte: Ren Lovegood, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, professor and researcher.

Ren: This is what I imagine it feels like to be standing on the shoulders of giants, which is pretty incredible. I am a rising third-year PhD candidate, studying in the organizations and social change program at the University of Massachusetts Boston. And my research centers on the lived experiences of people with disabilities, how we have historically defined and enacted care, organized mutual aid efforts, and challenged the boundaries of labor value in organizational contexts. In addition to that, my goal is to be a business ethics professor that critiques these dynamics and changes them.

Blindness is everywhere. It’s neither a rarity or an exception, as you have heard from those in my scholarship cohort today.

Thank you for being here.

Cayte: Ryan Lukowicz, Rhode Island, Rhode Island, politics, law.

Ryan: It’s been a pleasure spending this week in New Orleans as a scholarship finalist. I am a rising sophomore at Roger Williams University in a prelaw program, and I got interested in politics during my freshman year of high school when the Rhode Island Department of Education thought it would be a great idea to have an out-of-state vendor come in and we would lay off all the TVIs and O&Ms in Rhode Island. The NFB was part of fighting for the restoration of that funding and the rest of my story is history as I went on to work at the State House, take notes for legislative sessions, and get my own bill passed senior year with the help of my state representative and senator to adjust requirements for people with disabilities taking physical education classes in our public schools. Now, at Roger Williams University, I’m honored to be a student senator as well as chair a diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility student council, and I can’t wait to continue to make an impact in my career pursuing something with civil rights law or public policy.

Cayte: Zoe Marsh, Connecticut, New York, O&M instructor.

Zoe: Hello, everybody. So, I am a person who was born legally blind. I lived half in the sighted world, half out. And I tried my best to be in that sighted world as much as I could. So I turned away so many opportunities to learn Braille or JAWS or anything like that. And I just struggled so much to make friends or even have fun, that I just pulled myself apart trying to be in both worlds. But then, halfway through my junior year of high school, I went totally blind, and it kind of saved me, because I was forced to learn JAWS, I was forced to learn O&M, and I walk so much faster than I ever did as a legally blind person! I don’t need extra time on assignments, because I know JAWS. I don’t have to squint at my screen. Now, I am in a gap year between high school and college, and I am attending the Colorado Center for the Blind.

[Cheering] Yup! Which, to those people, I will never forget you guys. I will never let CCB go. But I will also never forgive you for the teasing I get every single day! And the water gun to the butt the other day.

[Laughter] At CCB, we had a lot of fun, but also there’s one main message of Colorado Center, which is take charge with confidence, and that is what I learned when in my second week at the Center, we went to convention, but my instructor, Ernesto DeLuca, said take charge with confidence. I was like, okay, and I went ahead, and said this is the door for this thing and that thing over there! And I have not shut up since. But I’m attending Marymount Manhattan College, a very small school in Manhattan, New York. And I hope to build a family there, and with the New York NFB, just like I did with CCB. And I hope as an O&M instructor to bring services to kids who did not know that they needed them, like I did, and to bring a message of positivity around blindness for everybody around the world.

Cayte: And we’re looking forward to having you join us in New York, Zoe. All right, Kaelyn McColl, Illinois, Massachusetts, medicine.

I want to remind everybody, we do have agenda items, so let’s try to keep it to that thirty seconds.

Kaelyn: I’m blind from birth, a proud blind dog user (my girl is from Seeing Eye), and I came up through the Chicago public school system, and I did not receive services for the majority of my elementary school and middle school career. I taught myself pretty much everything I know. I found that challenging. I had no blind network or blind resources. So in high school, I started a channel, Blind and Scholarly. It’s new. I’m trying to get content up there. It’s a resource for blind students who want resources for math classes, for chemistry, how to use a calculator, for what you should buy for geometry. These are resources, if your school system is not telling you about these things, you have a way of connecting with other blind people to find out this information. Anyway, I am attending Harvard as a freshman in the fall. I plan to earn a double major in biomedical engineering and psychology for premed. I hope to attend medical school and specialize in pediatric oncology or pediatric psychology. Thank you for this honor.

Cayte: Mary Nix, New Mexico, New Mexico, special education teacher.

Mary: Hi, everyone, I’m honored to be here. I’m super scared, but I was literally so happy when I got selected as a scholarship finalist. I remember the day, I was in Target and I got this unexpected call, and I’m like, oh, wow! I was like, I know what to say to one of my mentors; I was so quiet and so excited at the same time. A little bit about me is my first thirteen years of my life, I grew up in India, and I moved here when I was in—moved to the United States. And I had to learn a lot, ‘cause I had to learn a new language on top of blindness skills and a new culture. Because in India, they didn’t have many resources, especially with blindness and everything. So I just had to learn a lot.

Now, I’m actually studying to be an elementary education special education teacher at New Mexico State University. I want to teach other students. I’m super passionate to helping others teaching, and I feel like receiving this scholarship, just being selected as, I feel like I can pass that along to my future students and to show them you can live the life you want, and blindness does not define you. Thank you.

Cayte: Joy Orlando, California, California, clinical psychologist.

Joy: Hello, Federation family. A little bit about me. I started out in a community college setting, and I was put as president of Psi Beta. During my time as president, I went to the Western Psychology Association Conference and was selected to present research on audio description and how our brain reacts when we’re listening to it.

Now, granted, we used sighted people. But the effects of this study were pretty consistent. So, after writing research papers and doing the research and taking statistics twice, I decided very quickly that was not for me. Research is not my field.

So now I am wrapping up my bachelor’s degree at Chico State—go Wildcats!—and I decided I’m going to go into a mentor/mentee field where I want to give back to our community. I want to help adolescents, adults, children, anybody going through a transition like I did where I lost my eyesight later, or you’re losing your eyesight. I wish I had somebody to talk to who was relatable. There are a lot of really good, sighted therapists. But what I’ve consistently heard was, I wish I could talk to somebody who could say I’ve been there too. I’m incredibly grateful to be where I’m at. I’ve learned that persistence and hard work pays off. And I can’t wait to see where I go in my career and where I go with our Federation.

Thank you.

Cayte: Amina Orzueva, New York, New York, law.

Amina: Good morning, everyone, I’m originally from Uzbekistan in Central Asia, and I’m a rising sophomore studying political science and political studies. I’m currently interning at the New York City Comptroller’s Office, and this is my second convention. My favorite part of convention is meeting so many people from different fields doing so many great things. Because when I go back to the real world and someone questions if I can do something, I can always name someone from the Federation who is already doing it, which is definitely helpful. And I would like to thank the board, the donors, and the scholarship committee for your generosity and for setting high standards for all of us. And, yeah!

Cayte: Ghania Oussaci, Texas, Texas, health information.

