[NABS-L] Who Is the Perkins School for the Blind Named After?

[Justin Salisbury]

Hi again, Kane, Maurice, and everyone,

Kane: Yes, I think you're right on the money with your interpretation of what was going on with Mr. Perkins. 

I kept looking for more information and found this page on the Perkins website, with the following passage:

"Today, Perkins School for the Blind acknowledges that our school’s founding financially benefitted from both the slave trade and opium smuggling, and acknowledges the pain caused by this, particularly to those in Black and Chinese communities. 

The founding of Perkins highlights complex issues around slavery, race, and profit derived from the exploitation of enslaved and marginalized people. As we look to our future, it is our responsibility to acknowledge our past. Perkins is committed to confronting the truth about the people and history of our institution so as not to perpetuate narratives that obscure or diminish inhumane treatment of anyone or any group of people."

https://www.perkins.org/thomas-h-perkins/

This tells me that the leadership of Perkins is already aware of at least some of the history, though it notably leaves out the enslavement of Indigenous people. Many of the Indigenous people of New England who didn’t die from European diseases or attacks were captured and sold into slavery in the Caribbean, including the Dominican Republic, where he did his slave trading. Still, I think this page on their site is actually a step in the right direction, but why continue to honor a namesake when you know that he did these things? I think Kane made a great point about how there are a lot of other people who have exemplified the values that the school wishes to honor today, so maybe a new namesake would be in order. 

So, the question remains: should we do anything about this?

Justin


Justin Mark Hideaki Salisbury
he/him/his

Board Member 
National Association of Blind Students
A proud division of the National Federation of the Blind
Mobile: (808) 797-8606
Email: president at alumni.ecu.edu 
Website: www.nabslink.org

-----Original Message-----
From: Kane Brolin <kbrolin65 at gmail.com> 
Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2023 4:55 PM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Justin Salisbury <PRESIDENT at alumni.ecu.edu>
Subject: Re: [NABS-L] Who Is the Perkins School for the Blind Named After?

Hi, Justin.

I am not officially a NABS member.  But being a subscriber to the NABS-L listserv as a result of my involvement with the NABS Midwest Student Seminar this past March, I would give a qualified yes to your query.

The mood of the country is mixed in respect to how we should preserve (or not) those portions of the USA's legacy that are inglorious.  But I think your inquiry into the why behind the naming of Perkins School--(and don't forget the Perkins Brailler)--is quite apropos as we go through this moment of collective reflection as a country.
After all, just this year we saw the renaming of Fort Bragg; even the rather conservative types who inhabit commanding positions within the U.S. Armed Services considered that a traitorous, seemingly incompetent Confederate general named Braxton Bragg was not exactly one after whom we should continue to name an acclaimed army base representing the United States.  So why should the blind not take back our legacy?

I would argue that it is the myriad alumni who have graduated from the Perkins School over the years that have built and sustained the legacy of this school, through how they have impacted the world in a positive way, that deserve to be venerated for the sake of posterity.  Justin, I take it from your research that Thomas Handasyd Perkins (1) was not blind, (2) did not develop technology or pedagogical techniques for the blind, and (3) earned some part of his fortune through activities that now would be considered illicit and dehumanizing more or less worldwide.  So while it is significant that Mr. Perkins wrote big checks to start and maintain what turned out to be an important school that has helped many, why shouldn't the stakeholders of Perkins School for the Blind pick as namesake someone who better typifies the values that Perkins School has exemplified over the years?  Why not Helen Keller?  If she seems a bit anachronistic, I'm sure there must be plenty of modern or postmodern exemplars who would fit the bill better.

Yes, I believe this is something worth fighting for, if for no other reason than to prove that social justice is just as important, and just as needed, in supposedly progressive New England as it is in the Deep South where Confederate statues proliferate.  And it is just as needed in the blind community and the deafblind community as it is in communities of color or, say, in trans communities.

Just one person's opinion.  Whereas I am not an alumnus of Perkins School, and whereas the Perkins School is not a part of the National Federation of the Blind, I speak only of my own feelings in this matter.

"No man is an island entire of itself; "every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind."
--John Donne

Respectfully,

-Kane
(574)386-8868 (mobile)