[NFBNJ] NFB: [Brl-monitor] The Braille Monitor, August/September 202018
Brian Mackey
bmackey88 at gmail.com
Thu Sep 13 21:15:50 UTC 2018
From the desk of NFBNJ President Joe Ruffalo.
Received from Brian Burrow, NFB of California.
Greetings to all!
Please share with others.
For those that attended the national convention in Orlando this summer, a
great review.
For those that did not attend, read and plan for Las Vegas, 2019!
Note: The October Monitor will provide additional information pertaining to
Orlando, 2018.
***
BRAILLE MONITOR
Vol. 61, No. 8 August/September 2018
Gary Wunder, 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
Website address: http://www.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
) 2018 by the National Federation of the Blind
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.
You can transfer the recording of each issue from the thumb drive to
your computer or preserve it on the thumb drive. However, because thumb
drives can be used hundreds of times, we would appreciate their return in
order to stretch our funding. Please use the return envelope enclosed with
the drive when you return the device.
Vol. 61, No. 8 August/September
2018
Contents
Illustration: Start Them Young, Train Them Right
The 2018 Convention Roundup
by Gary Wunder
Presidential Report 2018
by Mark Riccobono
Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards
presented by James Gashel
Authenticity, Diversity, and the Synergy of the Organized Blind
by Mark Riccobono
Awards Presented at the 2018 National Convention
Introducing Chloe: Guided by the Blind
by Suman Kanuganti
Aviation, Technology, and Law
by Dr. Marc Maurer
A Summary of Recent Legal Activity
by Eve Hill
Meet the 2018 National Federation of the Blind Scholarship Class
Directing Big Data and Technological Innovation: Perspectives on the
Importance of Leadership by the Blind
by Chancey Fleet
What Does "Blind" Have to Do with It? The Right to Parent from a Sighted
Daughter's Perspective
by Joanne Gabias
What Does Democracy Look Like? The 2018 Convention Resolutions
by Sharon Maneki
National Federation of the Blind 2018 Resolutions
Convention
Miniatures..................................................................
......................
Monitor
Miniatures..................................................................
..........................
[PHOTO CAPTION: President Mark Riccobono sits on the floor to talk with the
kids at the beginning of the many parent sessions that made up the 2018
National Convention.]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Katey Jackson from Florida jumps sky-high (as much as hotel
ceilings allow) on the trampoline]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Four-year-old Theo Thevo of Michigan tumbles with his older
sister in the bounce house]
Start Them Young, Train Them Right
The National Federation of the Blind National Convention is a time
for business, for meeting up with people, and learning about companies that
are harder to talk with the rest of the year. And these opportunities
aren't just for the adults of the Federation. The convention has activities
for children, not just because there are adult Federationists who wouldn't
be able to attend without bringing their children, but because this is a
perfect opportunity to teach these future Federation leaders valuable
lessons.
They are taught that they can be heard by adults around them, even
those with important jobs. Each year the Federation President sits down-
literally down on the floor-with children attending the convention. They
may exchange a few presidential release-worthy jokes, but they also talk
about more serious topics.
Away from the presentations and the seminars, there are important
lessons learned during the purely fun activities as well. Among fellow
Federationists, who know exactly how capable these kids can be, they get to
run around and take part in physical activities that well-meaning sighted
adults back home might shelter them from in a misguided attempt to protect
them. But here at convention they can strap into a safety harness to jump
on a giant trampoline or ricochet around in a bounce house. They get a
chance to explore their own boundaries and abilities with people who will
say, "Give it a try; just be careful," rather than, "You can't do that;
you'll hurt yourself."
The 2018 Convention Roundup
by Gary Wunder
Some of you will recall a man named Garrison Keillor who did a radio
show for more than forty years called "A Prairie Home Companion." In that
weekly show he did a twenty-minute monologue about characters he developed
in the small town of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. When asked how he was able to
do it every week year in and year out, Mr. Keillor credited his success to
always having an opening line: "Well it's been a quiet week in Lake
Wobegon, Minnesota, my hometown." His reasoning was that having captured
the opening line, everything after that began to flow more easily. So it is
each year that I wrestle with how to begin this roundup. Sometimes the
themes are obvious: we're approaching three-quarters of a century in
service to blind people. Once our seventy-fifth anniversary was gone, we
reached our seventy-sixth; the seventy-sixth and seventy-seventh are
history. Now that it is our seventy-eighth, it seems all too soon to start
counting up to eighty.
So was there a theme this year, something for which the 2018 National
Convention will be remembered? I submit that there was, and that theme was
raising expectations. The agenda loudly proclaimed it; the presentations
consistently confirmed it, and the leadership of the National Federation of
the Blind boldly promised it again and again through the actions reported
and the promises made. Though the vast majority of us who do the work of
the Federation are volunteers, we take the work seriously, for we know this
is no game we play with the lives of blind people. As you read through this
report, witness again and again what it means to raise expectations and how
blind people working with blind people and those who are blind at heart are
truly making a difference.
When you see an agenda that is sixty-two pages in print and 102 pages
in Braille, you can be certain that blind people are involved in everything
under the sun and are prepared to talk about how blindness plays a factor
in it. If there is one document that speaks to the diverse interests of
blind people, it is the convention agenda, and between its covers one could
find more than 130 meetings before the gavel fell on the first day of
session and another twenty-five held between the general sessions.
Our commitment to blind children is always evidenced through a large
number of seminars and workshops aimed at helping parents see that their
children have every chance to succeed. Both our convention agenda and the
agenda of our National Organization of Parents of Blind Children show how
active we are on so many fronts and how committed we are to seeing that our
"future reflections" inherit a world even better than the one we occupy.
When the board meeting began on July 5, the room was filled with
enthusiastic people who responded with a loud cheer to the falling of the
gavel. All members of the board were present and answered enthusiastically
to the roll call.
President Riccobono began by asking for a moment of silence in memory
of those who died during the past year. He recognized thirty-six of our
departed colleagues, and together we honored them and others who may not
have been on the list with a reverent pause.
To help every member get the most out of the convention sessions, we
offered Spanish translation and listening devices that can receive Spanish
or English for those who need them. Conchita Hernandez announced these
services in Spanish, and President Riccobono did the same in English. The
listening devices were provided courtesy of the National Federation of the
Blind Amateur Radio Division.
We stood to pledge our allegiance to the flag of the United States of
America and then to our Federation flag. Both of these pledges resounded
throughout the hall and were recited with pride and reverence.
President Riccobono reviewed the current board of directors with
those assembled. Members whose terms expire at the end of the 2018
Convention were President Mark Riccobono from Maryland; first vice
president Pam Allen from Louisiana; second vice president Ron Brown from
Indiana; secretary James Gashel from Hawaii; treasurer Jeannie Massay from
Oklahoma; and board members Amy Buresh from Nebraska, Shawn Callaway from
the District of Columbia, John Fritz from Wisconsin, Carla McQuillan from
Oregon, Amy Ruell from Massachusetts, and Adelmo Vigil from New Mexico.
Board members not up for reelection in 2018 are Denise Avant from Illinois,
Everette Bacon from Utah, Norma Crosby from Texas, Ever Lee Hairston from
California, Cathy Jackson from Kentucky, and Joe Ruffalo from New Jersey.
In addition to our distinguished board members and more than 1,500
people in the audience, we had the honor of being with Sarah Mosley, a
woman attending her first national convention at age 101. The convention
greeted her with warm applause.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Apl.de.Ap performs for the convention]
The host affiliates for the 2018 Convention were Iowa, Florida, and
Virginia. We were welcomed by each affiliate president, starting with the
president of the National Federation of the Blind of Virginia, Tracy
Soforenko. He urged that all of us be early for the next morning's session
because in the first thirty minutes the host affiliates had arranged for a
first-rate welcome. He next introduced Denise Valkema, the president of the
National Federation of the Blind of Florida, who welcomed all of us to the
host affiliates' suite. She reminded us that there is no better way to
mingle with old friends and make new ones. President Jerad Nylin from the
National Federation of the Blind of Iowa invited all of us to a concert by
the performer Apl.de.Ap, formerly of The Black Eyed Peas. Performers also
included our own James Brown and Marion Gwizdala.
For some time now we have had an ongoing conflict with the Greyhound
bus company because its website and smart phone apps have not been
accessible. Given the extent to which blind people rely on Greyhound to get
from city to city, this is no small inconvenience. After repeated attempts
to talk with the company, we filed a lawsuit. But much to the relief of all
parties, once we sat down together at a table, we found that we had more in
common than we had separating us. Greyhound now understands the
accessibility problems posed by its website and its smart phone apps.
Thanks to the efforts of James Gashel and Timothy Elder, we now have a
working relationship with Greyhound. Mr. Elder, an attorney with TRE Legal
Practice, introduced Tricia Martinez, the senior vice president of legal
affairs at Greyhound. She said that it is important for people to listen to
the concerns of other people, and that Greyhound gets it: "Blind people
deserve access to our services, and that includes our technology.
[applause] You know, I'm going to be a little frank here: we are selfish;
we want your business. We want to be the provider that gets you where you
need to go, and we hope to do that in a way that helps you live the lives
you want to live, including your independence. We are committed to
partnering with the NFB to make sure you have equal access to our services,
and that includes our website and our mobile app."
President Riccobono observed that some partnerships are new while
others are long-standing. An example of the latter is our working
relationship with the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults,
and Immediate Past President Maurer was introduced to make some comments.
He said that the Action Fund has long operated a library from California
but that the library's list of patrons does not justify keeping it open.
Instead of operating a lending library, the Action Fund will give away its
books to those who ask for them, and if they choose to pass them along to
others when they no longer have need of them, the ShareBraille.org service
will provide a mechanism for seeing that the books find a new home. This
service can also be used for next year's flea market of Braille books, so
stay tuned for additional information.
We next turned our attention to the code of conduct passed by the
board of directors, recently published in the Braille Monitor, and found in
the convention agenda. The reason for the code of conduct is to put in
writing the expectations we have long shared for the behavior of our
members, our volunteers, and our guests when we work together on Federation
business. As President Riccobono said, "The code of conduct confirms in
writing what we have had as an expectation amongst our membership in terms
of how we treat each other, how we view equality and equal treatment among
the members, how we value diversity within our organization, and it sets
out in writing how we will hold each other accountable to that conduct."
Jeannie Massay followed up this announcement by saying that any
infraction of the code of conduct could be reported at any time during the
convention, and she provided a phone number that would be continuously
monitored for this purpose. She also said that we know that for a number of
people the national convention of the Federation is the largest gathering
of men and women they will be a part of during the year, and sometimes this
experience of being among so many people can become overwhelming. For the
first time we have implemented a quiet room where a person can step away
for a minute. Someone will be in the room at all times, but it is a place
where one can relax, get reoriented, and make plans to go out and interact
with the crowd.
John Berggren was introduced as our convention coordinator, and he
took the opportunity to remind people about the banquet exchange program.
Buying a banquet ticket gets you a ticket to get into the ballroom, but you
do not yet have a seat. In addition to the traditional meal, we offer a
kosher meal or a vegetarian meal. He said that our convention agenda was
available in Braille, print, and in three different electronic forms
depending on the way you prefer to view it. He also announced our
partnering with internet radio station 195 The Globe, and not only will it
be streaming the convention, but it will be providing interviews and other
information between convention sessions.
Everyone who came to the board meeting had a shared purpose, and that
was to find out where the 2019 Convention would be held. Each time the
upcoming convention was mentioned, people thought we had arrived at the
great reveal, but, to the glee of President Riccobono and the groans of
most of the audience, that announcement was held and was one of the
concluding items of the board meeting.
President Riccobono observed that our agenda would bring Democratic
members of Congress and Republican members of the administration to the
dais, and he reminded us that we are known for the courtesy and respect
that we give to all who come to visit with us. Sometimes our questions may
be pointed and our message is often direct, but in all of our conduct we
are unerringly polite, and this is a tradition we want and will preserve.
All throughout the convention we were active on social media with the
hashtag #NFB18. A review of the tweets sent will reveal both the
anticipation felt during the convention and reactions to the presentations
made. Sometimes the very conciseness demanded by the character limitations
of a tweet make a point more clearly than many words on the subject, and a
review of this year's hashtag will prove to be quite worthwhile.
President Riccobono encouraged everyone to review the Braille
Monitor, the Nation's Blind podcast, and our app for smart phones called
NFB Connect. Although he likes all the ways in which we communicate, he has
a particular fondness for the female host of the podcast. Be sure to check
it out if you don't already know why. To offer a favorite convention memory
that may well make the podcast, call 410-659-9314, extension 2444.
Public service announcements will be available soon after the
convention for download, and some will be sent directly to radio stations.
Two were previewed and excitedly received by the convention.
Although there are some parts of the country in which we enjoy a good
relationship with the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the
Blind and Visually Impaired (AER), its attempts to revive NAC (National
Accreditation Council for Blind and Low Vision Services) and its opposition
to our implementing the National Reading Media Assessment to determine
whether blind people should read Braille, print, or both has put a
significant strain on our relationship. For this reason we are planning an
AER strike, and Everette Bacon came to the microphone to address this.
Because we want members of AER to really come to know and understand us, we
will attend the conference they are holding late in July and will tell them
who we are and our desire to engage in programs of collaboration rather
than confrontation.
Carla McQuillan is the chairperson of the Distinguished Educator of
Blind Children Award Committee. Carla and her committee presented an award
to a teacher who has been in the field for thirty-three years, and more
about this award will be found elsewhere in this issue.
Given the tremendous progress we have made in making more Braille
available and in increasing its instruction in schools and rehabilitation
centers, the National Association to Promote the Use of Braille, a division
of the National Federation of the Blind, has asked the board of directors
to dissolve the division and reconstitute it as a committee. The request of
the division was approved unanimously, and a committee will be appointed by
the President. All divisions of the Federation will continue to support and
use Braille, and our advocacy for the code and the people who need it will
continue with vigor.
Much of the work of the Federation is done through committees, and
anyone wishing to be on one should contact President Riccobono by sending
an email to officeofthepresident at nfb.org or by calling him at 410-659-9314.
In the Federation we have a number of skilled and committed
carpenters, but carpenters cannot work without tools. One of the most
important tools we have is money. The SUN Fund (Shares Unlimited in the
NFB) is a savings account which is to be used as a rainy day or emergency
fund should financial circumstances require its use. Sandy Halverson
coordinates raising money for this fund, and the state of Arizona is number
one in giving to our savings program. Any gift we receive for this fund is
an investment in a financially stable future for the National Federation of
the Blind.
Scott LaBarre addressed the board meeting on the subject of the
Preauthorized Contribution Program, PAC. He explained that the program is
not for political fundraising but is the way we make predictable monthly
contributions to our movement. It has long been our goal to hit a giving
level of half a million dollars a year, and although we have sometimes
reached monthly giving amounts that suggest we will do it, never have we
been able to sustain it for a year. He hopes that this year will be the
exception. At the board meeting we had annualized giving of $477,117.24.
Patti Chang talked with the board and the audience about our Vehicle
Donation Program, which allows us to turn unwanted vehicles into cash for
our programs. She said that we no longer take airplanes, but we do take
cars, trucks, boats, motorcycles, and almost anything that has wheels. To
donate a vehicle people should call 855-659-9314. This is a good program,
and we should work hard to promote it. One car donated last month from New
Jersey helped us raise over $5,000.
GreenDrop is a program which takes gently used clothing, resells it,
and generates money for the organization. For more information about this
program and the states in which it operates, go to www.gogreendrop.com.
The Dream Makers Circle is a relatively new program that will allow
us to make donations to the Federation upon our death. While no one is
looking for your donation soon, all of us will die, and all of us have an
interest in helping those who live on after us to live the lives they want.
For more information about this program call Patti Chang at 410-659-9314,
extension 2422.
At this convention the Kenneth Jernigan Fund celebrates its twentieth
anniversary. Its purpose is to bring new people to the convention who have
never attended before, and this year we gave more than sixty grants to help
people experience the magic of our national convention.
The Blind Educator of the Year award was presented by Dr. Edward
Bell, the chairman of the committee. His presentation and comments by the
winner can be found elsewhere in this issue.
One of our longtime sponsors and a platinum sponsor for this year was
HumanWare. For brief remarks the president of the company, Bruce Miles, was
introduced. This is the thirtieth year in which HumanWare has been in
business, and the company believes that an important ingredient in being
able to serve blind people year after year is the long and productive
relationship with the National Federation of the Blind. Although one
organization is a nonprofit and the other a business, our missions are
complementary: empowering people with vision loss to participate fully in
society, to transform dreams into reality, and to help people live the
lives they want. Another mission we share is to see that blind people have
access to a quality education. The 30 percent employment rate or the 70
percent unemployment rate runs afoul of all the missions we share. For a
few remarks, Mr. Miles introduced Mr. Peter Tucic, a man who has worked for
HumanWare for three years and has been promoted to ambassador for blindness
products at the company. He believes there are two problems we must
address. The first one we are all familiar with: the lack of equal access
to many cloud-based products that will allow us to get instant information
in real-time and in Braille. The second issue is just as significant. It is
convincing blind people that we must start at the bottom, take jobs we
don't really want, learn in those jobs how to be productive and how to be
good self-advocates, and eventually move to the place where we are doing
what we would call our dream job. What many of us lack are introductory
workplace skills, and it is only through focusing on these that we will
narrow the gap between our education and gainful employment. To provide
these introductory work skills, integrated with an understanding of how to
use twenty-first century products in Braille, HumanWare has offered an
internship to Christina Laddie, an eighteen-year-old from Colorado. She
expressed her thanks for the award and for the opportunity to be at the
convention.