Ghania: Good morning, everyone. I’m pursuing my bachelor’s degree in health information management, and hoping to get my health information in security and privacy to improve life of the blind community, and also, I believe, to live an independent life with dignity. Thank you so much for having me here today and I’m so excited. Thank you so much.

Cayte: Nicole Quibol, Hawaii, Hawaii, professor of philosophy.

Nicole: Aloha, everybody, I’m a philosophy student at the University of Hawaii West Oahu. I’m passionate about environmental justice, cultural reclamation, and using philosophy to ask big questions, uncomfortable questions, especially those that center around power, identity, and belonging. In Hawaii, we have traditional proverbs or poetic phrases. One that guides me is [speaking Hawaiian], which means, “strive for the summit.” To me, that reflects what the NFB stands for. Not just believing in blind people’s potential, but expecting us to reach the highest peaks. I’m honored to be here with people who live by the same value. It’s your contributions that have allowed us to be here. On behalf of me and my fellow scholarship cohort, we want to thank you guys for this opportunity. Thank you.

Cayte: So our next finalist has given me written permission to refer to her as the class grandmother. Now, that said, she was the one who was razzing us this morning because the students were lamenting that they had to wait to go to bed until the end of the NABS meeting, and she was like, “Really? Well, we should have all gone out.”

[Laughter] So I don’t know if that’s really the appropriate designation for you! Now, this next finalist is also one of our tenBroeks, and in the interest of full disclosure, I need to tell you all that she received her first National Federation of the Blind Scholarship when I was five years old, in 1988. Millie Rivera, Maryland, Maryland, biblical counselor.

Millie: Good afternoon, I’m receiving my master’s degree from Moody Theological Seminary in Chicago. I retired three years ago from a thirty-year career with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as a lawyer. This is my thirty-fifth convention. Let’s see, I want to thank the board and the scholarship committee and also thank my sisters who are as much a part of the Federation as I am: Eileen and Caroline. I want to thank everyone for believing in me to do another stint at this. Thank you.

Cayte: Emily Schlenker, also a tenBroek Fellow, Kansas, Kansas, pharmacist.

Emily: Hi, everyone, I want to start by saying that the most important thing you should know about me is I’m a tenBroek Fellow because of my Kansas affiliate, because I have been—this is my fourth time in college. I am a three-time college dropout. Because I would start college and the Braille would run out, and I would get my heart broken, and I would leave. And I will tell you that Tom Page and the rest of my affiliate, they held my hand. They’ve listened to me, they’ve carried me, they’ve pushed me and told me to get it together for the last twenty years, and I’m now a candidate for my doctorate of pharmacy. I’m transitioning. I have gone from my three years of class work, which I did all in Braille, by the way, to now caring for patients in a clinical setting. I will do this in multiple rotations, everything from poison control to pharmacogenomics to critical care. Another thing to know about me is I’m tougher than anybody should have to be. I don’t want my fellow finalists to go through what I’ve gone through, and as was said earlier by Ren, standing on the shoulders of giants. So thank you.

Cayte: Mandy Smith, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, foreign service officer.

Mandy: I’m a rising senior at Allegheny College studying political science. I was born legally blind, 20/400 in my left eye, until I lost my sight due to a series of unfortunate events. I never let that stop my dreams. Because myself and everyone here, I don’t believe in barriers. Only in breakthroughs. Thank you.

Cayte: Akliesia Teshome, Maryland, Massachusetts, data consultant.

Akliesia: Good morning, it’s an honor to be here. I’m currently earning my bachelor’s in data analytics from Boston University, and a fellow for the class of 2025. I’m, in addition, involved with the National Association of Blind Students and had the honor and privilege to serve as the co-chair for the content creation and fundraising committee. I want to deepen my understanding of the NFB philosophy, to be more involved in NABS, and it’s such a privilege. Oh, we’re in the city of New Orleans, hello, I’m an LCB graduate! [Laughter] Thank you so much for your time, to the donors, the Scholarship Committee, the board, thank you for believing in me, for seeing the light in me when I couldn’t see it for myself, and thank you for your time.

Cayte: Katiana Elena Urbina, Florida, Florida, content production.

Katiana: As a Latina woman raised in Miami, I’ve always been drawn to the city. That’s why I’ve made it my mission to uncover originality in our communities. I am really passionate about creating stories that amplify, truly amplify humanity, complexity, and nuance in disabled voices. And now I am pursuing media—I’m pursuing a master’s in media and communications studies at Florida State University. To not only shake things up, but also truly champion inclusivity in entertainment and beyond. Above all, I want to make it clear that I’m very aware that I have a purpose in life, and all I want to do is move forward. In conclusion, the only way I can do that is through connection. Thank you.

Cayte: Mr. President and members of the board and everybody in the room and on Zoom, I present to you the Scholarship Class of 2025! [Cheering and applause]

At the convention banquet, each of the finalists received a scholarship in the amount of eight thousand dollars, along with a plaque and other prizes. Many received National Federation of the Blind Scholarships, while others received scholarships funded by and named for those who sponsored them, as follows:

National Federation of the Blind Scholarships: Waseem Aljanazreh, Izzy Bailey, Kaleb Calhoun, Juna Gjata, KaShonia Graham, Caitlyn Head, Daniel Hernandez, Rasheedah Kenner, Zoe Marsh, Mary Nix, Amina Orzueva, and Ghania Oussaci

Howard Brown Rickard Memorial Scholarship: Kaelyn McColl

Jesse and Hertha Adams Charitable Trust Scholarship: Riley Letterman

Alvin J. and Edith R. Domroe Foundation Scholarships: Sergio Arvizu Arguelles and Noor Khraisat

Charles and Betty Allen Scholarship: Ryan Lukowicz

E.U. and Gene Parker Scholarship: Akliesia Teshome

Oracle Scholarship for Excellence in a STEM Field: Erin Daley

Charles and Melva T. Owen Scholarships: Toby Harnish and Katiana Elena Urbina

Marvin and Mimi Sandler Scholarship: Andrew Lee

National Federation of the Blind STEM Scholarship: Emily Schlenker

Dr. Adrienne Asch Memorial Scholarship: Ren Lovegood

Handid Braille Services Scholarships: Lauren Altman and Mandy Smith

JAWS for Windows Scholarship: Nicole Quibol

Jacquilyn Billey Memorial Scholarship: Joy Orlando

American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults Scholarship: Gene Kim

Kenneth Jernigan Memorial Scholarship: Millie Rivera

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Resolutions Adopted by the 2025 National Convention
RESOLUTION 2025-01
Regarding Standards for Braille Signage

WHEREAS, public signage that is intended to provide regulatory information or to facilitate wayfinding, identification, or safety requires accuracy for clear and effective communication; and

