[Massachusetts-NFB] Possible Initiative for Our Affiliate

[Justin Salisbury]

Hi everyone,

I have an idea for an advocacy initiative that we could take on as an affiliate. I am wondering if it is something that lots of members in our affiliate would be interested in addressing.

Many of us are familiar with the Perkins School for the Blind, but I bet most of us do not know who the school is named after. His name was Thomas Handasyd Perkins. Here is a Wikipedia article about him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Handasyd_Perkins

According to the Wikipedia page about him, he was one of those rich boys who received lots of money from his grandfather and father-in-law, and then he found some really nice things to do with that money. According to the Wikipedia article, he became a slave trader and opium smuggler. According to the article, from these activities, he amassed a greater fortune and then used that to philanthropically support the Perkins School for the Blind, the Boston Museum of Fine Art, McLean Hospital, and Massachusetts General Hospital.

I imagine there are a lot of people who have appreciated some of the work of some of these institutions that he may have supported with donations. If we think about the Perkins School for the Blind today, though, there seems to be a real contradiction between being a school that is supposed to provide services to a diverse group of blind students and being named after a guy who got rich as a slave trader. Being a school named after a slave trader undermines the equal treatment of people of color at the Perkins School for the Blind and the blind community in Massachusetts more broadly; this is a rigid fact regardless of our political persuasion.

Now, the question that can have multiple answers is this: Do we want to do anything about it? I understand that we all have our priorities. Since the Red Sox are terrible this year, we all have a little bit more free time this summer. Do we want to raise this conversation? Do we want to talk to the Perkins School for the Blind about renaming?

I think this would be a good thing to do, but I'm interested in taking the temperature of our affiliate members before trying to do anything about it.

Thanks, everyone,

Justin


Justin Salisbury (he/him)
2117 Chestnut Hill Ave
Athol, MA 01331
Phone: 808.797.8606
Email: President at Alumni.ECU.edu<mailto:President at Alumni.ECU.edu>


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