For many of us the highlight of the board meeting is the introduction
of our scholarship winners. Cayte Mendez is the chair of the National
Federation of the Blind Scholarship Committee, and she came to introduce
the class of thirty 2018 finalists. Her introductory remarks and the
finalists' remarks to the board of directors can be found elsewhere in this
issue.
So impressed was the board by the 2018 scholarship class that Jeannie
Massay made a motion to continue the program for another year. It was
seconded and passed unanimously.
The National Federation of the Blind Performing Arts Division is
chaired by Julie McGinnity, and as a service to convention goers, it
offered to send a singing telegram to anyone at the convention. As an
example, one was delivered to our President. It consisted simultaneously of
the PAC song and "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey.
Tracy Soforenko again took the stage, this time in his capacity as
the chairman of the Jacobus tenBroek Memorial Fund. The tenBroek fund owns
the building in which the National Federation of the Blind has space. It
will be doing some significant renovations to the space the Federation
occupies, including the creation of new sleeping rooms. The ones now used
were created in 1981, and this upgrade will change the location and add
other amenities that will make people even more comfortable at our
facility. Chairman Soforenko asked that we help figure out ways to raise
money for the fund and this renovation, and he asked that we give
generously when donations are solicited during the convention.
Laura James, the eastern regional community relations manager for
UPS, has been very involved in helping us during the years we have been in
Orlando. She thanked the board for giving her time to make a presentation,
and she said that while she is the regional community relations manager in
most weeks, for this week she is simply one more UPS volunteer. UPS has
been helping the Federation since 1992. She observed that most of the
training that UPS members have gotten in how to work with blind people has
come from three Federationists who themselves have worked for UPS. In
addition to the generous and kind volunteer support UPS has provided over
the years, it has also donated $115,000 to support the organization.
In addition to Laura, about two dozen UPS volunteers appeared with
her. Elainna Moore has led the UPS effort to help the NFB for five of the
last six years; she has worked for UPS for twenty-nine years, is an HR
professional, and sometimes works twelve-hour days for the convention while
at the same time continuing to perform her duties for the company. Elainna
was presented with a crystal vase that says, "In grateful appreciation of
five years to the NFB Community." President Riccobono said, "Thank you,
Laura, congratulations to Elainna, and thank you to all of our UPS
volunteers."
Eve Hill is a person well known to the Federation because of her work
with the Department of Labor, the Department of Justice, and her extensive
legal work for us at Brown, Goldstein & Levy. She was the next to come to
the stage. Because of the importance of her comments, they will be found
elsewhere as an article in this issue.
As the board meeting moved ever closer to conclusion, every member of
the audience could feel the tension, but the calmest among us about reached
the breaking point when the time for the great reveal found President
Riccobono saying, "I am not prepared to announce today." As the audience
began to growl and roar, the President started over, "I am not prepared to
announce today, but someone is prepared to make an announcement, so let's
have the announcement."
[PHOTO CAPTION: The audience standing and clapping after the announcement
of the 2019 National Convention location]
What followed was a taped presentation from Brad Garrett, the actor
who starred as the brother in Everybody Loves Raymond and who also was the
voice of the blowfish Bloat in Finding Nemo. After some discussion of his
career, of the National Federation of the Blind, and of the conventions we
hold, the great reveal came at last: our 2019 Convention will be in Las
Vegas, Nevada, at the Mandalay Bay Resort. The convention will run from
July 7 to July 12, and rates will be ninety-nine dollars for singles,
doubles, triples, and quads. Some of us had to get this information
secondhand, because the cheering proved to be louder than the name of the
hotel. People were ecstatic, and the wait was over at last.
Pam Allen took the microphone in her capacity as chairman of the
board. She said that people are excited about the 2019 Convention, but the
2018 Convention is still ahead and one which will live long in our
memories. We had so many new convention attendees this year that we did not
have enough ribbons for those who attended the Rookie Roundup. On that
happy note and with an inspirational quotation from John Lennon, Pam
concluded her report. The beautiful quotation she ended with was: A dream
we dream alone is only a dream, but a dream we dream together becomes
reality.
Immediately following the board meeting and the lively discussion
about Mandalay Bay and Las Vegas, members gathered for a meeting of the
sports and recreation division, the NFB deaf-blind division held a business
meeting, the seniors division met to discuss an upcoming retreat, and the
Diabetes Action Network held a seminar to learn about new accessible
diabetes equipment coming to market and strategies for living well with
diabetes. The National Association of Blind Lawyers met to discuss
strategies for getting more people involved in the field and the work that
must be done to advance our cause in the courts of our nation. The National
Federation of the Blind in Computer Science met to discuss the ever-
changing technology that so many of us rely on for work, at home, and more
and more in our recreational pursuits. The performing arts division met to
discuss how to break into the field of acting, the National Association of
Blind Veterans held a welcoming reception with food and a cash bar for its
members, the National Organization of Blind Educators discussed the
techniques teachers use in their classrooms, and the National Association
of Blind Merchants met to discuss defending the Randolph-Sheppard Program
against ongoing attacks and new initiatives of the division including a
women's entrepreneur initiative. These and many more divisions will no
doubt take advantage of the opportunity to discuss their meetings at
greater length in this and future issues of the magazine throughout the
fall. Whether you wanted to participate in sword fighting or work on
meditation and mindfulness, there was something for you that happened on
the afternoon and evening of July 5.
[PHOTO CAPTION: The Ladies from Sweet Adeline's]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Singers from Vintage Mix performing]
When the gavel fell on the morning of July 6, the 2018 National
Convention was officially in order. After an invocation from Tom Anderson,
who heads our communities of faith division, and a $100 door prize to
recognize one lucky person who made it to convention on time, the welcoming
ceremonies began. Chairman Tracy Soforenko welcomed to the stage a group
from Sweet Adeline's called "The Ladies." This group was so good that it
not only received applause at the end of each song but drew applause
several times in the middle of particularly complicated arrangements
superbly executed. This group was followed to the stage by quadruplets who
formed the group called "Vintage Mix." They concluded their three-song set
with a tribute to veterans by singing "Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy."
The welcome ceremony ended with three moving presentations, each made
by the presidents of our host affiliates of Florida, Iowa, and Virginia.
These remarks can be heard by going to the convention highlights page found
at
https://nfb.org/images/nfb/audio/2018_convention_highlights/july_6/am/01_wel
coming_ceremonies.mp3.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Impact of Orlando drummers marching down the aisle]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Impact of Orlando buglers marching in the aisle]
Dwight Sayer is the president of the National Association of Blind
Veterans. He took the stage to honor the brave men and women who had risked
their lives for the freedoms we enjoy. He led the traditional ceremony in
which veterans came across the stage, introduced themselves, and were given
a special ribbon. We were honored to have in attendance a seven-member
color guard and the incredible Impact of Orlando Drum and Bugle Corps. They
marched through every aisle, serenading us with the rhythmic beat of drums
that found the audience constantly applauding. We then recited the Pledge
of Allegiance, immediately followed by the singing of the national anthem
performed by Julie McGinnity of the performing arts division and Impact of
Orlando.
The convention next moved to the roll call of states. Alaska received
a cheer when its rejection of the payment of subminimum wages was
announced. Arizona passed a blind parents bill of rights, and it was
approved unanimously by the legislature. Colorado also passed a parental
rights bill of which they are rightly proud. The Idaho affiliate was proud
to have the director of the Idaho Commission for the Blind, and Illinois
announced that at its next convention there will be a celebration of the
affiliate's fiftieth anniversary. In addition to its always impressive list
of leaders in the Federation and throughout the field of blindness,
Maryland was proud to announce that it is the first state in the nation to
provide for civil penalties against those who sell inaccessible products to
the state. Nebraska proudly reported that it too has had a parental rights
bill signed into law, and so enthusiastic was the response by
Federationists and others with disabilities that we overflowed the
governor's hearing room during the bill signing. New Mexico proudly
announced that it has a totally accessible voting system, and the Virginia
affiliate joyfully announced that it would next be holding its sixtieth
annual convention. Washington state enthusiastically proclaimed that in
Seattle the subminimum wage is no more. With all fifty-two affiliates
having reported, the morning session adjourned.
Most people would say that two predictable highlights of every
convention are the presidential report and the banquet speech. One starts
the convention, the other ends it. When the afternoon session was called to
order, the presidential report was the first order of business, and it did
not disappoint. In the last year we have dreamed and planned for the future
while tackling the problems of today. Whether it is conducting public
education, raising the expectations of blind people, enforcing our civil
rights through legal action, creating better public policy through service
on boards and commissions, or working with companies to pioneer new
technology or enhance that which exists, the National Federation of the
Blind stands on the frontlines. We expect our President to guide and direct
all of these efforts, and he does. He expects that in return we give our
time, talent, treasure, and tremendous imagination to work with him, and we
do. As he says, "Without you, there is no us." All of this is found in the
"2018 Presidential Report," which is presented immediately following this
roundup.
Currently we have ninety-five people who make up the Dream Maker's
Circle, not including those who have asked to remain anonymous. Their names
were read aloud to the convention, and it expressed its appreciation
through cheers and applause.
3DPhotoWorks is a company most readers have heard about frequently in
these pages, and the exhibit at the Newseum in Washington DC, gave many of
us who attended the Washington Seminar a tremendous opportunity to feel the
pictures that were featured in LIFE magazine and propelled its
photographer, John Olson, into the public spotlight. He was the next person
to come to the stage, and in his presentation he told the story of how
3DPhotoWorks came to be, about the role of the National Federation of the
Blind in believing in his project and in helping him fund it, and about the
importance of protecting one's lunch when attending a state convention. You
can look for Mr. Olson's remarks to be printed in full in an upcoming
issue.
One significant philosophical challenge we face today is determining
how we will incorporate new technology into our lives and the lives of
other blind people without compromising on the need to teach and to retain
what we have long considered to be basic skills of blindness. In the
presentation "Directing Big Data and Technological Innovation: Perspectives
on the Importance of Leadership by the Blind," Chancey Fleet brings both
tremendous perspective and wise counsel. As we consider how to integrate
the information we can acquire with our senses using low-tech techniques,
while incorporating visual information that new technology brings through
the use of artificial intelligence and visual interpreters, she offers that
wonderful mix of philosophical integrity and a rich sense of technology for
which she is so well known. As she says, "We can improvise with technology,
perform our own access when we need to, and teach our fellows how that's
done, but let's keep the beat of the drums of freedom, the careful
cultivation of embodied skills that don't rely on technology but rely on
our self-trust and self-respect." Her remarks will appear in full elsewhere
in this issue.
President Riccobono introduced what was to come next in this way:
"Our next speaker describes his passions as 'innovation, personal
development, changing paradigms, people, and the adventures of life.' Well,
that sounds a lot like the National Federation of the Blind. His company
has never presented at this convention before, but I suspect his company's
product has been in many people's pockets: does anybody use Be My Eyes?
[applause] Their work is authentically driven by the perspective of blind
people, and here to talk with us about the blind and a new worldwide crowd
for access to information is the CEO and cofounder of Be My Eyes. Here's
Christian Erfurt."
Mr. Erfurt described Be My Eyes and the collaboration that brought it
about. He said that the service links blind people who need assistance with
sighted volunteers. There are currently 86,000 blind users, 1.4 million
sighted volunteers, that the service is available in 150 countries, and
that assistance is offered in 180 languages. The service is available
twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. "Our efforts were recently
recognized by Google as we were given the best accessibility award by
Google. [applause] But that means nothing compared to being here in front
of you and having an opportunity for your feedback and to hear your
applause. Thank you for that." But Be My Eyes is more than a service for
people helping people; it has greater ambitions. "One thing that I am very,
very proud of with Be My Eyes is that the willingness to help one another
is not only in some of us; it is in all of us, no matter your cultural
background, your nationality, your religion-people are connecting globally
every day and minimizing the gaps between us and them in terms of borders
and religions, and realizing that we have one big global citizenship and
that we should care more about each other." [applause] Mr. Erfurt's remarks
will appear in an upcoming issue.
Undoubtedly the most significant force in social media is Facebook,
and the director of global public policy for the company, Monica Desai, was
our next presenter. In her remarks she said, "With respect to our ethos,
our mission is to bring the world closer together, and that means everyone.
Accessibility is a core part of that mission. Consider, for example, that
on Facebook one in ten people use the zoom feature on the desktop browser,
20 percent of people increase the font size on iOS, and over 100,000 people
use screen readers on desktop and mobile devices to use Facebook. We want
to make it possible for anyone, regardless of ability, to access the
information and connections that happen on Facebook."
One of the projects Ms. Desai is most excited about is Facebook's
automatic alternative text feature. It uses artificial intelligence to
identify pictures and write captions, relying less on sighted users to do
something that is unnatural (picture description), and making the process
automated. The goal is not just to identify how many people there are in a
photo and who they are but to say something significant about what is
happening in the photo. The company is also excited about the navigation
assistant that it designed specifically for screen readers using both the
desktop and mobile devices. Facebook recognizes that one of the obstacles
to accessibility is that few people know how to implement it because it is
seldom part of the curriculum in computer science programs. Therefore the
company is part of an industrywide initiative to change this and recently
received an award for their work. Facebook also realizes that understanding
accessibility requires hiring people with disabilities who rely on that
accessibility. The remarks made by Ms. Desai will appear later in the fall.
President Riccobono introduced the next item on the agenda in this
way: "Our next presentation comes from someone who is not a first-timer to
the stage. This is the second time, and he also represents a technology
that many in the room have dealt with, Aira. [applause] The Aira
corporation has been very disruptive to the technology companies in the
blindness field, and I think that's what the CEO intended-to be disruptive.
They are very aggressively working on developing new services and a
platform that is driven and directed by the hopes and dreams of blind
people. By moving aggressively that sometimes means that they try some
things; sometimes those things work, and sometimes they don't. As part of
their commitment, they have done certain things like making this convention
a place where you can try Aira out for free. ... I believe there is great
value in our working with technology startups and bringing our authentic
experience to technology companies, and it is so much easier to do when
they have a real, genuine interest in learning from us and incorporating
our point of view into their products. I think the CEO of Aira has
exhibited this. Last year he was in and around this convention under
blindfold, traveling with a cane, not to show solidarity but to learn
something. He has listened to many, many people at this convention and
throughout the year, both the good and the bad, but he is prepared to
innovate on behalf of blind people and to innovate with us. So here is the
cofounder and CEO of Aira, a good friend of the National Federation of the
Blind, Suman Kanuganti."
Suman began his remarks by saying, "I am delighted to be attending my
fourth NFB convention [applause], an early July tradition that I plan to
celebrate with all of you for years to come. ... Aira is proud to be a part
of the NFB family. Many of you have played a vital role in molding our
company. I am grateful to President Mark Riccobono and all of you for being
vital stakeholders, creating a platform to augment the ability of every
human being on the planet by providing instant access to information
anywhere at any time." This highly energetic and moving presentation will
appear elsewhere in this issue.
At the conclusion of Mr. Kanuganti's remarks, President Riccobono
offered one more announcement prior to the close of the session. He said
that the NFB is all about developing partnerships, and our latest
partnership is with the Kellogg Corporation. Jessica Waller, the senior
vice president of sales, said that more information about our partnership
and the initiatives that are planned will be forthcoming in August. Like
the NFB, the Kellogg Corporation believes strongly in education and will be
working with us in this arena in the near future.
The last matter of the day was the announcement that the NFB and our
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children gave away $10,000 of
technology to blind children in memory of the late Megan Bening. Our hope
is to do this again next year, and this can happen if we purchase a five-
dollar angel pin from one of our blind children. For every five dollars in
sold pins, a technology company in Virginia will make a matching donation.
The Rev. Dr. Carolyn Peters began the Saturday morning session with
an invocation, and we then moved to the financial report read by President
Riccobono. A review of our financials for 2017 shows that we had income
that exceeded expenses by about $1 million. Given that we do not borrow
money, this is a good figure. The more troubling figures are found in the
first five months of 2018 in which we find ourselves with expenses
exceeding income by about the same amount, $1 million. What this means is
that we are active and successful in getting public support, but the need
is ever present, and we must always regard seeking funding for our programs
as a major priority in the work we do.
After a motivational PAC report from Scott LaBarre and the spirited
roll call from our state affiliates and divisions to raise money for the
tenBroek and general fund, we next moved to elections. Pam Allen was the
chairman of the nominating committee, and she read the slate that the
committee proposed.
We then moved to the election, and the name of Mark Riccobono was
placed in nomination for President. He was elected by acclamation and said,
"Thank you very much, my Federation family. It is truly the deepest honor
to serve in the office of the President for this tremendous organization. I
have to credit each and every one of you for the work that you do to make
what we do look easy. Each and every one of us knows that it's not easy,
but what you do in supporting the leadership of this organization makes it
practical for any of us to serve. So I'm humbled, honored, and inspired by
the work that happens every day by people with big hearts in this
organization. It wouldn't be possible to serve in the office of the
President, I don't think, without the awesome support and leadership that
Melissa Riccobono provides to this organization. [applause] I continue to
pledge to do all that I can to build this organization in the good times
and in the face of challenges. We are making tremendous progress, but there
is so much more we can do. The beautiful thing is that it gets more fun
every day-more fun every day. So thank you for the honor of serving; I will
always do everything I can for this organization, and I love each and every
one of you. Thank you."