WHEREAS, because of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accessibility standards and other related technical guidance on public spaces and facilities, Braille is now commonly found on signs for elevators, doors, stairways, accessible pedestrian signals (APS), and the like; and

WHEREAS, the ADA standards and related guidance have no specific provisions on verifying that Braille signs are error-free, but they do require that Braille on signage be in “Grade 2 Braille” (more commonly called contracted Braille), meaning that the Braille is to include contractions used according to specific rules; and

WHEREAS, Unified English Braille (UEB), adopted by the Braille Authority of North America to replace the older rules of English Braille American Edition in the United States, uses most of the same symbols, contractions, and rules for Grade 2 Braille as before but includes several important revisions that increase the reliability of digital communication between print and Braille users; and

WHEREAS, although nearly ten years have passed since the implementation of UEB in the United States in 2016, many sign manufacturers have still not updated their software or processes to the current UEB standard for Grade 2 (contracted) Braille, with the result that even some of the newest public signs include outdated Braille with discontinued contractions and other ambiguous usage; and

WHEREAS, one example of outdated Braille is commonly found on signage for APS, where the ordinal street numbers such as “7th Street” are Brailled using the contraction for the letters “th”, in violation of the rule against using contractions immediately following digits in Braille (⠼⠛⠹ should be ⠼⠛⠞⠓); and

WHEREAS, although a Braille reader, especially one who learned Braille more than ten years ago, may be able to infer the intent of the sign in this particularly common example, a higher standard should apply for public signage than “the reader can figure it out”; and

WHEREAS, aside from the confusion and potential safety risks of ambiguous or inaccurate Braille on public signs, outdated Braille (even when correct according to pre-UEB rules) fosters uncertainty about the rules, undermining Braille’s reliability for communication—If a Braille user assumes the Braille is correct on the public sign and copies the outdated usage when Brailling for communication with print readers, the conversion to print will not say what the writer intended to say: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this twelfth day of July, 2025, in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, that this organization demand that all purveyors of signage in public spaces ensure immediately that their transcription and quality assurance processes are up-to-date so that their signs are Brailled according to the current standard of Unified English Braille; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization call upon all entities contracting with sign manufacturers to require in their contracts proofreading of the Braille on signs by a certified transcriber or proofreader, and to require verification that the signs are Brailled in Unified English Braille; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization call upon all governmental and other entities responsible for public signage to update existing signs that contain outdated or inaccurate Braille.

RESOLUTION 2025-02
Regarding Traffic Signs that Warn Drivers about Blind Pedestrians

WHEREAS, with proper training, blind people can learn how to cross streets safely and independently; and

WHEREAS, to avoid collisions, drivers must be aware of pedestrians, regardless of whether the pedestrians are blind or sighted; and

WHEREAS, some cities and states have installed traffic signs to warn drivers of the presence of blind pedestrians, especially near vocational rehabilitation agencies, schools, and libraries for the blind; and,

WHEREAS, such signs exist to alert drivers to the potential street crossings of wildlife or children, which have limited capacity to obey traffic laws; and

WHEREAS, the messages sent by these signs about the ineptitude of blind pedestrians are inaccurate and contribute to the systemic marginalization of blind people; and

WHEREAS, other types of signs that are inclusive to sighted pedestrians are equally useful in warning drivers about our presence, such as school zone signs near schools for the blind and children at play signs near homes of blind children; and

WHEREAS, the Federal Highway Administration issues guidelines regarding the wording of traffic signs, including those related to pedestrians, in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD); and

WHEREAS, city and state officials often consult the MUTCD when making decisions about traffic signs: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this twelfth day of July, 2025, in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, that this organization urge the Federal Highway Administration to include guidance in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices to discourage the use of traffic signs that specifically warn drivers of the potential presence of blind pedestrians because of how these signs perpetuate low expectations and inaccurate ideas about blindness and instead encourage the use of traffic signs that are inclusive to both blind and sighted pedestrians.  

RESOLUTION 2025-03
Regarding the American Council on Education and Their Letter to the Office of Management and Budget on the Americans with Disabilities Act Title II Website Regulations

WHEREAS, on July 26, 1990, the landmark disability legislation known as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law; and

WHEREAS, Title II of the ADA requires state and local governments, including publicly funded educational institutions, to ensure their communications with individuals with disabilities are “as effective as” communications with nondisabled individuals; and

WHEREAS, since 1996, the United States Department of Justice has made clear that this obligation includes its communications via the internet and mobile applications; and

WHEREAS, educational institutions and other state and local government entities have claimed to be unclear exactly how they should comply with the “equally effective communication” obligation; and

WHEREAS, over the course of the last decade and a half, the Department of Justice has repeatedly made clear that ADA Title II website accessibility regulations were being promulgated, including an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in 2010, a Supplementary Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in 2016, and a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in 2023; and

WHEREAS, each of the above rulemaking procedures allowed for the required period of public comment submission, and received nearly one thousand comments combined; and

WHEREAS, in April 2024, the Department of Justice released the Final Rule Regarding ADA Title II Website and Mobile Application Accessibility; and

WHEREAS, this final rule definitively clarified what was required to meet Title II’s equally effective communication requirement in the context of state and local government websites and mobile applications by providing a clear technical standard based on an internationally recognized and widely adopted consensus standard, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG); and

WHEREAS, the final rule established the clarity that educational institutions had been requesting for years and ensured that access to state and local government websites, including those of educational institutions, would be accessible following the rule’s effective date; and

WHEREAS, on May 12, 2025, the American Council on Education, on behalf of thirteen other educational consumer and advocacy organizations, sent a letter to the Office of Management and Budget calling on the administration to “delay or provide additional information” regarding the ADA Title II Website and Mobile Application Accessibility Final Rule; and

WHEREAS, the reason given for this requested delay is “a lack of clarity as to what compliance may necessitate,” even though clarity is exactly what the final rule provides: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this twelfth day of July, 2025, in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, that this organization condemn and deplore the American Council on Education for its brazen and shameless attempt to evade the requirement that education be accessible to Americans with disabilities by asking the Department of Justice to delay the ADA Title II Website and Mobile Application Accessibility Final Rule; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization condemn and deplore American Association of Community Colleges, American Association of State Colleges and Universities, American Indian Higher Education Consortium, Association of American Universities, Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities Council of Graduate Schools, EDUCAUSE, Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, National Association of College and University Business Officers, National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, and National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators for being complicit in this scheme to undermine website and mobile application accessibility; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization demand that the United States Department of Justice maintain the current implementation schedule for the final rule; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization demand that the United States Department of Justice maintain all of the current requirements of the final rule, as there is no basis for reconsidering a rule that has already gone through more than a decade of consideration, public input, and adjustment.

