[nfbmi-talk] Something to Ponder and Act Upon

[Terry D. Eagle]

The last paragraph of the following excerpt from this month's Braille
Monitor really and fully sums up that which I have been saying for quite
some time, that an immediate focus of the Michigan affiliate must be, and
get around to doing, if the affiliate is to thrive and survive!

 

My question:  When will this one thing be done?

 

James Brown Father, Highway  Administrator, and Leader

 

Brown came to know about the  National Federation of the Blind when he won a
scholarshipin 2007, but winning  didn't mean that he immediately became
active in the organization.

 

He relates  that one of his first reactions when arriving at the convention
in Atlanta

was  to observe to himself that "God didn't make three thousand blind people
to

be together. There were all these canes and dogs and people heading toward
one  another."

 

At the same time he was thinking all of this, he couldn't help  being
impressed by

all that the blind people who came to the convention were  doing. At the bar
where

he sat, there was a lawyer sitting to his left, a  television producer on
his right,

and next to him a scientist who was working  on an oil rig in the Gulf of
Mexico.

All were blind. But, no matter how  impressed he was by the national
convention and

the leaders he met, the weight  of home life, work, and his participation in
a graduate

program meant that it  took him more than a year to connect with the
Federation.

 

"Because of problems  going on in Tennessee at the time, I wasn't really too
impressed

with becoming  a part, but the Affiliate Action Team kept me involved and
kept showing

me that  what was happening nationally could and should be happening in my
state.

 

Going  to the Washington Seminar was one of the ways they kept me involved,
and the

first one I attended in 2009 happened to involve our work with the quiet
cars-the

Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act-something I felt I knew a little  about."

 

When Brown earned a master's degree  from Middle Tennessee State University
in Murfreesboro,

he decided he had more  time for outside activities, and what he saw in the
National

Federation of the  Blind helped to convince him that the work of the
organization

was worth his  time and talent. "I liked what I saw in these people-they
didn't hide

from  blindness, weren't ashamed to be blind or to say the word. The thing I
appreciated

most was that many of those I met walked the talk-they were real."

Brown became the president of the  Tennessee affiliate in March of 2012 and
was elected

to the national board of  directors of the National Federation of the Blind
on July

5, 2014. "I was  extremely honored to have been elected, and I'll do my best
to honor

the trust  that has been placed in me."

 

When asked what he sees as the most  important challenge facing the
Federation, Brown

says: "I think our most  immediate challenge is to recruit young people and
to train

them to be leaders.  Young people respect those who are older, but they also
want

people their own  age. We have to let them know that the Federation is just
as important

for  their generation as it was to those who created it and to those of us
who work

to sustain it. It takes work, persistence, and targeting our efforts, but we
will

persuade young people in the same way we were persuaded. They will become
invested

and committed, and all blind people will be the better for our ongoing
work. I am

proud to be a part of this organization and to see to this transition."

 

Source:  Braille Monitor  January  2015

(James Brown Father, Highway  Administrator, and Leader