Pam Allen of Louisiana was nominated to fill the position of first
vice president. She was enthusiastically reelected unanimously. She began
her acceptance speech by saying: "Thank you, my Federation family, for this
truly humbling honor. Mark Caine said that, 'The first step toward success
is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you
first find yourself.' In the National Federation of the Blind we refuse to
be captives of low expectations, stereotypes about blindness, and
unfulfilled dreams. We know that by coming together at our local chapters,
in our affiliates and divisions, and here at this convention, we will be
challenged to stretch ourselves and to accomplish more than we ever thought
possible. In the National Federation of the Blind we know firsthand about
the power of working together, the strength and the energy that we draw
from the bonds of love and commitment that unite us. We know that our
collective efforts bring about individual and systemic change and that
change is life-giving and allows us to grow into someone and collectively
something greater than we would ever have believed possible. Think about
how different our lives would be today if those Federationists who met in
1940 had not taken a stand and joined together to organize, and imagine how
different the lives of all blind people are and will continue to be because
of the commitment we demonstrate. The work we do each day, whether it is
talking with a new member, answering questions from a parent of a blind
child or a senior losing vision, working to end discrimination, getting
legislation passed to protect the rights of blind parents, the risks we
take and the possibilities we imagine make our hopes and dreams a reality.
We have been nurtured and mentored by our leaders: Dr. tenBroek, Dr.
Jernigan, and Dr. Maurer, and now by President Riccobono, who shows us each
day through his example and words what it truly means to be a leader. His
love for us and unwavering dedication to this organization are
unparalleled, and also the commitment of our First Lady Melissa, whose
passion, wisdom, and never-ending commitment inspire us. Thank you to each
of you and to the thousands of members listening online who live the lives
they want each day and share our message of hope and empowerment, the
heartbeat of our organization.
"Serving as your first vice president is truly a blessing, and I
continue to learn from all of you every day. I'm inspired and motivated as
I stand before you, and I pledge to all of you to keep fighting, keep
pushing the envelope, keep serving and leading with love. Thank you, my
Federation family, and especially my husband Roland, for your love, trust,
and support. Together we stand, united we will not be defeated. Let's go
build the National Federation of the Blind. Thank you."
The name of Ron Brown from Indiana was recommended by the committee
for election to the office of second vice president, his nomination was
seconded, and he was voted into the office unanimously. Ron told the
convention it was an honor and a privilege to serve on the board, and he
said that the other day someone asked him if he had lived his best destiny.
In reflecting on the question, Ron has concluded that he is living it right
now, and the reason is that the Federation gave him the tools to be
successful and is now giving him the opportunity to give back.
The name of James Gashel from Hawaii was placed before the convention
by the committee. He was elected to the office of secretary unanimously.
Mr. Gashel said that he joined this movement in 1965 and the 2018 National
Convention is his fifty-second. He said that though he is getting older,
the vibrancy, the excitement, the energy, and the innovation of the
National Federation of the Blind never gets old. He concluded by saying,
"In rising to meet the challenge, I'm awfully impressed by the
responsibility you think I can fulfill as one of the leaders of this
organization, and the one thing I can definitely tell you is that in rising
to meet this challenge, I will do everything in my power never to let you
down."
For the position of treasurer, the name of Jeannie Massay of Oklahoma
was placed in nomination. She was elected unanimously, and she began by
thanking the convention for the trust placed in her to lead in the
organization. "All of this is very emotional. You know, we talk about
changing lives, and I can tell you that the Federation changed the
trajectory of my life. It is so important for us to find people where they
are and help them get to where they want to be. That's what we're all
about."
The name of Amy Buresh from Nebraska was submitted for board position
number one. She was elected by acclamation. Amy said: "My Federation
brothers and sisters, it is a blessing and a privilege to stand here before
you today. I recently read a quote that said that everything you do in your
life to others comes back into your own. That is so true with the work we
do here in the National Federation of the Blind. We come in lost, lonely,
afraid, maybe frustrated, maybe held back, and tired of waiting for action
from other people, and here we find friends, family, shoulders to cry on,
to lean on, to stand upon as we strengthen ourselves and our movement. As
John Holmes said, 'There is no exercise better for the heart then reaching
down and lifting people up.' That is exactly what we do here each and every
day."
Shawn Callaway from Washington, DC was nominated to fill board
position two. The convention agreed with the committee, and Shawn was
elected by acclamation. Shawn began by thanking his wife and his daughter
and by thanking God for their being in his life. He then offered a quote by
Martin Luther King stressing the importance of equality for all men and
women. He said that while our country has been slow to address some of the
major civil rights issues that confront us, he believes that his work in
the Federation has provided a model demonstrating that people of all races,
religions, sexual orientations, and other diverse beliefs cannot only get
along but can become trusted friends and mentors.
John Fritz from Wisconsin was nominated to fill board position three.
John was elected by acclamation. John said that he came to the Federation
as a scholarship winner and that this might give current finalists some
idea of the future in store for them if they so choose. John thanked his
wife Heather and all of his children for their support in doing the work
that takes so much time, energy, and commitment from all of them.
For board position four the committee placed in nomination the name
of Carla McQuillan from Oregon. She was elected by acclamation. Carla said
that when she was first elected to the board in 1998, she was told by Dr.
Jernigan that she was the youngest serving member of the board and the
second youngest ever to have served. Though she is no longer the youngest
member, she still brings tremendous energy to the work of the Federation
because of the people in the organization who, through their example,
continue to encourage and inspire her. Though she did not mention it, she
is the inspiration for many of these people as well. She thanked her
husband Lucas: "I am so blessed that I have someone who puts up with the
likes of me every day, and he says he loves it. Thank you for your support,
Lucas." [applause]
The name of Amy Ruell of Massachusetts was submitted for board
position number five. She was elected by acclamation. In thanking the
convention for her reelection she said, "I want to thank all of you for
your support, your mentorship, your kindness, and your forbearance because,
as any of you who know me is aware, I speak my mind. It is good to be in an
organization that allows for different opinions to be spoken and respected.
I also want to say that from the first time I joined the Federation and was
given the opportunity for leadership and the first gavel I received from
the students, I have taken this on as a tremendous responsibility and
commitment. Although the initial draw of the Federation was the work that
we do in advocacy, what keeps me going when I'm tired and when I wonder
whether I have enough energy is the knowledge that I, along with all of
you, have the opportunity to help other people to achieve their goals,
realize their dreams, and live the life they want. Thank you all, and let's
continue to build the National Federation of the Blind."
For board position six, the final position to be filled this year,
the nominating committee submitted the name of Adelmo Vigil of New Mexico.
Margot Downey from New York was also nominated to fill this position. Both
candidates made brief presentations as to why they believe they should be
elected to the board, and after their speeches the vote was to seat Adelmo
Vigil. After thanking the convention for his election, Adelmo said: "I can
tell you that when I joined the Federation back in 1983, I was mentored by
many of you. I felt very alone before I joined the National Federation of
the Blind, but when I went to that first convention, I felt like all of us
were family. Today I can tell you that the family continues to grow. I want
to thank my wife Soledad for all the support that she has given to me
throughout the years. [applause] I want to thank all of you because if it
wasn't for you, none of us would be here. I pledge to you that I will do
everything that I can to continue to help all of us live the life we want.
Thank you."
At the conclusion of the election, President Riccobono said, "Thank
you very much to all of the leaders serving on the national board of
directors. It's an honor to serve with you, and I look forward to the next
year ahead. How about a door prize for our elected leadership?"
One of the most inspiring speeches of the convention was presented by
Joanne Gabias, and it was entitled "What Does Blind Have to Do with It? The
Right to Parent from a Sighted Daughter's Perspective." In making the
introduction for this presentation, President Riccobono noted that some
people will say, "Well, I hear what you're saying, but how do the sighted
children of blind parents feel about it?" Though we think we know how our
children feel, we wonder what they would say if asked by someone other than
us. Joanne Gabias gave a most moving presentation about what it was like
for her and her brothers to be the children of blind parents, and it will
appear elsewhere in this issue.
Josi Viera is the new executive director for the World Blind Union.
He has extensive work in civil rights and comes well prepared for his new
job. He began his presentation by talking about his first significant
contact with the National Federation of the Blind, that being in 2016. He
said that he and some of his friends were at first amazed and a bit put off
by the talking human signs they found at the general assembly; they laughed
among themselves. But after a time what they thought silly turned out to be
something they found inspirational. These are the blind helping the blind,
they said. We do not have to wait for other people to help us; we can help
ourselves. He said that this is one of the most significant things they
took away from the conference.
Mr. Viera said that if people with disabilities all came together to
form a country, it would be the third largest in the world. What unites
people with disabilities is that most of us live in poverty, that we have
tremendous needs, and that we all share the desire to be productive and
competitive. He believes that the World Blind Union, following the example
of the National Federation of the Blind, can begin to change the world for
blind people, and he pledged that the World Blind Union and the National
Federation of the Blind would continue to work together to see that this is
done. His remarks can be heard in full at
https://nfb.org/images/nfb/audio/2018_convention_highlights/july_7/am/02_com
mon_bonds_of_blindness_around_the_world.mp3.
The afternoon session began with a presentation entitled "Leading
with Conviction: Making Equality for People with Disabilities the Priority
for the United States of America." It was presented by Neil Romano who is
the chairperson of the National Council on Disability. He has previously
served as an assistant secretary in the United States Department of Labor
under the George W. Bush administration, and he was appointed by Congress
to serve in this capacity in 2015. He is now serving in his second term,
and it is clear that we could not have a stronger advocate in support of
abolishing section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act which permits the
payment of subminimum wages to people with disabilities, including those
who are blind. A copy of his remarks will appear in this magazine later in
the fall.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Mark Riccobono and Congressman Darren Soto]
The Honorable Darren Soto, who serves in the United States House of
Representatives for the Ninth Congressional District of Florida came to the
podium to speak on the topic "Raising Expectations for the Nation from
Florida's Ninth Congressional District." Congressman Soto supports all of
the issues that we support and have caused to be introduced in this
legislative session, and his presentation is a testament to how committed
he is to each of these. His remarks can be heard by going to
https://nfb.org/images/nfb/audio/2018_convention_highlights/july_7/pm/02_rai
sing_expectations_for_the_nation.mp3.
Passion is something we have in abundance in the Federation, but it
is hard to think of anyone more visibly passionate than our executive
director for advocacy and policy, John Pari. "A Record Year of Advocacy for
the Blind of America: a Report from the Advocacy and Policy Department" was
the topic on which he spoke, and indeed we have had a record year in terms
of our accomplishments. His remarks will appear in an upcoming issue, as
will a summary of those made by Scott LaBarre on the subject of the
Marrakesh treaty and its ratification. At the end of the advocacy and
policy report, President Riccobono said, "Thank you, John for going all the
way for the blind of America, and thank you to our entire advocacy and
policy team, both paid and unpaid. Without you we couldn't get it done, so
congratulations to all of us."
Before moving to the next agenda item, President Riccobono took time
to introduce our convention sponsors. Here is what he said: "I want to take
a moment to acknowledge our sponsors here at this convention. First let me
make a few comments. We have a record number of sponsors at this convention
[applause], and I've been surprised that a few folks have said during the
course of this convention 'Well, I know you have to give so-and-so time;
they are a sponsor.' I encourage you to read our sponsorship material. We
don't sell time on the stage. You can't get up here by paying; it doesn't
happen. [applause] We invite folks we think have something important to
say, or who we want to say something important to, or both. Some of them
happen to be sponsors, and even when they are sponsors we still tell them
how it is if you're a blind person. You can't pay to speak at the National
Federation of the Blind.
"I think the fact that we invite many of our sponsors to speak and/or
the fact that we push on a number of our sponsors to get the work done
that's needed for blind people speaks to who we are. Some of the folks on
this list of sponsors did not start out as our friends. In fact it took a
long time for some of them to be our friends, but now they are our best
friends because they know that we will work with them honestly and that we
will not sell out blind people. Working together we are making a
difference. We appreciate our sponsors. I know that they appreciate it when
our members stop and thank them for sponsoring.
"This year we have seven Platinum sponsors. They are: Aira Tech Corp,
Enhanced Vision/Freedom Scientific/Optelec, Google Inc., HumanWare,
Microsoft Corporation, UPS, and Vanda Pharmaceuticals.
"Our Gold sponsors: Brown, Goldstein & Levy LLP, HIMS Inc., JPMorgan
Chase & Co., Market Development Group Inc., Oracle, Target, and Uber.
"Our Silver sponsors: are Adobe, Amazon, AT&T, Automattic
(WordPress.com), Facebook, Pearson, and Sprint.
"Bronze: Charter Communications, Delta, Educational Testing Service
(ETS), Lyft, Monster Worldwide Inc., National Industries for the Blind,
NReach, VitalSource Technologies, Waymo, and Wells Fargo.
"White cane: C&P - Chris Park Design, Chicago Lighthouse for the
Blind, Dallas Lighthouse for the Blind, Duxbury Systems Inc., En-Vision
America, Envision Inc., Federal Bureau of Investigation, LC Industries,
McGraw-Hill, OrCam Technologies, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Rosen Bien
Galvan & Grunfeld LLP, San Francisco LightHouse for the Blind and Visually
Impaired, Scribd, and last but not least our good friend, TRE Legal
Practice."
Twenty resolutions were submitted for consideration by the
convention. All of them were available for review on the website when they
were passed by committee and then adopted or rejected by the convention. A
full report of the resolutions and the text of those that passed can be
found elsewhere in this issue.
After acting on the resolutions the afternoon session was adjourned.
In the evening Amazon presented a showcase of the products it offers that
are accessible. It also held what it called a Night at the Movies, which
included popcorn and snacks. A workshop was held for members whose states
are becoming vote-by-mail states, the goal being to provide members with
the tools to advocate for accessibility. A seminar on Social Security and
SSI was held to help people better understand eligibility criteria, the
application process, reporting obligations, and situations in which people
can work while receiving Social Security benefits. A seminar was held for
Braille proofreaders, the need for Braille proofreading increasing as more
Braille is made available. The annual NFB job fair was held to link
employers who want to find blind people with blind job applicants. This
session not only included meeting and greeting employers and job seekers
but also it included a session on polishing a resumi, how to dress for
success, and how to prepare oneself to talk with an employer.
Of course there was the traditional showcase of talent presented by
the performing arts division as well as a friends of recovery meeting, not
that the two are in any way related. This is the point where the reviewer,
especially the president, probably questions the wisdom of the foregoing.
On what is sometimes called the longest day of the convention,
President Riccobono brought the session to order and asked that David
Stayer deliver the invocation.
The first program item of the morning was delivered by Nicky Gacos,
the president of the National Association of Blind Merchants. He said that
some businesses which once dominated corporate America no longer exist;
some are traceable to other businesses that have replaced them, but some
are also traceable to the fact that there are fewer people who want to buy
in our country. We have systemic problems we must address. When he entered
the program, there were 4,000 blind merchants. Now there are 1,839 of them.
The average age of blind merchants is around sixty. We need young people.
Some of the sites we have are attractive to other businesses, and either we
mount a defense of the program or we lose out. But we have no intention of
losing out, and as our National Association of Blind Merchants president
makes clear, we have no intention of losing. To hear his delightfully
humorous and moving remarks, go to
https://nfb.org/images/nfb/audio/2018_convention_highlights/july_8/am/01_the
_untapped_potential_of_blind_entrepreneurs.mp3.
Our much beloved Anil Lewis came to the podium to address the topic
"A Movement of Excellence Built upon Blind Experience: A Report from Our
Jernigan Institute." He began by explaining that we operate so many
programs that it is impossible to cover them all in one presentation. He
also modestly observed that he serves with people who are the real experts
in many of these, and he has the wonderful job of coordinating their energy
and talent.
Some of the most interesting work we do is with young people, and
dramatic differences in attitudes and skills can be observed in the
challenging environments we present. Anil notes that we give people
opportunities that they don't normally have in their day-to-day lives or
opportunities they are denied when their classmates have them. When we show
them that something can be done and they next encounter a similar barrier,
their response is "Slam that!" But as important as opportunity is, we also
give students the chance to fail and to regard that failure as a learning
opportunity and not an insurmountable barrier. For the student who got lost
we teach proper problem-solving skills that will allow him or her to be
successful and have a brighter future. This is us: building our movement of
excellence on the successes of blind people.
We have recently completed a grant to make six science museums around
the country nonvisually accessible. Based in part on our success, we have
been awarded a second grant for the Spatial Ability and Blind Engineering
Research (SABER) project. This project will focus on the complex mental
manipulation of shapes and will involve engineering design from concept to
tactile drafting to model construction.
Then there is our Center for Excellence in Nonvisual Access and the
work we have done at the request of the New York City school system to help
it make its systems accessible. The Jernigan Institute now has a research
advisory council, and its job is to make sure that we are an active and
vital part of all research that's going forward that may affect people who
are blind.
Our executive director posed an interesting question to the audience.