RESOLUTION 2025-04
Regarding the Lack of DeafBlind Leadership at Helen Keller Services and the Helen Keller National Center for DeafBlind Youths and Adults

WHEREAS, the National Federation of the Blind issued a letter in support of the DeafBlind Leadership Now coalition’s condemnation of the announcement in August 2024 regarding the Helen Keller Services board of directors not choosing a qualified deafblind individual to run Helen Keller Services and the Helen Keller National Center for DeafBlind Youths and Adults; and

WHEREAS, Helen Keller Services, in the same announcement, asked the community for input on creating a working group, with one of the stated goals being to develop a leadership training program; and

WHEREAS, Helen Keller Services apparently has a working group of hand-picked non-consumer representative deafblind persons; and

WHEREAS, the organization has not included consumer groups or organizations of and for the deafblind in this working group; and

WHEREAS, Helen Keller Services has given no timeline for when this group might meet, how the group might function, or even whether it will address the goals of the petition circulated within the deafblind community and the blindness community in general: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this twelfth day of July, 2025, in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, that this organization demand that Helen Keller Services include consumer organization representatives in this working group; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization demand that Helen Keller Services appoint a deafblind head of its agency as soon as practicable; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization call upon Helen Keller Services to work with the National Federation of the Blind to ensure that there is a greater role for consumer groups of and for the deafblind.

RESOLUTION 2025-05
Regarding Equal Access to High-Quality Audio Formats for Blind Viewers Who Use Audio Description

WHEREAS, blind people have the same right to enjoy entertainment content as their sighted peers, including full access to the high-quality audio formats made possible by modern production techniques and available on popular streaming services; and

WHEREAS, audio description is a critical accessibility feature that provides blind viewers with essential narrative and contextual information about visual elements in film and television content; and

WHEREAS, many streaming platforms now produce and distribute content with immersive, high-quality audio formats such as Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, and other spatial audio technologies to enhance the viewing and listening experience for viewers who have the equipment to process such formats and who subscribe to the service tiers that include them; and

WHEREAS, despite this technological advancement, most streaming services—including Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and Peacock—appear to offer most of the audio-described versions of their programs only in stereo or mono audio tracks, effectively requiring blind viewers to choose between accessibility and audio quality; and

WHEREAS, the experience of blind consumers and available information indicate that only Apple TV+ currently includes full immersive audio across all its programming when a user switches to the audio-described track, and Max indicates that it has done so for a limited selection of titles; and

WHEREAS, there is no technical barrier preventing the inclusion of audio description in Dolby Atmos or comparable formats, and doing so would ensure that blind viewers receive an equivalent entertainment experience; and

WHEREAS, blind subscribers who have the viewing/listening equipment to process Dolby Atmos and other high-quality audio and who pay for the service tiers that include high-quality audio formats should receive the same high-quality audio content that other subscribers paying the same rate are receiving: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this twelfth day of July, 2025, in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, that this organization demand that all streaming platforms, including but not limited to Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and Peacock, include high-quality, immersive audio of the program when audio description is enabled, to adopt the standard set by Apple TV+ across all its titles and Max for select titles.

RESOLUTION 2025-06
Regarding Internet Service Providers

WHEREAS, many Americans rely on the internet to access information; and

WHEREAS, internet service providers are necessary for connection to the internet; and

WHEREAS, many blind people rely on access technology to connect to the internet; and

WHEREAS, many blind people own access technology they cannot use because they cannot connect it to the internet (e.g. according to the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, only 20 percent of BARD users are able to connect directly to BARD) despite free and low-cost equipment that would enable them to do so; and

WHEREAS, most internet service providers either do not have or do not readily make available to local representatives of their companies any employees with knowledge of screen access technology or any technology used by the blind; and

WHEREAS, internet service providers often utilize tax dollars to participate in federal, state, and local programs to provide free or low-cost internet service to low-income users: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this twelfth day of July, 2025, in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, that this organization demand internet service providers hire qualified blind people to make sure that their services are accessible to the blind; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization demand that internet service providers provide specialized assistance to help blind people connect to the internet, including in-person services where necessary; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization urge internet service providers to consider screen access technology users in any electronic or printed instructions or training materials, and that diagnostic indicators such as lights available to sighted users have a nonvisually accessible substitute; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization urge any government agency administering grants to internet service providers for programs that provide free and low-cost service to low-income users also ensure that those programs are accessible to people with disabilities, including the blind.

RESOLUTION 2025-07
Regarding Medicare Telehealth Benefits

WHEREAS, in March 2020, Medicare telehealth benefits were expanded to help mitigate the risk of exposure to COVID-19 by allowing Medicare beneficiaries to conduct virtual checkups with their physicians; and

WHEREAS, the expansion of these benefits was of great value to blind and low-vision Americans, particularly those who live in rural areas, who may have difficulty securing reliable transportation for regular physician visits; and

WHEREAS, since that initial expansion, the expiration date for these expanded telehealth benefits has been extended by Congress numerous times via continuing resolutions; and

WHEREAS, these extensions, while providing more time for blind and other Americans who may have difficulty traveling to their physician’s offices, have not made the expanded telehealth benefits permanent; and

WHEREAS, on March 5, 2025, President Riccobono sent a letter to all members of Congress urging them to make these telehealth benefits permanent through legislation; and

WHEREAS, in the most recent continuing resolution that was passed in late March, Congress included another extension to the Medicare telehealth benefits which, though helpful, once again sets an expiration date; and

WHEREAS, if Congress does not act, the expanded Medicare telehealth benefits that were extended with March’s continuing resolution will expire on September 30, 2025: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this twelfth day of July, 2025, in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, that this organization call upon the United States Congress to make permanent the Medicare telehealth services that are currently scheduled to expire on September 30, 2025.

RESOLUTION 2025-08
Regarding Recent Changes in the Operation of the Social Security Administration

WHEREAS, the United States Social Security Administration (SSA) was created in 1935, and for nearly ninety years has provided financial protection through retirement, disability, and survivors benefits; and

WHEREAS, two critical programs that affect blind Americans and are operated by the SSA are Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI); and

WHEREAS, the effective and efficient operation of SSI and SSDI ensures that blind Americans and other Americans with disabilities are able to afford basic monthly expenses such as their mortgage, rent, or groceries; and

WHEREAS, in February 2025, the SSA announced that it plans to reduce the number of employees working in the administration by approximately seven thousand, or 12 percent, to historically low levels in spite of facing historically high demand; and

WHEREAS, in March 2025, the SSA announced that it would be changing the overpayment withholding rate from 10 percent back to 100 percent of a beneficiary’s monthly SSDI payment; and

WHEREAS, in April 2025, following a letter from the National Federation of the Blind, the Social Security Administration announced that the maximum overpayment withholding rate for SSDI payments was being reduced from 100 percent to 50 percent, which is still outrageous; and

WHEREAS, the reduction in staffing of field offices and telephone services is a recipe for disaster that will result in crowded offices with overburdened staff and absurdly long wait times for people who need their problem to be addressed as soon as possible; and

WHEREAS, withholding 50 percent of a beneficiary’s monthly SSDI payment, which many recipients depend upon to pay their monthly bills, in order to reclaim an overpayment that was the error of the SSA and not the recipient is unconscionable: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this twelfth day of July, 2025, in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, that this organization urge the Social Security Administration to reconsider its approach to staffing reduction to facilitate effective and efficient processing of beneficiary claims and problems; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization demand that the Social Security Administration reinstate the 10 percent overpayment withholding rate for a beneficiary’s monthly SSDI payment.

