[nfb-talk] Washington Post Reports Passing of Blind Advocate

[Elizabeth Campbell]

Hello David,

Thanks so much for posting this terrific article about Harold.

I was truly shocked by his death. I was glad I got to see him during a trip 
to D.C. in March.

He was a good friend to many of us.

Sincerely,



Liz Campbell
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Andrews" <dandrews at visi.com>
To: <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 12, 2009 8:44 PM
Subject: [nfb-talk] Washington Post Reports Passing of Blind Advocate



>
> From the Washington Post:
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/11/AR2009071102578_pf.html
>
>
>Advocate for Blind Helped Craft Disabilities Law
>
>By T. Rees Shapiro
>Washington Post Staff Writer
>Sunday, July 12, 2009
>
>Harold W. Snider, 61, a prominent advocate for the blind who helped craft 
>legislation that expanded the civil rights of Americans with disabilities 
>and
>aided in the launching of an audible newspaper service, died June 26 at his 
>home in Rockville after a heart attack.
>
>While growing up in Jacksonville, Fla., Mr. Snider said he was forced out 
>of regular third-grade classes because he was blind. His parents sued the 
>Duval
>County school system, and Mr. Snider became the first blind student in the 
>county to graduate from public school.
>
>The experience launched Mr. Snider's interest in advocacy, and in the 
>mid-1970s he reportedly became the first blind employee of the Smithsonian 
>Institution.
>As a handicap program coordinator for the fledgling National Air and Space 
>Museum, he worked to make the facility a vivid experience for the 
>sight-impaired.
>
>
>"You can't look at the spacecraft, so you touch it, or you hold a model of 
>it or a raised line picture of it," Mr. Snider told United Press 
>International
>in 1976. "You can't see an airplane, so you hear its engine roar."
>
>In 1978, he started Access for the Handicapped, a District-based consulting 
>company for guidance on policy, technology and resources for people with 
>disabilities.
>Through his company, he worked on projects for people with disabilities 
>around the world, including Zambia, Ecuador and South Korea.
>
>After Mr. Snider worked for the Republican National Committee on disability 
>issues, President George H.W. Bush appointed him in 1990 as deputy 
>executive
>director of the National Council on Disability. In that role, he served as 
>a liaison among the council, the White House, Congress and the media.
>
>He also helped draft the sweeping Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, 
>which broadened civil rights already protected in earlier legislation. The 
>act
>guarantees protection of disabled people from discrimination in the public 
>and private sectors and regardless of whether agencies or businesses 
>receive
>federal aid.
>
>After Mr. Snider left the council in 1992, he worked in conjunction with 
>the National Federation of the Blind to develop NFB-Newsline, a free 
>dial-to-listen
>newspaper and magazine service that includes daily editions of The 
>Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Wall 
>Street Journal
>among its more than 250 publications. It debuted in 1994 and claims more 
>than 50,000 users.
>
>In addition, Mr. Snider was a former chairman of Montgomery County's 
>Commission on People With Disabilities.
>
>Harold Wexler Snider, whose father was a dentist, was born Sept. 6, 1947, 
>in Jacksonville. He graduated in 1969 from Georgetown University's School 
>of Foreign
>Service, where he was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa honor society, but told 
>UPI that he was not allowed to take the Foreign Service examination because
>of prejudice.
>
>In 1970, he received his master's degree in British imperial and 
>commonwealth history from the University of London and did postgraduate 
>work at the University
>of Oxford.
>
>About this time, he married Gail Lovelace, a British woman who also was 
>blind. They divorced in 1994, the same year he married Linda Fossett. All 
>three
>remained on good terms, with the two wives calling each other 
>"wives-in-law."
>
>Survivors include his second wife, of Rockville; two children from his 
>first marriage, David Snider of Alexandria and Ellen Underwood of Fairfax 
>County;
>three stepchildren; his mother, Shirley Snider of Jacksonville; two 
>sisters; and three grandchildren.
>
>Mr. Snider collected antique phones and music boxes, played the accordion, 
>and spoke fluent French and Spanish. He was considered outspoken and 
>sometimes
>called militant in his role as an advocate. But he also said he saw a value 
>in using humor to make sighted people feel comfortable around him.
>
>He said he was sometimes asked how blind people performed tasks such as 
>crossing the street, cutting a sandwich or, as the more curious would 
>ponder, having
>sex.
>
>"I tell them I do it like everybody else," Mr. Snider told the New York 
>Times. "In the dark."
>
>© 2009 The Washington Post Company


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