If we are asked to help with a project to develop a haptic windshield that
will be placed in the back of a car and will let us see where we have been,
should we become involved? When put to a vote, the audience was timid, and
he thought this was good because there is no clear yes or no. Having a
display of where we've been may not be a good idea, but being involved in
the creation of a device that can give us a tactile representation of
something we otherwise would not see is a good idea. Maybe it won't be the
back windshield of a vehicle; maybe it will be something we can place on
our lap, and perhaps we will be able to control the focus of the thing it
is that we want to touch. So the answer is that we work with the
developers, encourage them, and direct them in ways that will be helpful to
us.
In his last major item Anil discussed the career mentoring program we
are now rolling out. In this program we go beyond connecting one mentor and
one mentee. Our goal is to connect one mentee with many mentors, thereby
increasing the richness of the mentee's experience and helping to ensure
that no one mentor feels overloaded by the responsibility he or she has
undertaken.
Anil concluded by saying, "We must share our philosophy everywhere we
go, and in everything we do we must be real to ourselves. In every place
that we go and in every program that we operate, our philosophy must be the
same. We must travel and wear different hats in so many different places,
but in every place, regardless the hat, we are wearing it on our Federation
head."
Carlton Anne Cook Walker is a familiar name to most Federationists.
Most of us know her daughter Anna Catherine, but few of us know the story
of Steve, Carlton, and Anna Catherine coming to the National Federation of
the Blind and why. In a moving presentation Carlton explained how job one
was saving her daughter's life, that job two was learning that Anna
Catherine is blind and figuring out that what she needed would not easily
be gotten from the educational professionals who were to help her, and that
job three was getting the training and associating with the right people to
see that her daughter would have a chance at living the life she wants.
Carlton's presentation will be found in an upcoming issue of this magazine.
"Raising Expectations for Education and Rehabilitation: Creating
Opportunities for the Blind through the United States Department of
Education" was presented by the assistant secretary in the Office of
Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, Johnny Collett. The
secretary said that many of the conclusions he has arrived at about special
education have come from his years of experience in many different
capacities within education and human services. One of the things he has
learned is that a number of agencies end up serving the same people even
though they may have different relationships with them: one might call a
person a student, one a client, one a patient, one a juvenile offender. The
take away for him was that the agencies with which he has worked needed to
coordinate so that they treated a person and not a symptom. They needed to
focus not only on getting better separately as individual service providers
but to consider how much better for the individual if they got better
collaboratively. The result would most certainly be that collectively they
would have an outcome greater than the sum of its parts. He said that
service providers have to see the difficulties encountered by children not
as problems with kids and families but as problems for our agencies to
solve for our children. He believes that the problem is not that people
don't work hard. If solving the problem for our children was just about
working hard, we would already have solved it. He believes the answer is to
be found in working differently and working collaboratively. Our work
should be about preparing individuals, not protecting turf.
At the conclusion of his remarks, three questions were directed to
Assistant Secretary Collett. A charitable characterization of his answers
would be that they were a bit vague and general. A more straightforward
characterization would be that they were a polite refusal to answer. It is
not at all clear that the assistant secretary is prepared to be an advocate
for integrated employment or that he is prepared to put pressure on the
states to follow the law in making Braille the default reading medium for
blind people and seeing that students get quality instruction in it.
Courtesy and respect are absolutely essential in discussing contentious
issues, but neither will serve as a real justification for evasion.
Listening is essential, but it is not the same as engaging in real
dialogue.
In a wonderful change of pace and mood, we were next treated to the
item entitled "Playing Your Hand: A Blind Songwriter Doing What It Takes to
Live the Life He Wants." The presenter was JP Williams, a performer,
songwriter, and accessibility technology professional who lives in
Nashville. Fortunately Indiana, the state in which he was born, started him
on the path to learning Braille at age four. When he was six, he and his
parents moved to Texas. Even with all the talent this man brings to life,
the educational system in Dallas said that because he was blind he was not
teachable, and the agreement was that he would go through school and be
given an attendance certificate. He and his parents did not know that this
was unnecessarily limiting, and it wasn't until his junior year of high
school that he realized he was not accumulating the credits necessary to go
to college. He transferred to the Tennessee School for the Blind, got his
high school credits, went on to college, and graduated. Putting aside all
of the misconceptions about compensatory senses and the blind having
greater musical talent, the truth is that to make it in Nashville is tough,
and blindness doesn't make it one bit easier. But JP Williams has dared to
follow his dreams, and the presentation that outlines how his life has gone
so far will appear in an upcoming issue of this magazine.
We need more blind people on stage and on the big screen. Given that
blind people represent a cross section of our society, it stands to reason
that some of us want to be actors and that some of us have the talent to
fulfill that dream. Marilee Talkington is a blind actor, writer, director,
and activist. The presentation she gave was entitled "Authentically Blind
on Stage and Screen: One Blind Actress Transforms Obstacles into Stepping
Stones." In her moving narrative she talked about how risky it is to dream,
how difficult it is when those dreams don't initially pan out, how much
pressure there is to perform when one truly gets the opportunity, and the
satisfaction that comes when one is successful and is challenged to do even
more. Ms. Talkington's spectacular performance that moved every person in
the room at our 2018 National Convention will appear later in the fall.
Our morning session concluded with the presentation that was well
worth delaying our lunch. It was entitled "Overcoming Obstacles and
Recognizing Opportunities: A Blind Entrepreneur Breaks through Barriers
Everywhere He Builds." Its presenter started out as a childhood actor,
graduated from Harvard at the age of nineteen with two degrees (one in
mathematics and the other in computer science), became a lawyer, went on to
work as a clerk for two Supreme Court justices, cofounded an internet
startup, and now is an entrepreneur in central Florida running a company
that does $150 million of business every year. Our presenter was Isaac
Lidsky. He began by describing his career as a childhood actor and what it
felt like at age thirteen to learn that he was going blind. He thought that
he knew about blindness, and he harbored all of the fears and
misconceptions that most people do. He described his transformation in
thinking and explained that every day when he encounters people who have
misconceptions about blindness, he makes himself remember how he felt and
takes the opportunity to teach them the new reality that he understands and
lives. His moving words will appear in full later this year.
To begin the final convention session before the annual banquet,
President Riccobono introduced our next guest by saying: "Our first agenda
item is 'From Raising Wages to Defending the Right to Live in the World: A
Champion for Disability Rights and Friend of the Blind.' We have a
gentleman who was born in Pennsylvania. He has distinguished himself
through strong service both to our nation and as a champion for equality of
opportunity. After a year of law school he was drafted into the United
States Army in 1968, where he won several medals. He began his legal career
in private practice in 1972 and eventually became the assistant district
attorney in Erie County Pennsylvania in 1980. In 1982 he was first elected
to the United States House of Representatives, and he won reelection six
times. He was elected governor of the state of Pennsylvania in 1994, and he
was reelected in 1998 with 50 percent of the vote. I told him that this
crowd might rival his best campaign crowd. He has done many things, but
after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush
called upon him to manage the creation of the office of Homeland Security,
and later he became the first department secretary. He has gone on to
create advisory and consulting businesses, but probably if he wants you to
know anything it is that in and amongst all the work he has done in public
service, he's most proud of being a family man. He comes to us as chairman
of the National Organization on Disability, a position that he uses to
champion equality of opportunity for all people with disabilities. Please
welcome the Honorable Tom Ridge."
Gov. Ridge spoke about the National Organization on Disability and
its close working relationship with the National Federation of the Blind.
He talked about the frustration of working with a population that
experiences such a high rate of unemployment and how fatiguing it can be to
keep up the good fight in the midst of all the bad news. He hastens to add
that not all of the news is bad, and that an expanding economy finds
employers looking for talent in places they have not traditionally looked.
This is a sign of hope for people with disabilities. Governor Ridge's
remarks will appear in an upcoming issue.
"Aviation, Technology, and Law" was the next presentation presented
by Immediate Past President Maurer, and it was enthusiastically received by
the convention. In his remarks our director of legal policy discussed the
law and its treatment of blind people. Too often we are viewed as the
recipients of charity and government largess, people who should be grateful
for any scraps we are thrown or any participation we are allowed to have.
But we have moved beyond this place, and we have the right to make
reasonable demands for access to information and the technology that
delivers it. The aviation industry has been slow to acknowledge our needs
in every aspect of travel from how we are treated before embarking, the way
we are treated on flights, and even the way we are treated after
disembarking. Dr. Maurer's comments can be found later in this issue.
Following Immediate Past President Maurer to the stage was Blane
Workie, the assistant general counsel in the Office of Aviation Enforcement
and Proceedings for the United States Department of Transportation. Her
remarks were entitled "Equal Access in Air Travel for the Blind: Raising
Expectations from the United States Department of Transportation." She said
that while there are still a number of problems in the enforcement of the
Air Carrier Access Act passed in 1986, the United States Department of
Transportation is aggressively pursuing solutions to many of these that
have been identified by blind and disabled passengers. Everything from
kiosks to guide dogs was covered in her remarks, and they will be found in
an upcoming issue.
James Gashel is the chairperson of the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award
Committee. This is the tenth year in which the National Federation of the
Blind has made time on its agenda to present these awards, and we are proud
to work with the Santa Barbara Foundation to see that deserving individuals
and organizations are recognized. A report of the Bolotin presentation will
be found elsewhere in this issue.
"Shaping Automotive Innovation for the Future: An Alliance with the
Blind of America" was the next item on the agenda, and it was presented by
Mitch Bainwol, the president and CEO of the Alliance of Automobile
Manufacturers. Mr. Bainwol commended the National Federation of the Blind
for its pioneering work on the Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act and said
that no other organization has demonstrated the leadership and initiative
that the Federation has demonstrated. This puts us in a good position to
have influence as automakers, legislators, and regulators make the changes
necessary to move from human driven vehicles to self-driving vehicles. Mr.
Bainwol's remarks will appear in an upcoming issue.
Mrs. Jernigan was invited to the stage to present the Kenneth
Jernigan Award to Mitch Bainwol, and this presentation can be found
elsewhere in this issue.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Scott LaBarre]
Scott LaBarre was invited to introduce our next guest, who has been
very helpful in advancing the rights of blind people to information through
his work with the United Nations and the World Intellectual Property
Organization. Our presenter was Francis Gurry, and his remarks were
entitled "No Borders to the World's Knowledge: A Commitment to
Accessibility for the Blind." He began his address with these remarks:
"Thank you very much, Scott. Dear friends: it really is a privilege to be
with you. It's a thrill to be at the national convention of the National
Federation of the Blind, and I would say that it is one of the highlights
of my career to be with you to jointly celebrate the conclusion of the
Marrakesh treaty and the pending ratification of the Marrakesh treaty by
the United States of America. [applause] I'd like to thank Mark Riccobono,
the President of the NFB; Fred Schroeder, president of the World Blind
Union; Scott LaBarre, your indomitable negotiator, who has really led the
process of negotiation and compromise that resulted in the Marrakesh
treaty." Mr. Gurry went on to describe what the Marrakesh treaty would do
for rich and poor countries alike, discussed the time required to get a
treaty passed, and explained what a remarkable process it was that we were
able to do this in four years. His remarks will appear in full later in the
fall.
In every convention we always look forward to new people who take the
stage, but we also rejoice when old friends come to celebrate with us. Such
is the case when Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google Inc. takes
the stage. This year his topic was "Artificial Intelligence and Authentic
Experience: Remarks from an Innovation Partner of the Blind." Having come
to his first convention in 1975, the 2018 National Convention makes the
forty-fourth he has attended. He began by talking about his love for the
promotion of civil rights and that it began in his family long before when
his grandmother started a school for girls in the 1880s. Ray was present
for some of Dr. Martin Luther King's marches, and one of the things that
drew him to the National Federation of the Blind was our insistence on
confronting many of the issues that face us as civil rights concerns rather
than medical ones. He said that when he was shopping his idea for a reading
machine to help the blind, he visited a number of organizations. They
commended him on his effort, wished him well, and sent him on his way. It
was only when he came to visit James Gashel in our Washington office that
he was connected with people who not only wished him well but did something
to make that wish come true in the way of funding, contacts, and expert
blind engineers who could help in the design of the product. He said that
this experience in his young life gave him a real appreciation for how
products should be developed. Since then he has gone on to make major
contributions in the fields of synthetic electronic music, speech
recognition, and overall pattern recognition, the latter bringing
significant advancements in the field of artificial intelligence since much
of intelligence is pattern recognition. To listen to his remarks in full,
go to
https://nfb.org/images/nfb/audio/2018_convention_highlights/july_8/pm/07_art
ificial_intelligence_and_authentic_experience.mp3.
When the banquet convened at 7 p.m., we had a beautiful invocation by
Ever Lee Hairston who was joined in an initial song of praise by Arietta
Woods. Dr. Maurer was the master of ceremonies, and he had great fun giving
away door prizes and made a friend every time a winner was found.
After drawing the winners who participated in building the Kenneth
Jernigan Fund, we next heard from our PAC chairman Scott LaBarre. He said
that we fell somewhat short of his goal of reaching half a million dollars
in pledges, but that we were successful in raising our PAC pledges by
$21,000, so we now have giving that totals $498,055. Certainly all of us
hope that we can reach and exceed the half-million dollar mark through the
generosity of those who will be attending our fall conventions.
After conducting some drawings from Federation divisions, sponsors,
and exhibitors, Dr. Maurer introduced the head table and then introduced
the President of the National Federation of the Blind, Mark Riccobono, to
deliver the banquet address entitled "Authenticity, Diversity, and the
Synergy of the Organized Blind." In his address he focused on the
tremendous role women have played in the creation and advancement of our
movement despite the fact that blind women have traditionally had less
opportunity to participate in and have a meaningful impact on the societies
in which they have lived. President Riccobono's address will appear
elsewhere in this issue, and what a tribute it is to the women and the men
who have given of their time, talent, and treasure to create the movement
we have today.
In keeping with long-standing tradition, Ray Kurzweil was invited to
the podium to make some remarks. He wondered aloud just what it was that he
did wrong to have been assigned the role of making comments after the
banquet speeches given to the National Federation of the Blind. He said
that he particularly appreciated the highlighting of women in the history
of the Federation given his own family's commitment to the education of
girls and women.
Mr. Kurzweil was followed to the microphone by First Vice President
Pam Allen. Her purpose in taking the microphone was to present the global
literacy award to Francis Gurry. Her remarks and those of the recipient
will be found elsewhere in this issue.
Dr. Maurer took back the microphone, shifting for a moment from his
service as master of ceremonies to the chairman of the Jacobus tenBroek
Award Committee. He observed that when Dr. tenBroek started the work of
founding the National Federation of the Blind, many people were of the
opinion that blind people had no future. Creating an organization would not
alter that, for adding zero to zero, no matter how many zeros you had,
would still result in zero. But Dr. tenBroek knew differently, his own life
and those of his intimates proclaiming that blind people did have a future,
and more of them would have if they put their hearts and minds into the
collective effort that could be marshaled by the creation of the National
Federation of the Blind. Dr. Maurer's presentation of the Jacobus tenBroek
Award can be found elsewhere in this issue.
No banquet would be complete without the presentation of our thirty
scholarship winners, and Cayte Mendez came to the stage to introduce all of
them and then to reveal which awards they would each receive. Cayte's
presentation and the remarks made by the Kenneth Jernigan Scholarship
winner will be found elsewhere in this issue.
After drawing several fantastic door prizes, the last of which being
for $1,000, the 2018 Convention of the National Federation of the Blind was
adjourned. Even after a long week of meetings and little sleep, we
Federationists did not quietly sneak back to our rooms but instead took up
the challenge of making the most of the next few hours that would let us
wrap up our annual family reunion.
The 2018 Convention of the National Federation of the Blind became
history when the gavel fell on the evening of July 8, but to consign it to
the pages of history would be a mistake. Though the travelers are back
home, the hotel space is being used by another group, and the luggage is
most certainly unpacked, the real work of the convention has just begun.
Now we internalize what was said, begin implementing the policies, and
start the work of carrying out the many pledges and promises made to each
other as we said goodbye for a time to the City of Orlando and the name
Rosen, which has for almost a decade represented quality rooms and meeting
space for the largest meeting of the blind in the world. When next July
rolls around, even more of us will be found in Las Vegas, Nevada, but
between now and then there is work to be done, members to be recruited,
funds to be gathered, expectations to be raised, and lives to be changed
for the better. This is our commitment, and this is our promise. We will
make it come true because we are the National Federation of the Blind.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Mark Riccobono delivers the 2018 Presidential Report]
Presidential Report 2018
An Address Delivered by
Mark A. Riccobono
National Federation of the Blind
Orlando, Florida
July 6, 2018
During the past year, the blind of this nation have enjoyed continued
success, expanding our participation in all aspects of society. Blindness
does not define us or our future, but we are often limited by the low
expectations and artificial barriers others put in our way. Despite these
barriers, we seek equality of opportunity, and we strive to have full
access to the rights and responsibilities afforded to all other Americans.
Since 1940 we have found that the most effective means for us to reach full
participation in society is for us to work together. When individual blind
people come together in local communities, through state organizations, and
as a whole in our national movement, we represent an authentic and powerful
force for innovation, influence, and inspiration that cannot be found
anywhere else in the world. Together, we are the National Federation of the
Blind.