RESOLUTION 2025-09
Regarding Improving Accessibility of Enterprise Software Tools

WHEREAS, blind employees routinely encounter inaccessible software tools when joining new employers, creating barriers to productivity and career advancement; and

WHEREAS, modern start-ups and enterprises rely heavily on cloud-based “software as a service” (SaaS) solutions for collaboration, project management, human resources, finance, and equity management; and

WHEREAS, blind entrepreneurs with the capacity to create jobs and bring innovative ideas to fruition are disadvantaged when packages commonly used at start-ups are not accessible; and

WHEREAS, although some platforms (such as Slack and Microsoft 365) offer robust accessibility features, the vast majority of widely adopted tools—such as Monday.com, Smartsheet, Jira (including Atlassian’s Confluence and Product Discovery modules), and Carta have significant accessibility defects which make them difficult or impossible for blind people to use; and

WHEREAS, even systems with partial accessibility often fail to meet a higher standard of being not only accessible and usable, but a “joy to use” for blind employees, thereby disadvantaging both employers seeking to hire blind talent and blind professionals striving for workplace equality; and

WHEREAS, ensuring accessibility in enterprise tools requires no new legislation, only sustained spotlighting, advocacy, and collaboration with software providers: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this twelfth day of July, 2025, in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, that this organization call upon all providers of enterprise software to adopt and rigorously implement the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA and to engage in formal accessibility testing with blind users before general release; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we urge major SaaS companies—including but not limited to Atlassian, Monday.com, Smartsheet, Upwork, and Carta—to seek the advice of blind people when conducting audits, devising plans to remediate accessibility barriers, and publishing roadmaps toward full compliance; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we encourage employers to prioritize accessibility as a first-order criterion when selecting internal tools, thereby driving market demand for inclusive design.

RESOLUTION 2025-10
Regarding the Accessibility of Human Research Protection Program Processes

WHEREAS, a Human Research Protection Program (HRPP) is a comprehensive system within a research institution designed to safeguard the rights, safety, and welfare of human research participants; and

WHEREAS, an Institutional Review Board (IRB) is a committee within an HRPP that reviews and monitors research involving human participants to ensure their rights, safety, and welfare are protected, and that research is conducted ethically and in compliance with federal regulations; and

WHEREAS, researchers inside and outside academia must gain approval from an IRB to conduct research, but accessibility barriers in the IRB approval processes make it more difficult for blind researchers to gain the necessary approval; and

WHEREAS, the Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) is the primary federal agency responsible for protecting human research subjects and ensuring that HRPPs comply with federal regulations; and

WHEREAS, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also regulates HRPPs and provides guidance for their operation, particularly for clinical investigations involving FDA-regulated products such as biological products, drugs, and medical devices; and

WHEREAS, the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs (AAHRPP) accredits HRPPs; and

WHEREAS, AAHRPP accreditation signifies that an organization adheres to rigorous standards for conducting ethical research and protecting participants; and

WHEREAS, none of these entities—the OHRP, the FDA, nor the AAHRPP—explicitly require HRPPs to ensure that their processes are accessible to blind researchers; and

WHEREAS, blind people have a right to conduct research like our sighted peers; and

WHEREAS, blind researchers have important perspectives to offer in academic discourse on any topic because of their valuable lived experiences; and

WHEREAS, the medical model of blindness, ableism, and the vision industrial complex are systemic belief systems that promote low expectations like the idea that blind people can only be human subjects in research to be studied and never the people conducting the study; and

WHEREAS, inaccessible HRPP processes, including trainings, forms, and web portals that researchers must use to engage with HRPPs as they conduct research, create barriers to the full participation of blind researchers in HRPPs, marginalizing the blind researchers and also jeopardizing the ethical standards that the programs aim to uphold: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this twelfth day of July, 2025, in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, that this organization urge the Office for Human Research Protections, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs to explicitly require that Human Research Protection Programs make all processes, including trainings, forms, and web portals, fully accessible to blind researchers.

RESOLUTION 2025-11
Regarding the Coverage of Continuous Glucose Monitoring Devices by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

WHEREAS, blindness is a common complication for people with diabetes; and

WHEREAS, the incidence of blindness increases as life expectancy increases and more people are diagnosed with diabetes; and

WHEREAS, the traditional monitoring system requires the use of a lancing device to place a tiny blood sample on a test strip, a procedure that is difficult for blind or low-vision people to perform; and

WHEREAS, continuous 24/7 glucose monitoring (CGM) now provides users with glucose readings using a smartphone app through an exterior adhesive skin sensor; and

WHEREAS, real-time glucose monitoring is a major component of effective diabetes management; and

WHEREAS, CGM offers a more practical and accessible way for blind and low-vision people to monitor their glucose levels; and

WHEREAS, Medicare Part D, administered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), provides coverage for lancing devices to all people with diabetes who qualify for CMS services, but only covers CGM devices for those who take insulin by injection or pill; and

WHEREAS, CMS does not recognize the additional benefits CGM devices provide, such as helping users identify problematic foods or triggers for blood sugar fluctuations; and

WHEREAS, the CMS policy of denying CGM device coverage to blind and low-vision people who do not take insulin is discriminatory, inequitable, and detrimental to their health; and

WHEREAS, when Medicare is available, it demands to be considered as the primary insurance provider, and private insurance providers, such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies, have discontinued prescription benefits and transferred them automatically to Medicare Part D; and

WHEREAS, the cost of CGM devices is prohibitive for many people compared to the cost of lancing devices; and

WHEREAS, CMS and private insurers appear to be denying CGM devices primarily to reduce costs: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this twelfth day of July, 2025, in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, that this organization demand that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services end its discriminatory practice of denying continuous glucose monitoring coverage to blind and low-vision people who do not take insulin; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we urge the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to actively engage in partnership with the National Federation of the Blind to include coverage of all continuous glucose monitoring devices for blind and low-vision people with diabetes who qualify for Medicare Part D services, thereby ensuring better diabetes management and healthcare outcomes.

RESOLUTION 2025-12
Regarding the Demand for Accountable and Inclusive Lawmaking

WHEREAS, the National Federation of the Blind, the transformative organization that advances the lives of its members and all blind people in the United States, recognizes that blindness crosses all boundaries of race, class, gender, and geography, and therefore our movement reflects the full diversity of the American experience; and

WHEREAS, blind people continue to face deeply entrenched barriers that limit our full participation in society—not due to our blindness, but because of systemic inaccessibility, outdated perceptions, and exclusion from the policymaking process; and

WHEREAS, the members of the National Federation of the Blind organize, advocate, and mobilize to build a society where blind people live independently, work competitively, access education equitably, and are full participants in community and civic life—not as recipients of charity, but as equal members of society; and

WHEREAS, we fight for the nonvisual accessibility of technology, infrastructure, and services, because accessibility is not a luxury—it is a civil right, and its implementation benefits everyone through inclusive, forward-thinking design; and

WHEREAS, our independence and dignity are protected by civil rights laws that we have fought to win—and which we must now fight to preserve; and

WHEREAS, across the country, we are witnessing a disturbing trend of executive orders, legislative rollbacks, and regulatory changes—often carried out without consultation, transparency, or understanding—that threaten the civil and human rights of blind people; and

WHEREAS, these actions, whether driven by cost-cutting, misinformation, or political expediency, disregard the lived experiences of disabled Americans and risk reversing decades of hard-won progress; and

WHEREAS, in 2025 alone, our movement has issued powerful, timely, and evidence-based statements to confront misguided policies and demand justice, including:

  *   Comments supporting the FTC’s consent order with accessiBe and opposing the promotion of ineffective overlay solutions (January 27)

  *   Objection to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s position in Texas v. Kennedy (March 4)

  *   Defense of access to Medicare telehealth options (March 5)

  *   Opposition to proposed rule changes weakening the Randolph-Sheppard Program (March 10)

  *   Advocacy for full funding of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (March 19)

  *   Protest of the Executive Order seeking to dismantle the Department of Education (March 25)

  *   A forceful response to the Social Security Administration’s harmful policy proposals (March 26)

  *   Testimony to Congress defending the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (April 9)

  *   Opposition to proposed rule changes by the Department of Energy that would roll back accessibility rules for new construction (June 6); and

WHEREAS, blind Americans demand—not request—a seat at every table where decisions are being made that affect our lives, our rights, and our futures; and

WHEREAS, the National Federation of the Blind, a nonpartisan organization, will not remain silent while the rights and futures of blind Americans are being debated without our voices present: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this twelfth day of July, 2025, in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, that this organization demand all publicly elected officials reject reactive, exclusionary, and uninformed policymaking, and instead commit to transparent, accountable, and inclusive decision-making that centers the voices of those directly affected; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization demand that elected officials consult and partner with the National Federation of the Blind and other national disability-led organizations when proposing, revising, or dismantling laws and policies that affect blind people, recognizing our expertise, leadership, and right to shape the systems that govern our lives.

RESOLUTION 2025-13
Regarding the Improper Classification of Braille Notetaking Technology by the National Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution Program

WHEREAS, the National Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution Program (NDBEDP), better known as iCanConnect, regularly publishes and updates the equipment that can be distributed to qualified program participants; and

WHEREAS, it has come to the attention of the National Federation of the Blind DeafBlind Division’s Technology Committee that the BrailleSense 6, a blindness-specific piece of notetaking technology, was classified by the NDBEDP as a personal computer; and

WHEREAS, in discussions with the program administrator via email on this subject, it became clear to the DeafBlind Division that this classification was solely done for expediency; and

WHEREAS, in discussions with the vendor of this technology regarding this classification, the vendor indicated that it had no clue that the notetaker was being classified as a “computer”; and

WHEREAS, the DeafBlind Division’s Technology Committee, while consulting with National Federation of the Blind access technology specialists who manage the International Braille and Technology Center for the Blind and other stakeholders, determined that the BrailleSense 6 was likely classified as a computer due to the cost of the item, nearly 6,000 dollars; and

WHEREAS, the current rules of the program specifically state that clients may only have one computer; and

WHEREAS, since the BrailleSense 6 notetaker is classified as a computer, if a client needs or requests a notetaker to go along with a computer, the client runs the distinct risk of being asked to return a computer that they have been assigned in order to be awarded the use of a notetaker: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this twelfth day of July, 2025, in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, that this organization urge the National Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution Program and its network partner, the Perkins School for the Blind, to work with the National Federation of the Blind to find an appropriate notetaker classification so as to clarify with clients and other interested persons that Braille-based notetaking technology is a notetaker and not a personal computer; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization demand that iCanConnect and its network partners refrain from classifying notetaking technology as a personal computer simply because of the cost of notetaking technology; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization demand that the iCanConnect program administrator and their network partners educate trainers and state-authorized agencies to inform clients about the differences between a personal computer and a notetaking device intended for the blind.

RESOLUTION 2025-14
Regarding the Institute of Museum and Library Services

WHEREAS, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) was established in 1996 with the mission to “advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development”; and

WHEREAS, the IMLS is the largest source of federal funding for libraries in the United States, distributing hundreds of millions of dollars to institutions in all fifty states and the District of Columbia each year; and

WHEREAS, there are more than 120,000 libraries across the country, which serve as important centers for community engagement, the furtherance of literacy, extended research, and internet access for Americans; and

WHEREAS, state libraries for the blind and print disabled in states across the country depend upon funding from the IMLS in order to provide a critical source of Braille and other specialized audio books for blind and low-vision Americans; and

WHEREAS, on March 14, 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order 14238 that directed the elimination of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, as well as several other agencies; and

WHEREAS, without funding from the IMLS, blind and low-vision Americans across the country will lose access to critical services provided by state libraries for the blind and print disabled: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this twelfth day of July, 2025, in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, that this organization demand that President Trump rescind the directive to eliminate the Institute of Museum and Library Services in Executive Order 14238; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization call upon the United States Congress to ensure that state libraries for the blind and print disabled remain fully funded via the IMLS Grants to States program for the 2025 Fiscal Year and beyond.