Education is fundamental to full participation in society, and we
have pioneered programs to demonstrate the high-quality educational
services blind students deserve. In the twenty-first century, skills in
science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) are critical to competing
in the fastest growing sectors of the economy, and we continue to innovate
programming in these subjects. In July 2017, we held a week-long STEM
academy at Towson University in Maryland-the National Federation of the
Blind Youth Slam. Fifty-nine blind high school students from twenty-six
states received instruction and mentoring from blind scientists, engineers,
university professors, and other professionals. Nine instructional tracks
combined with fourteen enrichment courses offered participants hands-on
experiences in chemistry, computer science, cognitive neuroscience,
ecology, engineering, genetics, marine biology, nanoscience, archaeology,
and art. Full participation requires being well-rounded, so we provided
opportunities for these youth to try salsa dancing, goalball, yoga, beep
baseball, cardio drumming, karaoke, and dozens of other fun activities.
Significantly, many of the mentors and instructors in this program were
students during our very first NFB Youth Slam in 2007. Throughout the
country, when faced with a barrier, blind students now say, "Slam that!"
Last fall, the National Federation of the Blind was awarded a five-
year grant from the National Science Foundation, providing more than $2
million for a project we call Spatial Ability and Blind Engineering
Research (SABER). In partnership with Utah State University, the Science
Museum of Minnesota, and evaluators from the Center of Science and Industry
in Columbus, Ohio, we will lead annual engineering programs that we call
NFB Engineering Quotient (or NFB EQ for short). The first of these programs
is scheduled to take place later this month in Baltimore, where thirty
blind high school students will join with blind mentors to explore the
process of engineering design, from concept to tactile drafting to model
construction. In future years the program will take place at the Science
Museum of Minnesota, and we will all have the opportunity to meet some of
these young blind engineers as project activities will be a part of our
national convention starting in 2019. We expect research generated from
these programs to transform how we understand spatial ability, with impacts
reaching far beyond our accessible engineering curricula.
We also expect public schools to provide quality training based upon
high expectations. However, many schools fail to provide even the minimum
educational support to blind students, requiring us to use more powerful
tools to secure their full participation. Cody Davis is a high school
student from a small town in northern Iowa. Despite his family's urging
that he be given stronger training in the skills of blindness as his vision
deteriorated, the school district settled for low expectations and failed
to prepare him for the future. By the time Cody reached eleventh grade he
could not compete with his sighted peers and the overreliance on failing
eyesight was holding him back. After meeting the family, we sent legal
counsel to work with our affiliate and a local disability rights attorney,
Tai Tomasi, who is also a member of the Federation. Despite the significant
failure of the school system, our team fought hard to secure a settlement
that avoided this near tragedy. As a result, earlier this year, Cody spent
three months receiving intensive blindness skills training at BLIND
Incorporated-an NFB training center in Minnesota-where he began to
flourish. He is now back with his sighted peers in Iowa, and he will head
into the next school year with an appropriate educational plan that will
facilitate his full participation. Cody and his family are here at this
convention. We wish that Cody's story was an extreme exception, but we
receive hundreds of requests to support parents of blind children who are
receiving inadequate services. When we put a skilled blind adult from our
nationwide network in the room with the school district staff, the chances
of getting a strong result increases dramatically. We must find new ways to
increase our ability to advocate with these parents, for if we do not, we
are in danger of losing a generation to low expectations.
Through our partnership with the American Action Fund for Blind
Children and Adults, we help to get thousands of blind youth access to free
Braille materials including the National Geographic Kids magazine. Last
summer we announced the next phase of this partnership, bringing tactile
exploration and creativity to blind youth through art. We assisted in
distributing more than five hundred tactile art kits to families with blind
children ages two through eight across the country. These kits included a
variety of tactile art-making supplies with the aim of stimulating the
imagination. YouTube videos were created to share with all families how
tactile materials could be used at home. A second phase of this project has
focused on tactile drawings. We anticipate further efforts to stimulate
creativity through tactile fluency in the future.
The National Federation of the Blind continues to aggressively work
to improve literacy through direct instruction in Braille. In the summer of
2017, we offered forty-eight NFB Braille Enrichment for Literacy and
Learning (BELL) Academies in thirty-one of our state affiliates, serving
more than three hundred and fifty blind students. In these programs blind
children receive instruction in Braille as well as real experience with the
techniques that blind people use to be successful in all aspects of life.
Through our partnership with the Wells Fargo Foundation, we continue to
expand both the depth and the reach of our program, and we are raising
expectations among the sighted members of the community who interact with
the academy. One example from earlier this summer was a coin-sorting
contest matching our Arizona NFB BELL Academy students against the sighted
bank executives during a visit to a Wells Fargo branch. While the aim is
for our youth to learn financial literacy skills, we can be sure that the
bank executives are having their own misconceptions about blindness
shattered to the benefit of future blind customers of the bank.
We also seek to achieve equal participation in higher education. We
create opportunities by offering the most dynamic scholarship program for
blind people in the nation, and we actively eliminate artificial barriers
that bar us from equality of opportunity. During the past year we have
worked collaboratively on accessibility with universities from Harvard to
Southern Oregon, where we have shared the best practice resources we have
collected. We continue to pursue legislative solutions to accelerate equal
treatment by advancing our Accessible Instructional Materials in Higher
Education legislation, which has been introduced in both chambers of
Congress. Yet some colleges refuse to treat blind students as first-class
citizens although they continue to collect an equal amount of tuition. In
those cases, we are prepared to hold schools accountable in the courts for
their unequal treatment.
The Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) is the largest
community college district in the United States and is reported to be one
of the largest in the world. Blind students have faced systemic unequal
treatment by the college, including being shut out of courses due to
inaccessible educational technology and being coerced into attending one
specific campus even if it was not the location they preferred to attend.
The National Federation of the Blind, the NFB of California, and two blind
students have sued LACCD for failing to meet its obligations under the
Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
of 1973. Earlier this year, the court affirmed our standing in the case and
granted summary judgment on finding that LACCD violated the law. We are now
awaiting a trial date to determine damages and remedy. When our equal
participation is at stake, it does not matter how big the fight; we are
prepared to use the tools necessary to teach a lesson about our rights.
While we take responsibility for advocating for ourselves, we expect,
as should other Americans, the government to uphold its responsibility to
protect our rights when the system fails. The United States Department of
Education has a significant responsibility for ensuring that the right to
equal education by the blind is secure. However, the US Department of
Education has abdicated this responsibility. Without notice or comment, and
in violation of its own regulations, the US Department of Education changed
the Office for Civil Rights' Case Processing Manual in March of this year.
The Office for Civil Rights will now dismiss discrimination complaints
without investigating them whenever a complainant has a pattern of prior
complaints or files a single complaint against multiple discriminators.
Furthermore, the right to appeal the closure of a complaint has been
eliminated. Under the Administrative Procedure Act, the Department of
Education was required to provide notice and seek public comment before
issuing such a substantive rule, and the ban on multiple complaints
violates the Section 504 regulations and is arbitrary and capricious. The
Department has already begun dismissing cases, but the National Federation
of the Blind, along with the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates and
the NAACP, has filed suit to reverse this limitation on our rights. We seek
equal education, and we will not permit the government to use taxpayer
dollars to treat us as second-class citizens.
Education and training is not enough to achieve full participation in
society-we want to work. Despite our progress, there are many employers who
falsely believe blind people are a liability and that providing equal
access is too hard or expensive. Mary Flood is a blind person who lives in
Washington, DC. Based on her qualifications, she was hired by the US Navy
as an educational technician, which involved responsibilities similar to a
teaching assistant including working with children during indoor and
outdoor playtime. Before her first day, she reported for a physical exam
where a nurse and a doctor asked her several questions about her blindness
and expressed their concern that she could not effectively keep the
children safe without being able to see them. When she reported to the job
site, she worked for about a day and a half before being called to human
resources, where Mary was informed that the doctor had instructed that she
should be fired because of her blindness. Ms. Flood had explained all of
the alternative techniques she has employed while working with children in
the past and how she lived independently as a blind woman, but the only
thing that mattered to the Navy was how little she could see. She was fired
from her position with the Navy, but in April we fired back by filing a
lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to
guard against the Navy's discrimination based on blindness. We have the
deepest respect and appreciation for our country's military personnel, but
we also deeply value the full participation of the blind in society. In
this case, we believe that Flood will prevail over Navy.
Dr. Jan Bartleson is a school psychologist who happens to be blind.
She has a distinguished record of service over many decades in the Miami-
Dade County Public Schools in Florida. Despite her expertise and her
capacity to work independently in her job, she is forced to rely on her
sighted colleagues to access most of the software that the district uses to
manage data. Dr. Bartleson has been denied promotional opportunities as a
direct result of the discriminatory practices and inaccessible systems she
has had to endure. The National Federation of the Blind filed suit on
behalf of Dr. Bartleson against the school district for its systemic
discrimination through use of inaccessible software. In this groundbreaking
case, we take the position that an employer cannot rely on less effective,
after-the-fact accommodations to make up for having chosen to implement
new, inaccessible employment technology. Taking a stand for full
participation is hard when you have given a substantial portion of your
life to an employer. We salute Dr. Bartleson, who is here at this
convention, and we recommit to working together to achieve equality of
opportunity.
We continue to raise the expectations for the minimum employment
rights afforded to the blind of our nation. The United States recently
celebrated the eightieth anniversary of the enactment of the Fair Labor
Standards Act-a law that assured a basic standard of workers' rights to
everyone except the disabled. Most significantly that law includes an
exception in Section 14(c) that permits employers to receive a certificate
to pay people with disabilities pennies per hour while using those
employees to get preference for government contracts. However, due to the
leadership of the National Federation of the Blind the movement to
eliminate this discriminatory exception is gaining considerable momentum.
The number of people with disabilities paid under Section 14(c) has been
cut nearly in half over the past six years. An increasing number of
employers are voluntarily giving up use of this exception and successfully
transitioning to respectful employment models. An increasing number of
chief executives leading 14(c) employers are finding themselves out of a
job. And an increasing number of public officials are joining with more
than seventy-five supporting organizations to call for a higher standard of
workers' rights for the disabled. Where the United States Congress has not
yet acted, states and cities are providing leadership. The most recent
example came on April 2, 2018, when the city council and mayor of Seattle,
Washington, repealed the exemption under the municipal code that authorized
the payment of subminimum wages. The action in Seattle was no accident; it
came through the persistent work of members of the National Federation of
the Blind of Washington. We will continue to seek more places to join the
city of Seattle and the states of Alaska, Maryland, Vermont, and New
Hampshire in making fair wages the standard for all.
In recent years we have celebrated our growing relationship with the
Amazon corporation, but it was not always that way. For many years we
attempted to get the company's attention regarding the inaccessibility of
its website and their rapidly growing catalog of Kindle books. We tried all
of the tools we had available-we wrote letters, sought meetings, offered
our technical expertise, attempted to find pressure points, worked our
relationships, filed lawsuits, protested at their headquarters, and blocked
them from getting contracts with public entities. Despite the historical
frustrations, we have developed a partnership during the past few years as
evidenced by their presentations at this convention and the increased
accessibility of their products.
However, William O'Donnell is a blind person who was offered a
contract job with Amazon in Massachusetts, but when he showed up for
training, the contractor sent him home because the technology he had to use
in his job was inaccessible. He had to wait four months for Amazon to make
its inaccessible employment technology compatible with screen-reader
software, and even then, he would not have had a job except for the support
of the National Federation of the Blind. We negotiated a settlement
requiring Amazon to place him back in the position once the software was
accessible and to pay Mr. O'Donnell the wages he would have earned during
the wait.
Then there is Maryann Murad who attempted to apply online to Amazon
for a work-at-home customer service position, but she discovered that the
online skills assessment would not work with a screen reader. Our
investigation found that not only was the skills assessment inaccessible,
but the software that work-at-home customer service agents use in their
jobs is also inaccessible to those using nonvisual access tools. These are
technologies built by Amazon. We have assisted Miss Murad in filing a
complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is
currently investigating the matter, and we are prepared to go to Federal
court if necessary.
Amazon employs more than five hundred thousand individuals in a
variety of jobs around the world, and we want blind people to participate
in those opportunities. The stories of Maryann and William are
representative of the problems many blind people have experienced with jobs
at Amazon. When we first raised our concerns about their employment
practices, Amazon expressed surprise and pointed to the praise from blind
people for their voice-enabled products-which you may not be able to afford
if you do not have a job. To cut to the point, it has not been easy to
communicate to Amazon what we expect when we call for equality of
opportunity for the blind in employment. To Amazon's credit, they are here
at this convention, they are seeking more blind employees, and they are
prepared to work with us to improve full participation by the blind; and we
are prepared to push as hard as we need to in order to hold Amazon
accountable.
We share these examples to put all companies on notice. We wish to
participate fully in the community, and in the United States of America
meaningful work has a big influence on meaningful participation. We seek to
contribute, to develop our talents, to carry the responsibility of working
on a team, and to compete in all aspects of the workforce. We do not seek
greater opportunities than others, but we do expect equality of
opportunity. We are prepared to work with you to innovate employment
opportunities. But even if you are a partner of the organized blind
movement, we will not accept second-class treatment in employment. From the
stockroom to the boardroom, the National Federation of the Blind is
committed to equal participation in employment, and we invite others to
partner with us in that commitment.
Independent movement around our communities is an essential aspect of
full participation. Ridesharing services have improved transportation
options in many communities, and we have secured agreements with the
largest providers, Uber and Lyft, to protect equal access by blind people
using service animals. Only the National Federation of the Blind has the
nationwide network needed to hold companies like these accountable to their
commitments to blind customers. During the past year, blind travelers with
service animals filed over two thousand Uber and Lyft reports as a part of
NFB's rideshare testing program. Progress in eliminating discrimination is
mixed-many blind individuals continue to be denied rides-but we will not
stop the monitoring until these companies adequately protect our equal
participation.
In January Delta Air Lines publicly announced a new policy related to
treatment of individuals with service animals with a plan for it to be in
effect beginning March 1. The airline did not engage with the organized
blind movement before releasing the policy that violated the principle of
equal access and stood in conflict with the Air Carrier Access Act. Among
other problems, the policy required guide dog users to submit paperwork to
Delta forty-eight hours before flying. Our swift and forceful call for
Delta to meet with us was covered by NBC News online, the Atlanta Journal-
Constitution, and numerous travel publications. Delta responded quickly,
and after a series of meetings, Delta revised its policy to be consistent
with the National Federation of the Blind's understanding of equal access.
We have continued to discuss matters of importance to the blind with Delta,
and you will observe that they are participating in this convention.
We have successfully protected our ability to walk safely in our
communities and hear the pattern of traffic. After more than a decade of
advocacy, partnership building, negotiation, and follow up, the final
regulation for the Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act of 2011 went into
effect on September 5, 2017. The result of our unstoppable commitment is
that all hybrid-electric vehicles manufactured on or after September 1,
2020, must comply with this regulation, making the streets safer for all
pedestrians.
We have brought leadership and an authentic perspective to the
emerging autonomous vehicle industry. On September 12, 2017, the US
Secretary of Transportation, Elaine Chao, released version 2.0 of the
department's guidance on autonomous vehicles at an event at the University
of Michigan. Among an impressive list of industry representatives and
policymakers, only the President of the National Federation of the Blind
was invited to discuss equal access for the disabled during the secretary's
press conference. In October 2017, the National Federation of the Blind and
the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers jointly hosted "The Promise:
Autonomous Vehicles and the Disability Community" at our headquarters in
Baltimore. This conference was the first convening of representatives from
government, the automotive industry, and advocates for the disabled to
discuss the advances, challenges, and the path forward for autonomous
vehicle development. Our leadership resulted in the inclusion of provisions
to legislation being considered in the United States Senate (S. 1885) that
prohibits states from establishing discriminatory licensing practices based
on disability and which creates a disability-access working group to
promote best practices for nonvisual interfaces. In January our leadership
was recognized with one of the inaugural Autos2050 Awards presented by the
Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Alliance for Transportation
Innovation. There is no doubt that we intend to participate fully in the
future of transportation systems.
Increasing equal access to the American democracy continues to drive
one of our priorities. Through our Help America Vote Act project, we
provide feedback on the accessibility of electronic ballot-delivery
systems, train protection and advocacy personnel and elections officials,
and distribute resources to blind voters on emerging topics in election
accessibility. Where our rights as voters are second-class, we seek justice
from the courts. One example is Ohio, where we won an appeal to the Sixth
Circuit Court of Appeals, reversing a district court's dismissal of our
case that challenged inaccessible absentee voting. Following that reversal,
Ohio issued a directive requiring all counties to implement accessible
absentee voting in time for the November 2018 election. Through our dynamic
network of affiliates across the country, we will continue to protect equal
access to voting. Let all elected officials know that the blind expect to
be a factor in deciding who represents us in the halls of power.
It is difficult to achieve full participation if you are prevented
from having equal access to health insurance information and medical
devices. In 2016 we filed suit against the Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services for failing to provide meaningful and equal access to
Medicare information to blind people. After extensive negotiations, we
finalized a settlement agreement that requires that CMS set up processes so
that beneficiaries can make a single request to receive all communications
and notices from Medicare in an accessible format. Additional terms require
accessible, fillable forms for beneficiaries on Medicare.gov and the
issuance of accessibility best practices to Medicare Health and Drug Plans.