RESOLUTION 2025-16
Regarding Universal Availability of PDF Remediation Tools

WHEREAS, the Portable Document Format (PDF) is commonly used for the dissemination of a wide range of electronic documents; and

WHEREAS, Adobe, the creator of PDF, has developed a method of tagging a PDF document to ensure that it is accessible to blind people using screen readers; and

WHEREAS, failure on the part of a PDF creator to tag a file correctly may render the document inaccessible; and

WHEREAS, Acrobat Pro includes comprehensive accessibility checking and remediation tools to identify issues like missing tags, alt text, document reading order, forms, tables, lists, and headings; and

WHEREAS, those wishing to use such tools must purchase Adobe Pro at a minimum of 19.99 dollars per month; and

WHEREAS, no such remediation tools are available in the free Adobe Reader; and

WHEREAS, verifying the accessibility of a document is so fundamental that it should not be dependent on a user’s ability or willingness to pay: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this twelfth day of July, 2025, in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, that this organization call upon Adobe to implement accessibility remediation tools in Adobe Reader, thus ensuring that accessibility checking and remediation tools are available to all.

RESOLUTION 2025-17
Regarding the Implementation of Voluntary SelfID Systems for Uber and Lyft Riders who use Guide Dogs

WHEREAS, for more than a decade the National Federation of the Blind has sought to address discrimination against guide dog users by rideshare drivers; and

WHEREAS, multiple lawsuits and settlements with rideshare companies did not result in hoped-for reductions in denials; and

WHEREAS, the National Federation of the Blind has continued to engage with rideshare companies, including via protests outside their offices on October 15, 2024; and

WHEREAS, Federation members expressed additional frustration over the cumbersome and time-consuming process of reporting denials to rideshare companies; and

WHEREAS, National Federation of the Blind leaders conceived of and proposed voluntary SelfID Opt-In systems by which rideshare companies themselves could automatically detect, deter, and deactivate drivers for such denials, greatly reducing the reporting burden on riders; and

WHEREAS, those systems would also provide companies with data confirming our assertions that riders with service animals suffer denials at a much higher rate than other riders; and

WHEREAS, the National Federation of the Blind demanded that those systems be voluntary for riders and that investigations of all denial complaints be given the highest priority and weight, whether coming from those systems or not; and

WHEREAS, the Federation insisted that rideshare companies ask no more than whether a service animal was required due to a disability and what service it is trained to perform when riders register to use those SelfID systems, as those are the only permissible inquiries under the Americans with Disabilities Act; and

WHEREAS, the Federation also demanded that drivers only be told about service animals after accepting a ride so that denials would not escape detection; and

WHEREAS, both Uber and Lyft acceded to our demands and agreed to develop and pilot such systems based on our proposals; and

WHEREAS, members of the National Federation of the Blind participated in both Uber and Lyft’s pilots of those systems; and

WHEREAS, Uber and Lyft made changes to the way their respective systems work in response to the feedback of Federation members; and

WHEREAS, Federation members, and other participants in the pilots, indicated that those systems greatly reduced the burden of reporting denials; and

WHEREAS, both Uber and Lyft have now made those systems available to all riders in the United States who wish to use them: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this twelfth day of July, 2025, in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, that this organization commend Uber and Lyft for implementing National Federation of the Blind-proposed voluntary SelfID Opt-In systems for riders with service animals; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization encourage Uber and Lyft to continue working with the National Federation of the Blind to improve the experience of their platforms and services for blind riders.

RESOLUTION 2025-18
Regarding Tandem’s Mobi Insulin Delivery System, the First Accessible Insulin Pump Application for Apple iOS Users

WHEREAS, the National Federation of the Blind is the transformative membership and advocacy organization of blind people, advancing the lives of its members and all blind people in the United States, and

WHEREAS, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, diabetes is the leading cause of blindness among working-age adults in the United States; and

WHEREAS, advances in medical technology have made it increasingly possible for people with diabetes to manage their condition effectively, particularly using insulin pumps and automated insulin delivery systems; and

WHEREAS, despite these advancements, most medical devices, including insulin pumps, remain inaccessible to blind and low-vision users; and

WHEREAS, the National Federation of the Blind is committed to ensuring nonvisual access to all medical devices, as defined in our Medical Device Nonvisual Accessibility Act legislation, and celebrates those manufacturers dedicated to this same goal; and

WHEREAS, Tandem Diabetes Care has developed the Mobi Automated Insulin Delivery System, a device controlled through a nonvisually accessible Apple iOS iPhone app, thereby allowing blind individuals with diabetes to manage their condition independently and effectively; and

WHEREAS, through this interface, the user can perform such functions as independently deliver a bolus dose, enter the number of carbohydrates consumed, check the remaining insulin in the cartridge, and monitor the battery level; and

WHEREAS, the app provides auditory guidance throughout the process, including step-by-step instructions for cartridge changes and speech output notifications with alarms for critical alerts such as low blood sugar, high blood sugar, and low insulin levels; and

WHEREAS, ensuring accessibility in the design of medical technology not only empowers blind and low-vision individuals but also enhances usability for all users through multimodal interfaces, thereby increasing overall adoption and return on investment: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this twelfth day of July, 2025, in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, that this organization commend Tandem Diabetes Care for its leadership in developing the Mobi Automated Insulin Delivery System with full consideration of nonvisual accessibility; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization urge all manufacturers of innovative medical technology to prioritize nonvisual accessibility from the earliest stages of design and development, thereby ensuring equal access to essential health management tools for blind and low-vision individuals.

RESOLUTION 2025-19
Regarding the Executive Order to Eliminate the United States Department of Education

WHEREAS, the United States Department of Education administers programs essential to promote education, independence, and economic opportunity for millions of blind Americans; and

WHEREAS, contained within the Department of Education is the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, which houses the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) providing essential resources for blind people to obtain education and employment; and

WHEREAS, these divisions are responsible for the enforcement and oversight of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq.), the American Printing House for the Blind (APH) federal quota program (20 U.S.C. § 101 et seq.), vocational rehabilitation services (29 U.S.C. § 701 et seq.), the Randolph-Sheppard program (20 U.S.C. § 107 et seq.), and the Independent Living Services for Older Individuals who are Blind (OIB) program (29 U.S.C. 796j-796l); and

WHEREAS, on March 20, 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order 14242, which directed the closure of the United States Department of Education; and

WHEREAS, the executive order did not outline a plan to continue and maintain the above services administered by the Department of Education; and

WHEREAS, without clear plans for how these statutorily established programs will be maintained, blind Americans and their families have no information on future plans, no clear lines of advocacy for due process, and an abundance of uncertainty regarding their current educational and rehabilitation services; and

WHEREAS, the loss of the Office for Civil Rights, including its Digital Accessibility Team, will mean schools can discriminate against blind and other disabled students without recourse; and

WHEREAS, the National Federation of the Blind is greatly concerned that the drastic reduction in workforce, and the ultimate closure of the Department of Education, will result in diminished service for millions of students, employees, entrepreneurs, and older Americans with disabilities across the country who utilize the above programs: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this twelfth day of July, 2025, in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, that this organization demand that the Secretary of Education stop any plans to eliminate the Department of Education and the services that affect blind Americans that it administers; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization demand that the United States Congress perform its oversight function to ensure that the vital programs outlined above are protected in order to accomplish their statutory goals.