Unrelated to our agreement, we have been working to reverse a 2017 CMS
coverage policy decision that prohibited Medicare beneficiaries from using
continuous glucose monitors in conjunction with mobile applications-a
decision that had the effect of making blind diabetics choose between
accessibility and reimbursement for the cost of this innovative device.
With the expertise of the Federation's Diabetes Action Network, we were
successful in getting the Medicare policy changed. Effective June 7, 2018,
blind diabetics can use continuous glucose monitors with accessible mobile
applications, and the devices will be covered by Medicare.
We also require equal participation in our financial transactions.
Marci Carpenter is president of the National Federation of the Blind of
Washington and a customer of Boeing Employees' Credit Union (BECU). She
became increasingly frustrated as the credit union implemented new mobile
and web-banking services that were inaccessible-preventing a blind person
from even logging in. She soon discovered a number of other blind people
faced the same barriers. As a result, the NFB, the NFB of Washington, and
three blind individuals complained to BECU about the inaccessibility of
their mobile banking services. Working with the Washington Attorney
General, we negotiated a settlement with BECU under which they will make
their mobile app and website fully accessible. BECU will also adopt
internal policies and procedures, train employees and contractors, and only
purchase accessible technology in the future. While many credit unions are
fighting against making their websites accessible, BECU has worked
cooperatively with us to reach a result that sets the industry standard for
equal participation by the blind.
The most important aspect of our work to achieve full participation
has to do with our right to share our love with our family-our blind
parents initiative. Over the past year we have continued to build our
community of blind parents through our blindparents.org website and
engagement on Facebook, by matching new blind parents with blind mentors,
and through individual outreach via telephone. In the coming months we plan
to expand our information sharing by launching an NFB podcast for blind
parents and developing stronger training for social workers and others to
understand the techniques that we use to raise families effectively. Our
primary goal is to get blind parents connected to us as we know this
connection is the strongest resource we can give to them. However, at the
same time we seek to strengthen state laws to ensure that blindness is not
used against parents in the family courts. We can proudly celebrate that we
now have ten states that have passed a form of our model right-to-parent
legislation. Congratulations to Arizona, Colorado, and Nebraska for
enacting laws this year, joining the states of Missouri, Tennessee,
Connecticut, Maryland, Utah, South Carolina, and Illinois in protecting the
rights of blind parents. The time is now for us to bring these equal rights
to every state in the nation.
We continue to assist a number of individual blind parents who face
discrimination that threatens the bond they have with their child. Last
year I told you about our determined fight to assist a blind mother from
Nevada named Kayla Dunfield. When Kayla's daughter was about a month old,
Nevada's Child Protective Services removed her from Kayla's care based on
the claim of health and safety concerns. When we learned about Kayla and
investigated, it became evident that blindness was the rationale for
separating mother and daughter. More than just legal counsel, it took a
village to support this mother through a series of actions by the CPS
personnel that can only be described as setting the mother up to fail-CPS
wanted to make the custody separation permanent. Coordinated by our
affiliate in Nevada, which dedicated considerable financial and human
resources to this case, NFB members in California, Oregon, and Colorado
supported this parent as she fought for custody of her daughter and pursued
the training and mentoring activities required by the court. The daughter
is now three years old, but the bonds of love have not been broken. On May
25 the court permanently reunified mother and daughter, the case is now
dismissed, and future birthdays will be celebrated with family.
On Capitol Hill we continue to carry an unmatched reputation for
being consistent, clear in purpose, well-reasoned, and doggedly determined.
When blindness comes up in the United States Congress, our organization has
either introduced the conversation or is the first to be called and
consulted. This year we have pursued a staggering number of regulatory and
legislative issues. While the progress of our entire advocacy and policy
agenda will be presented later in this convention, we must celebrate the
significant milestones we passed one week ago. We should first recall that
on June 28, 2013, many years of collaboration by blind leaders around the
world culminated in the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published
Works for Persons who are Blind, Visually-Impaired, or Otherwise Print
Disabled. Countries that implement the treaty will be able to exchange
accessible books across borders, creating a dramatic increase in materials
available to the blind. For the Treaty to be enacted in the United States,
a series of actions needs to be taken including advice and consent by the
Senate, passage of implementing legislation by both the Senate and the
House of Representatives, and finally signature by the president of the
United States. Over the past five years there has been a gauntlet of
personalities and organizations that have all wished to influence or block
the adoption of this historic treaty in the United States. There have been
many who have told us that it will simply be too hard to get it done in our
country, but they do not know the determination and commitment of the
National Federation of the Blind. Our Marrakesh implementation team has
been tirelessly led by Scott LaBarre, a blind attorney from Colorado, who
has used diplomacy, technical skill, and an unshakeable commitment to equal
access by the blind to knock down the obstacles, make friends, and get a
consensus agreement into the hands of the decision makers in Congress.
Meanwhile, Gabe Cazares from our advocacy team has been the glue behind the
scenes, tracking thousands of details and bringing together our grassroots
membership, making sure we were all well prepared and in the right place
when a member of the Senate needed to hear from a blind person that the
Marrakesh Treaty should be a priority. We have been heard, and the treaty
is more than halfway to the finish line. On June 28, 2018, the United
States Senate passed its advice and consent for the treaty and the
implementing legislation on the same evening. These actions were taken with
the unanimous consent of the Senate, demonstrating the power of our work
together in the National Federation of the Blind. We will not stop until we
have gone the rest of the way to making Marrakesh a reality. Let there be
no doubt that when the full participation of the blind is on the line, we
will deliver the promise of equal access.
Through our National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute we
concentrate our authentic expertise as blind people and explore new
programs that can help us transform our dreams into reality. From the
collaborations generated at our Jacobus tenBroek Disability Law Symposium
to the expert evaluations of research proposals conducted by our newly
established Research Advisory Council, our activities are driven by the
hopes, dreams, and actions of blind people. With our Jacobus tenBroek
Research Library on Blindness we are maintaining the strongest collection
of materials that demonstrate the progress of blind people, and we are able
to provide expertise to NFB members as well as scholars, researchers, and
policymakers. Our library also gives us the opportunity to put the work of
blind people in front of conferences like the Library Leaders Forum at the
Internet Archive in San Francisco, where the Federation provided expertise
on making digital collections accessible to all. Through our Center for
Excellence in Nonvisual Access to Education, Public Information, and
Commerce we have provided training on everything from Braille notetakers to
an introduction to web testing. A member of our team even taught a senior-
level course titled, Universal Usability: Designing Computer Interfaces for
Blind Users, for the Human Computer Interactions Program at Towson
University during the spring semester. Our team fields hundreds of general
information questions about technology for the blind. From working with
Microsoft and Google to testing the latest idea from a tech startup, our
concentrated expertise in technology gives us the ability to help shape the
direction of the technologies of the future. A full report on the NFB
Jernigan Institute will be presented later in this convention. Much of this
work happens in our offices in Baltimore, where we have been for forty
years. Our facility is known for its excellence by blind people from around
the world. If we intend to maintain our leadership position, we should
imagine and build what we need for the next phase of our work: classrooms,
a maker space, fitness facilities, a museum, or even spaces for self-
driving cars. The future is up to us, and we need to plan for the next
forty years of our movement.
Full participation cannot happen without equal access to information,
and we continue to explore new ways of gaining and interpreting
information. In January we made history by making available the first
tactile photographic exhibit in a major museum in this country through a
partnership with 3DPhotoWorks and the Newseum in Washington, DC. This
exhibit pays tribute to the brave marines who fought in the Battle of Hu?
City in 1968. Our aim is to explore what more can be learned from
transforming visual images into tactile renderings-both what we can learn
as blind people and what the sighted might learn from utilizing touch. By
bringing tactile experiences into more public exhibits, we also have new
opportunities to share our insights with the sighted and to create
understanding about blindness.
The two most successful access-to-information tools available to
blind people have been built by us-NFB-NEWSLINE and the KNFB Reader. NFB-
NEWSLINE is now available in forty-five states and the District of
Columbia, serving 118,900 subscribers with free access to over five hundred
publications. The service also provides access to other information such as
weather alerts, television listings, and shopping ads. The KNFB Reader has
brought the power of fast and accurate text recognition to blind people
around the world through a patented approach developed by the National
Federation of the Blind in collaboration with Ray Kurzweil. We recently
introduced KNFB Reader 3.0, which revamps the interface and provides a
framework that will allow for additional improvements in the future. NFB-
NEWSLINE and KNFB Reader were built by us, they reflect our priorities and
our authentic experience, and we demand that these products meet our
expectations for participation. We believe we can do even better with these
tools we have built. Today, we are announcing our intent to innovate a new
feature for users of the mobile application for NFB-NEWSLINE. Think of it
as NFB-NEWSLINE Reader. Later this year, we will launch a new version of
the NFB-NEWSLINE mobile application that incorporates the core
functionality of the KNFB Reader mobile-point, shoot, and read. This means
that every qualified subscriber to NFB-NEWSLINE will be able to download
the new NFB-NEWSLINE app and flip from your morning paper to reading the
letter that was just dropped on your desk. While the NFB-NEWSLINE Reader
will not have all of the functionality that power users of KNFB Reader
enjoy, it will be free, and a user can purchase the full KNFB Reader any
time they want. You might ask why we are doing this, and there is only one
reason, we seek full participation for the blind, and access to information
is critical in that pursuit.
The depth and breadth of our accomplishments in one year cannot be
adequately covered in one report. It is best observed in the lives blind
people are living with confidence and determination in every community in
our nation. It is felt in the spirit of love and hope that we share in our
work together. From the seventy-two families of blind people that we
assisted when Hurricane Harvey hit Texas to the countless number of blind
people who have been helped by the small and great acts of kindness that
each of our members extends to blind people every day, we are making a
bigger difference in this nation and across the world than we will ever
realize. I feel the impact of those contributions every day, and it is my
deepest honor to serve as your President. I continue to be humbled by what
each of you does to power this organization, and I continue to be inspired
by the heartbeat that we share. We are making great progress, but there is
so much potential for us still to achieve. As long as you should call me to
serve, I am prepared to give my unwavering determination, tireless effort,
and open heart to this movement. I pledge never to ask of you what I am not
willing to commit to myself, and I will take all care to guard against
those things that will slow our growth and diminish the progress we have
gained. Without you there would be no us. It takes all of us to make these
accomplishments, and it will take all of us to meet the future with love,
hope, and determination. That is my commitment to you, that is my report of
our progress, and that is our charge for the future. Let's go build the
National Federation of the Blind.
----------
Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards
presented by James Gashel
Thank you, Mr. President and my Federation family. You know, I was
arrested at least twice on the airlines. I'm proud of that. I joined the
club with John Pari [laughter].
Well as the President has noted and the agenda has noted, this is the
eleventh time that we have presented the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards on the
final day of the National Federation of the Blind convention. Aside from
the NFB's support-financial and otherwise-these awards are made possible
with help from the Santa Barbara Foundation and the Alfred and Rosalind
Perlman Trust. To date we have presented $580,000-[applause] yeah, go ahead
and clap, that's a good one-to fifty-three recipients, and we're going to
add six new recipients this year. A biography entitled The Blind Doctor:
The Jacob Bolotin Story has been written by Rosalind Perlman and is
available in print and audio CD format from Amazon, or you can get it free
from the NLS program from the Library of Congress. Before you read any
other book this year, if you have not read this story, you must do it. That
is your required reading for the year.
Jacob Bolotin's story defines what it means to live the life you
want. He was born in 1888, and he only lived thirty-six years. But in that
thirty-six years he accomplished a whole lot more than most of us are able
to accomplish in twice as many years, and he did it with precious little
support to fulfill his dream-which he did fulfill-of becoming the first
medical doctor blind from birth. [applause] After attending the Illinois
School for the Blind, he worked to support himself and his family in
Chicago by selling matches, brushes, and typewriters door-to-door. But not
only did he support himself and his family; he also saved up enough money
to go to medical school. People in the student division, I used to be your
president-take note [laughter, cheers]. Bolotin had no rehabilitation-you
may say that's an advantage-he had no ADA or Section 504, and more
particularly he had no NFB to back him up. In the spirit of Newel Perry,
Jacobus tenBroek, Kenneth Jernigan, Marc Maurer, and Mark Riccobono, Jacob
Bolotin broke down barriers and blazed new trails for us to follow. And in
every way that really counts, he was part of our Federation family before
we organized the family.
The annual awards program we conduct helps to keep Dr. Bolotin's
memory alive. It does so by recognizing exemplary people and projects at
work on behalf of the blind. The awards include an amount of money that
each recipient gets, but they also include an engraved plaque and medallion
especially inscribed for the significance of the event. Here's the text on
the plaque:
Presented to
[name of the recipient]
by the National Federation of the Blind
and the Santa Barbara Foundation
July 2018
The medallion, which is suspended above the plaque, has the NFB logo
appearing on the obverse side of the medallion and says, "The Dr. Jacob
Bolotin Award/Celebrating Achievement, Creating Opportunity." Then on the
reverse side there's Dr. Jacob Bolotin's engraved bust appearing with this
inscription: "Dr. Jacob Bolotin/1888-1924/Celebrating his Life/The Alfred
and Rosalind Perlman Trust." And now, for the 2018 Dr. Jacob Bolotin
Awards:
Video Introduction: Ladies and gentlemen, the National Federation of
the Blind is proud to introduce the 2018 recipients of our Dr. Jacob
Bolotin Awards. These six innovators 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 inspire blind
people to achieve new heights. Our two individual winners-who are both
blind-are: Carol Begay Green, creator of the Navajo language Braille Code:
[applause]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Carol Begay Green accepting the Bolotin Award]
Carol Begay Green: "I developed a Navajo Braille code back in 2015. I
developed a plan to teach the Navajo Braille code across the Navajo
nation."
Video Narration: Peggy Chong, also known as the "Blind History Lady":
[PHOTO CAPTION: Peggy Chong accepting the Bolotin Award]
Peggy Chong: "Several years ago somebody kind of gave me that little
tag because I had been just finding all these little bits of odds and ends
information and liked to share it about blind people. I had been doing a
genealogy project on my family since about 2003, and then every once in a
while on the same page as an article about my great-grandpa would be this
article about a blind person. And I would copy it and paste it into another
document and save it for researching later. About three years ago, I
decided it was time to bring it forward-actually it was about four years
ago now-and I began a project called "The Blind History Lady," taking a lot
of the stories that I'd been collecting over about thirty-five years and
putting them into a format that other people can gain access to. I consider
the people that I research my ancestors. I have been collecting their data
for a long time. Over the years I have gotten some of my articles in The
Minnesota Bulletin or The Iowa History Journal, but to get this
acknowledgment from my peers that this is important is, to me, very
special. As a genealogist we often talk about how our families are the last
to recognize us, so being recognized by my family just a few years after
starting this project is very, very special."
Video Narration: The four initiatives and organizations receiving
Bolotin Awards are: Be My Eyes, a free service connecting blind people with
sighted volunteers around the world. Cofounder and CEO Christian Erfurt:
Christian Erfurt: "Be My Eyes is a very simple but powerful app
enabling blind and visually-impaired users to ask for visual assistance via
their smartphone without having to decide who to call with the actual task
at hand. What we do is that we match on time zone and language, and
establish a video connection to a sighted volunteer somewhere in the world
who speaks the same language you do. And since the call is forwarded until
answered and we send out the requests in batches, the one who does take the
call is someone who has time and resources to take the call and solve
whatever challenge you have in front of you. My cofounder and the inventor,
Hans Jxrgen Wiberg, is visually impaired himself. Early on he came up with
the idea of taking the part of calling someone out of the equation and
setting up this community of sighted volunteers. One thing is media
attention from a concept level, because they identify and understand the
concept, but to actually be honored and recognized by the industry and the
users is something that means everything to us."
Video Narration: iBUG Today, blind people training other blind people
to use technology. President and CEO Michael McCulloch:
[PHOTO CAPTION: Michael McCulloch accepting the Bolotin Award]
Michael McCulloch: "We are a nonprofit organization, and our mission
is to promote individual independence, social integration, and educational
development. We've had a few people use their skills that they've picked up
to gain some employment. We had one member about a year ago who got
employed by one of our local Apple stores here in Houston. To see somebody
who came in, maybe not even on their own, maybe wanted a smartphone, and we
helped him go out and purchase one, select one that would be useful to him,
and gain the training on it. There've been several that continued to gain
the training so that they themselves could become our mentors and trainers
and facilitators. To hear how they became successful and credit us for
doing that is a real blessing. We couldn't do it without our volunteers;
they're the best part of our organization."
Video Narration: Ski for Light, connecting blind and sighted in the
joy of cross-country skiing. President Marion Elmquist:
[PHOTO CAPTION: Judy Dixon accepts the Bolotin Award on behalf of Ski for
Light]
Marion Elmquist: "Ski for Light was started in the US in 1975 and was
brought to the US by a Norwegian immigrant who had been very involved in a
similar program in Norway that was started in 1964 by a blind Norwegian
entertainer. The whole idea is to share the love of outdoor activities and
the sport of cross-country skiing with blind and mobility impaired adults.
We have an annual event; each year it moves around the United States, 250-
300 people total are there, and that includes blind, visually impaired,
mobility impaired cross-country skiers, and volunteer guides. From what
I've read of Dr. Bolotin, it sounds like Ski for Light has been successful
in continuing his philosophy and his thought that being blind is not a
barrier to living a successful and healthy lifestyle. I think it really
reinforces that we're doing the right thing."