RESOLUTION 2025-20
Regarding an Immediate Motion to Dismiss Texas v. Kennedy

WHEREAS, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is a landmark civil rights statute for people with disabilities, protecting us from discrimination by federal agencies and recipients of federal funding in public education, work readiness programs, healthcare, elections, the court system, and more; and

WHEREAS, seventeen states’ attorneys general have filed suit in Texas v. Kennedy alleging that Section 504 is unconstitutional and should be entirely or partially enjoined, limiting it only to those programs, services, and activities directly funded by and through the Rehabilitation Act of 1973; and

WHEREAS, in a status report submitted on April 11, 2025, the seventeen states wrote that they “have no intention to seek any relief from this Court on Count 3 (Section 504 is Unconstitutional) of their Complaint. ... And nothing in Plaintiffs’ Complaint seeks to restrain the disbursement of federal funds from the Department [of Health and Human Services] on the basis that Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act is unconstitutional”; and

WHEREAS, the Plaintiffs also seek for the Court to declare the Final Rule titled “Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability in Programs or Activities Receiving Federal Financial Assistance” released by the United States Department of Health and Human Services on May 9, 2024, and which contains valuable website accessibility rules pertaining to federal government websites, as illegal and unconstitutional; and

WHEREAS, if Plaintiffs’ demand is granted, it will have a devastating effect on blind Americans’ rights to effective communication and reasonable accommodation in connection with government programs, services, and activities, including but not limited to education, employment, housing, healthcare, and other forms of civic life: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this twelfth day of July, 2025, in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, that this organization immediately call upon Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to move to dismiss the Texas v. Kennedy lawsuit because of the far-reaching and harmful effects the lawsuit could have on Section 504 and the lives of blind and other disabled Americans; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization call upon the attorneys general of Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, and West Virginia to immediately withdraw from the Texas v. Kennedy lawsuit.

RESOLUTION 2025-21
Regarding Urging the American Civil Liberties Union to Support Accessible Electronic Ballot Return for Voters with Disabilities

WHEREAS, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) presented at the National Coalition on Accessible Voting (NCAV) on April 15, 2025, to clarify its position against accessible electronic ballot return for blind voters and other voters with print disabilities; and

WHEREAS, the ACLU expressed concerns about electronic ballot return that it admitted were not based on existing evidence of breaches or security failures, but rather on the theoretical possibility of undetectable interference; and

WHEREAS, the ACLU’s chief technologist acknowledged that there is no evidence of current security breaches with modern accessible electronic ballot return technologies; and

WHEREAS, the National Federation of the Blind and other NCAV members appropriately responded that such concerns do not justify the exclusion of voters with disabilities from the right to vote privately, independently, and accessibly; and

WHEREAS, the ACLU’s proposed alternatives—such as using hardcopy Braille ballots marked with a hole punch or relying on assistance from non-disabled individuals—are neither legal nor reliable given the limited availability of Braille literacy and the impracticality of such solutions in real-world voting contexts; and

WHEREAS, both federal law and moral imperatives mandate that no voter should be required to forfeit privacy, independence, or accessibility in order to cast a ballot; and

WHEREAS, the accessible electronic ballot-return technologies already in use offer a promising path forward that does not inherently compromise election security and must be given serious, solution-oriented consideration; and

WHEREAS, the National Federation of the Blind remains committed to protecting both the integrity of elections and the civil rights of voters with disabilities: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this twelfth day of July, 2025, in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, that this organization urge the American Civil Liberties Union to reconsider its current position and to work in partnership with us and the larger disability rights community to develop, support, and promote accessible, secure, and independently verifiable ballot return options for all voters, including the blind and those with print disabilities.

RESOLUTION 2025-22
Regarding the Consolidation of Blindness Services Under a General Disability Services Agency

WHEREAS, each state in the United States is required to maintain a state rehabilitation agency to address the vocational, educational, and independent living needs of people with disabilities, including those who are blind or have low vision; and

WHEREAS, the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) currently supports vocational rehabilitation programs, supported employment, and the Independent Living Services for Older Individuals Who Are Blind (OIB) program in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and four United States territories; and

WHEREAS, RSA identifies 34 states and territories with combined vocational rehabilitation agencies that serve all people with disabilities, and 22 states and territories with separate agencies specifically serving those who are blind and have low vision; and

WHEREAS, Congress has long recognized the unique and specialized needs of blind people—including training methods, adaptive equipment, and communication tools—through legislation such as 29 U.S.C. § 701(a)(1)(A), as amended in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973; and

WHEREAS, a 2010 study conducted by the National Council of State Agencies for the Blind (NCSAB), through Mississippi State University’s Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (RRTC) on Blindness and Low Vision, found that individuals served by separate blindness agencies were more likely to achieve competitive, integrated employment, earn wages above minimum wage, and participate more fully in the workforce compared to those served by combined agencies; and

WHEREAS, the study further concluded that blind and low-vision clients of separate agencies were more likely to receive the targeted, specialized services essential for acquiring independent living skills and achieving educational and employment success; and

WHEREAS, the specialized training blind people require—such as orientation and mobility, Braille literacy, access technology, and other tailored supports—are best delivered through a dedicated blindness agency; and

WHEREAS, consolidating services for the blind into general disability agencies may appear efficient, but in practice, it results in diminished service quality and poorer outcomes; and

WHEREAS, the diverse needs of people with disabilities—including those who are blind, deaf or hard of hearing, cognitively disabled, or who use wheelchairs—require different approaches and expertise that cannot be met through a “one-size-fits-all” model: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this twelfth day of July, 2025, in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, that this organization urge each state legislature and state rehabilitation agency in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the United States territories to maintain separate agencies serving the blind, independent of general disability service agencies; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization urge all currently combined agencies to develop a plan to establish separate blindness-specific agencies to ensure the provision of specialized services; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization call upon legislatures and agencies serving the blind to collaborate with the National Federation of the Blind to build effective, responsive, and accountable services for blind Americans; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization urge all blindness service agencies to include substantial representation—at least 50 percent—of blind people on their governing boards.

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Monitor Miniatures
Monitor Mart

The notices in this section have been edited for clarity, but we can pass along only the information we were given. We are not responsible for the accuracy of the statements made or the quality of the products for sale.

For Sale:

I have two BrailleNote Touch Plus 32 units for sale in good condition. Asking $800 each, which includes shipping. A cashier’s check is preferred. Make check payable to:

Raymond Rokita

3816 Schlee Street

Lansing, Michigan 48910

Serious buyers can contact me via email at kb8kyr at gmail.com<mailto:kb8kyr at gmail.com>.

Shipping will be Federal Express. A signature will be required to receive the package.

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