Video Narration: The Tactile Map Automated Production, TMAP, of the
LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired San Francisco. Scott Blanks,
senior director of programs:
[PHOTO CAPTION: Scott Blanks accepts the Bolotin Award]
Scott Blanks: "Within minutes of making a phone call and providing an
address, a tactile map can be embossed and either picked up at our San
Francisco location (if you're in the local area) or mailed to you within a
couple business days. What the TMAPs allow you to do is get your hands
literally on a top-down view of a particular neighborhood or section of a
city, and it is one of the things that comes closest to giving folks who
are able to see sort of that similar experience to a street view. The
recognition is wonderful. What I'm really excited about, though, is that
we're going to be able to connect so deeply with so many blind people and
give them a tool that is simple, it's elegant, it's inexpensive, and it's
going to unlock the world for them. This is innovation, and that's what Dr.
Bolotin was all about, so carrying on that tradition is something that-I
don't think I really have the words to express it, but it is a wonderful
honor to be able to receive this award."
Video Narration: Ladies and gentlemen, please give each of these
outstanding innovators a warm welcome as the National Federation of the
Blind now proudly presents them with their 2018 Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards.
[At this point in the presentation, the video ends, and the chairman
resumes speaking.]
James Gashel: We have six award winners this year, and you've heard
from all of them. Isn't this an outstanding class? [applause] Just a word
to the winners: we're going to distribute the awards, and we're going to
tell you how much money you get. If you'll come up as I call you by name,
we'll get that done.
Carol Begay Green, creator of the Navajo Braille code. Here you go,
Carol. Here's your Bolotin Award, and congratulations on the $5,000.
Peggy Chong, the Blind History Lady, $5,000.
iBUG, also known as iBUG Today, connecting blind people with iOS and
Android technology and teaching them how to use it. Congratulations to
Michael McCulloch, president and CEO, who is here to receive the award in
the amount of $5,000 on behalf of iBUG Today.
Ski for Light, sharing the love of cross-country skiing, blind and
sighted people working together in an atmosphere of equal opportunity and
just plain fun. When it comes to skiing, I always like to put in "fun."
Congratulations to Judy Dixon, who is here today to receive the Dr. Jacob
Bolotin Award in the amount of $5,000 on behalf of Ski for Light.
For the next $5,000, the TMAP's project of the LightHouse for the
Blind of San Francisco. Congratulations to Scott Blanks, who is senior
director of programs at the LightHouse who is here to accept the Dr. Jacob
Bolotin Award on behalf of the LightHouse for the Blind of San Francisco.
Now for the final and the highest cash prize award this year: it also
comes with the chance to say a few words to the group, and this is being
given to Be My Eyes. [applause] If you have an iOS or an Android device and
that device has a camera, then you can have a pair of eyes that work:
twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, wherever you happen to be in
the United States or in 150 foreign countries where over 180 different
languages are spoken on the Earth. This is a free service, connecting blind
people with sighted volunteers around the world. Congratulations to Hans
Jxrgen Wiberg, founder of Be My Eyes, who is here to accept [applause] the
Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award in the amount of $25, 000.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Be My Eyes cofounder Hans Jxrgen Wiberg accepts the Bolotin
Award on behalf of the company]
Hans Jxrgen Wiberg: "I'm starting to like this better and better.
[laughter] Thank you so much for this award. And with the honor-and also
the money-it does make a big difference when you are a small startup, so
this is super, super important. I am, myself, a member of the Danish Blind
Association [applause], so I think you can understand that receiving this
award is something super, super special when you are a blind guy from
Denmark coming all the way over here and getting this. Thank you so much. I
know firsthand how important it is to get a little bit of help sometimes. I
also know that I don't want to have this help around all the time because
they would drink all my coffee. So with Be My Eyes you can get those twenty
seconds of help and then get rid of the helper in a nice way. And we have
managed to get 1.5 million people to sign up to be your eyes. If you want
to speak to all of them for one minute, it would take you three years, day
and night-then you should take a break. But this will give you an
understanding of how many good people there are in this world- and they are
really willing to help in all those languages. Thank you to President
Riccobono for inviting us over here and giving Christian the chance to
speak yesterday. It has been a wonderful experience, and I'll be glad to
come back next year. Thank you."
Jim Gashel: Here's your award, Hans. Here's your hat; what's your
hurry? [laughter] All of the members of the class of 2018 are now assembled
right here around the podium behind me, Mr. President and members of the
National Federation of the Blind. This is the distinguished and very
deserving class for the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award 2018. Please give them a
round of applause. [applause, cheers]
Please visit our Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award webpage at nfb.org for more
details about all of these projects, including the full length of their
audio interviews. Thank you to Ron Brown and Mary Ellen Jernigan for
providing their enlightened experience and wise guidance in selecting our
award winners this year. Mr. President, this completes the report of the
Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award Committee and the presentation of our 2018 awards.
Thank you very much.
----------
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Mark Riccobono gives the banquet speech.]
Authenticity, Diversity, and the Synergy of the Organized Blind
An Address Delivered by
Mark A. Riccobono, President
At the Banquet of the Annual Convention
Of the National Federation of the Blind
Orlando, Florida
July 8, 2018
Any single moment in time can be an opportunity for reflection, for
commitment, or for action. That we share this moment together means that we
combine our unique perspectives, backgrounds, and talents into one unified
experience. Publisher Malcolm Forbes noted that diversity is "the art of
thinking independently together." Artist Vincent van Gogh explained that
"great things are done by a series of small things brought together." And
Aristotle is credited with observing that "the whole is greater than the
sum of its parts." This philosophical musing has now been applied in almost
every aspect of life-from the Gestalt psychological theory that, "the whole
is something else than the sum of its parts," to applications in
physiology, economics, and theology.
This concept is now better known as synergy, from the Latin word
synergia meaning working together. Synergy is broadly understood to be a
mutually advantageous conjunction or compatibility of distinct participants
or elements. Leadership coach Stephen Covey describes it this way: "Synergy
is what happens when one plus one equals ten or a hundred or even a
thousand! It's the profound result when two or more respectful human beings
determine to go beyond their preconceived ideas to meet a great challenge."
In this construction, synergy can be understood as the product of
successful organizing. One of the best examples of synergy that I have
experienced in my life is the organized blind movement. What are the
distinct characteristics that have allowed us to achieve synergy, and how
can we continue to grow the exponential impact of our combined effort?
Blindness has almost always been understood to be a characteristic
that distinguishes one as lacking ability. Throughout the centuries the
fear of darkness shaped the myths about blindness that were shared through
oral storytelling and later retold in written works. On many occasions, the
blind attempted to come together to move beyond the myths, but they were
always marginalized or overtaken by people having the distinct trait of
keen eyesight. The dominance of the vision-centered approach resulted in
deeply rooted misconceptions about blindness and pushed blind people to the
fringe of society-we did not belong. By the twentieth century it seemed as
though the great misunderstanding of blindness was unstoppable. That was
until blind women and men in the United States gained enough momentum to
begin to organize and share their authentic insights.
In the fall of 1940, representatives of seven state organizations of
the blind came together to form a unified national organization of blind
people led by elected blind leaders-the National Federation of the Blind.
Dr. Jacobus tenBroek, a blind scholar of constitutional law, was elected as
our first President, and his leadership was critical to keeping the new
organization together. For nearly eight decades we have distinguished our
movement by continuing to build on the authentic organizational principles
that brought us together. The hopes, dreams, and actions of a diverse and
committed corps of individual blind people, unified in purpose, and led by
elected blind representatives have resulted in synergy. When others who are
not elected by the blind have attempted to knock us off course, we have
held the line. When those who choose not to join together with us have
tried to divide us, we have held more tightly to the bonds that connect us.
When others have said the blind cannot, we have followed our dreams and
made them come true. With synergy, we are the blind-the National Federation
of the Blind.
Blindness is merely one of a thousand characteristics we individually
bring to this movement. Yet, for our organization blindness is preeminent
to our mission and our governance structure. In everything we have done, we
have kept a strong and singular focus on blind people. Although we welcome
those who do not possess the characteristic of blindness as members,
collectively they may not constitute a majority of our membership, and they
cannot run our governing boards.
Kenneth Jernigan, the second great President of the National
Federation of the Blind, articulated our philosophy regarding the
definition of blindness this way: "One is blind to the extent that the
individual must devise alternative techniques to do efficiently those
things which he would do if he had normal vision. An individual may
properly be said to be "blind" or a "blind person" when he has to devise so
many alternative techniques-that is, if he is to function efficiently-that
his pattern of daily living is substantially altered."
Under this functional definition of blindness, we reflect one class
of people-blind people-a class that deserves equal treatment. There are
those who attempt to divide us based upon how much remaining eyesight we
have-carving us into categories such as low vision, visually impaired, hard
of seeing, partially sighted, visually challenged, and that most feared
group, the totals. We reject this hierarchical vision-centered approach
which threatens our common bond and our unified interests. While some of us
may use visual techniques now and then, as blind people we recognize that
vision is not a requirement for success in the world. Blindness is our
primary distinction, and it gives us authenticity and power, but when we
choose to determine our own direction and speak for ourselves, it
transforms into synergy.
An important second distinction fuels the synergy of our movement-
equality. Since our founding, we have taken responsibility for setting the
standard of equality for the participation of the blind in society. We have
rejected society's second-class accommodations. We have never sought
greater advantages than our sighted peers, but we have insisted upon
equality of opportunity and freedom from artificial barriers. Over time, we
have raised the expectations for equal treatment. One example is our
participation in voting for public officials. Blind people were once forced
to have their paper ballot filled out by whomever the polling place
assigned as a scribe-the blind did not have a choice. We fought for the
right of blind people to vote independently by bringing a person of their
own choosing into the voting booth. Today, we favor a new standard of
equality where the blind use the same voting systems as every other voter
with the expectation that the electronic machines will be fully accessible,
and our ballots will look the same, allowing us to cast a vote
independently and privately. We must continue to explore the limits and
evaluate equality within our movement and throughout the broader society.
Equality contributes to our synergy in another important way-it
strengthens our diversity. Blindness is not constrained by race, gender,
economic status, or any of a thousand other characteristics. Therefore, if
we are going to be a movement of blind people who synergize around
equality, we must reflect a diverse range of blind people with a large
variation in characteristics beyond blindness. We must continue to value
and cultivate diversity as we have in the past, and we should guard against
our diversity becoming a fracture that divides us as blind people.
I have been reflecting upon what we know about blind people
throughout history and during the time of the National Federation of the
Blind. A pattern of leadership is evident that I believe exemplifies the
value we place on equality within our movement. In the stories of blind
people prior to our founding, most of the prominent figures are men, not
women. Consider the nineteenth century essays of James Wilson that profiled
blind people in a series of volumes entitled Biography of the Blind. Wilson
profiles sixty-three blind individuals, but only seven are women. While a
handful of other stories of blind women have surfaced since Wilson
published his sketches in the 1800s, the record is still thin.
Women have faced social, economic, and political barriers that have
created inequality compared to men, and their stories have been under-
recorded in history. Blind women, faced with the twin low expectations of
being female and having the most feared disability, blindness, have been
limited in opportunities to pursue their dreams. The lack of adequate
training for blind people before the organized blind movement contributed
to blind women being considered inadequate for even stereotypical roles in
society. The full participation of blind women has been further complicated
by efforts like the eugenics movement that reached its height in the early
part of the twentieth century. Proponents of eugenics believed in selective
breeding, which led to a movement to pass state laws requiring forced
sterilization of the poor and disabled. These forced sterilization programs
largely impacted women with disabilities and contributed to misconceptions
about the capacity of the blind to be effective parents-a painful history
we are still trying to overcome.
In contrast, the role of blind women within the National Federation
of the Blind is clear and powerful. This evening I seek to highlight a
sampling of the hundreds of female leaders of our movement whose stories
illuminate the characteristics that have allowed us, as diverse individuals
who happen to be blind, to synergize a movement that cannot be divided.
At our organizing on November 16, 1940, there were sixteen blind
people from seven states in attendance, and two of them were women who both
served on the board of directors. The first was Mary McCann of Illinois,
who was elected as secretary of our organization at that first meeting but
only served for a short time. The other blind woman was Evelyn Burlingame
of Pennsylvania, who was not elected to the board in 1940 but was elected
as first vice president of the organization in 1942.
Let me pause briefly to note that Hazel tenBroek was also in
attendance at the organizing, and her notes are the most substantive record
we have of the proceedings. Although she was not blind, she was a
significant force in the early development of the Federation. Mrs. tenBroek
set the standard for what has been a proud line of deeply loved and admired
sighted marchers in our movement.
Let us return to Evelyn, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1906. After
graduating from the Overbrook School for the Blind, she worked as the lead
stenographer in the legal department for an insurance company; later she
managed a small business among other jobs. In her free time she worked to
bring together many small community-based organizations of the blind into a
statewide organization called the Pennsylvania Federation of the Blind
(which officially came into existence in 1934). It was the annual meeting
of the Pennsylvania Federation that served as the backdrop for the
constitutional meeting establishing the National Federation of the Blind.
While early Federation leaders had to expend considerable time and energy
convincing blind people that we could gain synergy by directing the future
through building our own organization, Evelyn already knew the value of
organizing, and she was prepared to make personal sacrifices for the
movement.
Evelyn's hard work, information sharing, and wise counsel to the
Federation's President were likely factors contributing to her election to
the national board. In the National Federation of the Blind we elect
leaders to speak for us, but those leaders must be able to synthesize the
hopes, dreams, and innovative approaches that the members bring forward. In
that regard, Evelyn may get credit for the Federation's first major
outreach and fundraising strategy. On November 9, 1941, she wrote to Dr.
tenBroek to propose that we approach state and national unions to enlist
their support in the Federation's cause and to give specific examples of
the circumstances in her state. This idea was developed into a significant
program for making connections and gathering financial resources for the
young organization. Evelyn's early and active participation in our movement
gave credibility to the notion that the blind can and should speak for
themselves. For Evelyn the characteristic of blindness did not hold her
back, and for the Federation the characteristic of blindness was most
important to Evelyn's leadership in our movement.
Francis Lorraine Goranson was born in 1918 to farmers near Huron,
South Dakota. She was the youngest daughter of the family and, like her
older sister, she was blind and received an education from the South Dakota
School for the Blind. In 1936 President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law
the groundbreaking Randolph-Sheppard Act, giving blind individuals
opportunities to operate vending facilities on federal property. By the
time Lorraine graduated from the school in 1938, she was aware of the new
program and prepared to build her own future.
By the early months of 1940, South Dakota had two vending locations
run by blind people and, determined not to be restricted to a life of low
expectations, Lorraine took the initiative to secure the resources needed
to open the third. She began by convincing the officials at the Huron post
office to provide her with space for a stand. She then used her previous
contacts at the local Kiwanis Club to make a skillful presentation that
resulted in the club building out Lorraine's location and providing the
early inventory of newspapers, magazines, candy, and cigars she needed to
open the doors in April 1940. Lorraine is the first known woman to operate
a facility under the Randolph-Sheppard program anywhere in the country.
Her early success did not leave her satisfied. She learned about the
newly formed National Federation of the Blind through an editorial in the
All Story magazine authored by Dr. tenBroek's mentor, Dr. Newel Perry. On
February 7, 1941, she wrote to Dr. tenBroek expressing excitement about a
movement for the blind to speak for themselves. In her opening paragraph
she notes, "I find that it is more difficult convincing my sighted friends
of my capabilities, than the duty to be actually performed." She later
shares her ambition and commitment, "I am writing you because I am
interested in what can be done for the blind, and am ready and willing to
do whatever I can at any time. To be frank, as I feel I may be, I am so
very anxious to get out and make a place in the world."
Lorraine possessed another important characteristic that
distinguishes members of the Federation-hope for the future. In 1942 the
characteristics of blindness, a drive for equality, and a hope for the
future combined with a readiness to work led her to be elected to the Board
of Directors of the National Federation of the Blind. Her self-directed
efforts to build opportunities out of the Randolph-Sheppard priority laid
the foundation for the leadership we have provided to that program.
Another woman from the Midwest was effective in teaching the synergy
of local organizations connecting into a national movement. Ada Bates-
Tiernan was born in Coon Rapids, Iowa, in 1889. She was blinded in an
accident at age five, and her parents sent her to Iowa's school for the
blind, where she stayed until her graduation. In the early part of the
twentieth century, Iowa had no adult rehabilitation program, and Ada
recognized that bonding together with other blind people was critical in
creating opportunities for herself. She started by regularly attending the
annual gatherings of the school's alumni group known as the Iowa
Association of the Blind.
By 1941 Ada had moved to Des Moines where she was president of the
local association. She met the tenBroeks while in Chicago, and a stream of
information sharing began between them. Ada joined the Federation as an
individual member since the Iowa association was interested only in the
school for the blind locally. She understood that the new National
Federation of the Blind was essential to bringing inspiration and
innovative training practices to Iowa.
The hope and determination that came from a national movement fueled
Ada's leadership of other blind advocates in Iowa. The Federation's
National Convention was held in Des Moines in 1942, and Ada was critical in
managing local details, including securing speakers. During that time the
relationship between Ada and the tenBroeks developed into something more
personal-what we would today describe as the Federation family. At the 1944
National Convention in Cleveland, Ada was elected to the Board of Directors
of the National Federation of the Blind. In later correspondence Ada
demonstrates a deep commitment to supporting Dr. tenBroek and advises him
on many matters. At the same time, she expresses her own doubts about
whether she has the right talents to support the leadership where she has
been asked to serve. During a series of correspondence from February 1946,
Dr. tenBroek expresses a deep belief in the talents Ada brings to the
organization, a personal commitment to their friendship, and a faith in her
capacity to provide leadership among the board members.
Ada served on the national board until 1948, and her story helps to
illuminate another important characteristic of Federationists-leadership.
She wondered if she was really the right person for the job, whether she
had the qualities needed to serve, and whether she was adequate to work
closely with such a dynamic force for equality as Dr. tenBroek. These are
doubts many of us have experienced when considering the work of this great
organization compared to the individual contributions we make-doubts that
are often a result of our internalizing society's low expectations. When
she did not believe in herself, the Federation believed in her. That is the
bond of faith we pass from generation to generation in this movement. We
believe in each other, and it is that element that brings out the potential
for leadership in each of us. For Ada Tiernan her leadership was inspired
by her participation in the organized blind movement, where the most
important characteristics were that she was a blind person seeking
equality, with hope for the future, and a willingness to lead when called.
A woman who was not born in the United States and who was not blind
at the time of our founding came to be a force for sharing our message
around the world. Isabelle Lyon Dean was born in 1896 in a fishing village
on the northern coast of Scotland. At the age of twenty-eight, Isabelle and
her husband, Dr. Alexander Grant, left Scotland to build their life
together in the United States. In 1927 Isabelle began teaching in the Los
Angeles County schools where, aided by her fluency in Spanish, she became a
vocal advocate for the sizable population of Mexican American students. In
1940 she further enhanced her teaching credentials by earning a PhD in
comparative literature.
Her career took a turn when she developed glaucoma and, by the fall
of 1948, Dr. Grant was totally blind. She found no hope among the agencies
for the blind she visited, and her uncertainty grew regarding how to manage
her job as vice principal at Belvedere Junior High School. Hope and
opportunity returned to her when a friend introduced her to a blind man who
was a member of the National Federation of the Blind-an encounter that put
her on the road to mastering the skills of blindness, to internalizing our
shared philosophy, and to becoming an active member in our California
affiliate.
Dr. Grant's own determination, the unwavering support of her
professional colleagues in the school, and the shared bond with her sisters
and brothers in the Federation assisted in rejecting the school district's
attempt to force her to retire based on her disability. Yet, Dr. Grant
would endure more than a decade of maneuvers by the district to sabotage
her work by regularly shifting her assigned school and the students on her
caseload. The discrimination she faced caused her real pain. One example is
that the district assigned her a sighted teaching assistant to be with her
at all times. When the sighted person left the classroom, the door was
required to be locked as a safety precaution-a circumstance she described
as "the blind teacher in a glass cage."
As the first blind teacher in the California public school system,
Dr. Grant worked tirelessly so that future generations of blind educators
would not face similar barriers. She advocated for new state laws,
organized conferences for blind educators, and innovated quality
educational services for blind children based on the authentic experience
of blind people. A trip to an international conference in 1957 sparked a
passion for working on issues of education and self-organization of the
blind outside of the United States, which would drive the final twenty
years of her life.
During the 1959-60 school year, she took a sabbatical from teaching
to make a remarkable journey through twenty-three countries, traveling
alone, with the aim to learn from the educational and living conditions of
other blind people, and to raise expectations through self-organization.
She chronicled her adventures in a manuscript entitled, "Crooked Paths Made
Straight," which went unpublished until 2016. She would make many more
international trips and correspond regularly with hundreds of blind people
around the world. Significantly, 1960 also marked Dr. Grant's election to
the Board of the National Federation of the Blind on which she served until
her death in 1977. In everything she did, no matter the continent, she was
a constant promoter and information gatherer for the Federation. Blindness
was what brought Dr. Grant to the Federation family, but it was only one of
many dynamic characteristics that added synergy to our movement.
Isabel Grant was most certainly influenced by a blind educator from
New Mexico named Pauline Gomez. Blind from birth, Pauline was educated at
the New Mexico School for the Blind, where she graduated in 1940. A
scholarship from the Perkins Institute for the Blind gave her an
opportunity to meet blind people from around the country and set her on the
path to be a teacher. In the fall of 1941, Pauline became the first blind
student to enroll at the University of New Mexico, where she had to pioneer
methods for gaining access to instructional materials and navigating the
campus independently.
Upon successful graduation from the university, Pauline returned home
to Santa Fe, where she planned to teach in the public schools. Despite her
qualifications, the public-school administrators could not imagine a blind
teacher working with children, but Pauline was determined to build her own
opportunity to share her talents with the children of Santa Fe. On October
1, 1946, Los Niqos Kindergarten School opened in the back room of Pauline's
home. There were eight children in her first class, and Pauline served as
the only teacher, in addition to managing the administrative details of the
school. From that modest beginning, Pauline expanded her school over the
following decades, serving the children of all of the most prominent
families in Santa Fe.
Pauline's school had been open almost a decade when she assisted in
organizing the New Mexico affiliate of the National Federation of the Blind
in 1956. When Pauline became president of the affiliate in 1960, she began
aggressively working on legislative proposals to improve opportunities for
the blind. A keen educator, Pauline recognized the efficacy of Kenneth
Jernigan's Iowa training program using the Federation's philosophy. She
wanted that level of training in New Mexico. In 1963 she persuaded the
state legislature to study the value of establishing an adult
rehabilitation training center in the state, which threatened the monopoly
that the workshops for the blind had on the employment pipeline. Workshop
supervisors attended the 1963 Convention of the NFB of New Mexico where
they were able to coerce their blind employees into electing four agency
supporters to the affiliate's board of directors. Pauline took swift action
to guard against the hostile takeover of the organized blind movement by
sending affiliate documents to the President of the Federation, securing
the treasury, and reorganizing the affiliate, all of this while running her
own growing school in Santa Fe.
Whether it was in the president's chair or another position within
the Federation, Pauline had a hand in more victories than we can do justice
to this evening. From leading New Mexico to be the first state in the
nation to pass the Federation's model White Cane Law in 1967, to developing
the teachers division of the National Federation of the Blind in 1970, for
Pauline the Federation was personal. Her community contributions outside of
the Federation were extraordinary and widely celebrated. Her school was
admired for its quality and innovative practices. It would have been easy
for her to decide that the organized blind movement did not matter. Except
for her it did matter. She was a blind person, she felt the pain of
discrimination, and she understood the synergy of equality. The National
Federation of the Blind fueled Pauline's hope for the future, and we helped
her to know she could do something to shape that future. She brought
perspective, diversity, knowledge, and determination to us, and we gave to
her the place where her blindness was a most important factor in her
leadership, but the least important factor in her success.
There may be no better example of the role blind women have played in
the National Federation of the Blind, than the pioneering, tough,
persistent, dedicated, and generous women who founded the three training
programs that proudly call themselves Federation training centers. While
these women, Joanne Wilson (Louisiana), Diane McGeorge (Colorado), and
Joyce Scanlan (Minnesota) built upon the philosophy and methodology tested
by Kenneth Jernigan, they made significant personal sacrifices and took
risks that few would even dream to pursue. While each of these women has an
extraordinary personal story, they share a common bond. They are all blind
people who, until they came to know the heartbeat of our movement, had
internalized some of the misconceptions about blindness that threaten to
hold each of us back. It was their coming to be part of our movement which
allowed the rest of us to benefit from their leadership. Did the Federation
believe in them more, or did they believe in the Federation more? The
answer most certainly is yes. Each of these women has brought their talent
and energy to our cause, and their lives have been enriched by being part
of us. From the perspective of history-now having thirty years or more of
graduates from these centers-we can be certain that all of us are stronger
because these women invested in equality for the blind. In case anyone
doubts the impact these three women have had on our movement, how about a
cheer from anyone who has been impacted by the programs and graduates of
our NFB training centers?
There are thousands of other examples of contributions small and
great from blind people who happen to be women. From managing our
scholarship program over the past fifty years, editing our publications,
leading pickets and writing protest songs, directing our research and
training institute, answering general information calls, testifying in
Congress, building affiliates while raising families, commanding local
legislatures, pioneering new teaching techniques, managing the operations
of our Washington Seminar, directing fundraisers, to leading or serving
wherever this movement has needed them, blind women have added synergy to
our organization. That they were women was not nearly as important as the
fact that they were blind people who believed in equality, had a hope for
the future, and were willing to participate actively in the efforts of the
National Federation of the Blind. From Arlene Hill practicing the
techniques that blind people use to teach blind people to travel, to Ever
Lee Hairston delivering a powerful address to the next generation of blind
leaders from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, we have
overcome because of the everyday and extraordinary blind people that have
given synergy to our movement.
Tonight I call on us to celebrate these individuals and the thousands
of others I have not named by committing ourselves to carrying the march
forward. Tonight we celebrate the diversity of our organized blind
movement, a movement that brings together blind people for a common
purpose. We are blind people who come with varying characteristics-
different races, sexual orientations, religions, political points of view,
gender identities, disabilities, economic circumstances, languages,
talents, interests, and priorities. Yet, in everything that matters we are
one as blind people. We cannot be divided. We share a quest for equality
and hope for the future. It is our diversity that gives us depth. It is our
long-standing commitment to work together that gives us strength. It is our
synergy that makes us unstoppable.
Tomorrow we must again pick up the tools of progress. There are those
that seek to divide us and slow us down. There are those who say we do not
represent those blind people who have some usable vision. There are those
who claim that for us equality means only for blind people who do not have
other disabilities. There are those who tell the story that in order to be
one of us you must fit a certain type. To those who share these false
claims about us we say, we, the blind, speak for ourselves. Our movement is
for blind people, all blind people, and we will not let others who are not
committed to equality and hope for the future stand in our way. We will set
the direction and the pace, and we invite all blind people to contribute to
our synergy.
We will not go back to a time when we must fight the agencies for the
blind for recognition. We reject, as we have before, accreditation without
authenticity in an effort to validate mediocracy. We leave behind the days
when technologies were built and later made usable by the blind. We move
past, but do not forget, the employment shackles of the sheltered workshops
that pay pennies per hour. In doing so we recognize that there are those
who wish to return to the good old days when the blind received what little
charity was offered, and the experts in the field were qualified by the
amount of eyesight not insight. To the extent that the past belongs to
others, we declare once again this evening that the future is ours. Our
future is filled with love, hope, and determination. Our future is
distinguished by leadership, collaboration, and authenticity. And our
future, as has been our pattern since 1940, is unified in the common bond
of faith that we hold with each other as blind people.
My sisters and my brothers, blindness does not define us or our
future. It does serve the most important role of bringing us together in
this movement, a movement that is built on equality, a movement that feeds
our hope for the future, a movement that empowers us to lead in all aspects
of life, a movement where we come seeking a place to belong and where we
stay because of those we befriend. Let us recommit to our march toward
equality. Let us welcome new members into the diverse family that we share.
Let us direct our own future and reach for unimagined possibilities. With
synergy, let us go build the National Federation of the Blind.
----------
Awards Presented at the 2018 National Convention
From the Editor: One of the highlights of convention is the
presentation of various awards. Some are presented annually; others are
presented only as often as the Federation determines that a truly deserving
candidate exists. The Federation recognizes that a critical part of our
mission is recognizing the work that is accomplished by and on behalf of
the blind, and the audience takes as much satisfaction and joy in
presenting these awards as the committees who bestow them take in finding
worthy recipients.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Carolyn Mason proudly displays her plaque]
Distinguished Educator of Blind Students Award
presented by Carla McQuillan
Good morning. How is everybody this morning? Every year the National
Federation of the Blind recognizes a teacher of blind students who has
demonstrated performance above and beyond those of his or her colleagues.
This year our distinguished educator has thirty-three years in the field.
She received her bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of
Texas Austin. She has a national board certification in exceptional needs
specialist for early childhood through adults. She has a certification in
music, and here is what her colleagues say about Carolyn Mason: [applause]
She never complains about her students or her workload. If she needs to
learn a new skill to support her students, she will gladly learn it. If she
has to put in extra hours, she will do so without complaint. She is calm
and gracious under fire. In a few words, she is the ultimate professional.
But the thing that really endears Carolyn Mason to the National
Federation of the Blind is that she served as Harley Fetterman's teacher
from the time that he was three years old and first lost his vision until
cancer took him in his senior year of high school. She encouraged Harley to
learn Braille and taught him Nemeth Code for his advanced math classes. She
encouraged him to compete in the National Braille Challenge and then
decided that, "Why can't we just start a regional National Braille
Challenge here in Texas so that more of the local students could
participate?" And though it took a number of hours and effort on her part,
without any compensation financially, she gladly did it for the cause.
We have here for her a plaque that has the National Federation of the
Blind logo on it, and this is how it reads:
THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
HONORS
Carolyn Mason
DISTINGUISHED EDUCATOR OF
BLIND STUDENTS
For your skills in teaching Braille and other
alternative techniques of blindness;
For graciously devoting extra time to meet the needs of
your students, and for empowering your students to perform
beyond their expectations.
YOU CHAMPION OUR MOVEMENT.
YOU STRENGTHEN OUR HOPES.
YOU SHARE OUR DREAMS.
JULY 5, 2018
Please give a warm welcome to this year's distinguished educator,
Carolyn Mason.
Carolyn Mason: Thank you so much. I'm very honored to be here. I'd
like to thank the National Federation of the Blind for choosing me for this
award. I'd like to thank Jan McSorley for submitting my name, and of course
Beth Fetterman, who provided information and has been one of my biggest
cheerleaders throughout our time together with Harley. Just, thank you so
much; it's very amazing to be awarded for something you love to do.
[applause]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Robin L. House poses with her white cane and plaque]
Blind Educator of the Year Award
presented by Dr. Eddie Bell
Good morning, Mr. President and fellow Federationists. It is my honor
to again chair this committee. When I think of some of the most noble
professions in the world, I'm hard-pressed to find one better than being a
teacher. Giving the skills of literacy to children is one of the most
important things that we have to do. The Blind Educator Award is designed
to be given to individuals who are blind who have been able to get into the
teaching profession. As noble as the profession is, it has too often barred
entrance to blind people from participating in that. Through the work of
the National Federation of the Blind, many pioneers have been able to be
successful in that career, and the rewards just have continued to grow
exponentially.
The recipient for this year, when I told the President whom we had
selected, was very thrilled and reminded me that she was involved in 2004
at the very beginning of some of our STEM initiatives (science, technology,
engineering, and math) in the creation of those programs and has worked
with them ever since. She's been a leader in her state in working in the
Braille enrichment programs. And in reading the nomination letter, it was
pointed out that she is admired and revered amongst her colleagues at
school, fellow teachers respect her, and parents love her. But what's most
important is when you watch her interact with children, and the way they
are engaged and the rapport they have is just phenomenal, and for many
years now she has participated in this organization. Please help me in
congratulating the 2018 Blind Educator, Robin L. House. [applause]
I'm going to ask Beth to read the language of the plaque as I present
it to the recipient here. And I want to say in addition to my
congratulations, you will be receiving this plaque; a check for $1,000; and
most importantly the love, hope, and determination of all the members of
your Federation family. Congratulations.
THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
BLIND EDUCATOR OF THE YEAR
Presented to
Robin L. House
In recognition of outstanding accomplishments
in the teaching profession.
YOU ENHANCE THE PRESENT,
YOU INSPIRE YOUR COLLEAGUES,
YOU BUILD THE FUTURE.
JULY 5, 2018
Robin House: Thank you very much. I am really honored to receive this
award. Thank you for being nominated, thank you to the committee and the
National Federation of the Blind. I've been a part of this organization for
eighteen years, and I've had some amazing opportunities to work with blind
youth, and I really appreciate all those experiences. I currently am a
school counselor, and I work in the St. Louis public schools. The work is
hard, it is demanding, but my passion is in educating the whole child, the
whole person: their social, their emotional, their psychological, their
academic, and their career interests. So I appreciate all of the support
that I've received from the National Federation of the Blind, all my
friends that help me keep my passion alive and keep growing throughout the
years. I love being part of this organization. Thank you very much.
[applause]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Mary Ellen Jernigan laughs as Mitch Bainwol accepts the
Kenneth Jernigan Award]
The Kenneth Jernigan Award
presented by Mary Ellen Jernigan
The Kenneth Jernigan Award is being presented this afternoon for only
the third time since its establishment. Like the previous recipients,
Daniel Goldstein in 2016 and Frank Kurt Cylke in 2011, this presentation
recognizes significant contributions to the well-being of blind individuals
that will endure well beyond our own lifetimes. The other common thread
running through the accomplishments of these individuals is that their work
has been done in solid and ongoing relationship with the National
Federation of the Blind. Through those relationships and the cooperative
work inherent in them, we each reach our common goals more quickly, and the
results of each of our efforts are immeasurably magnified.
Indeed, Mitch Bainwol and the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers he
leads have a commitment to pedestrian safety that matches our own. The
advent of quiet cars endangered the safety of all pedestrians, but it also
did something profoundly and insidiously damaging to the blind: it
threatened the proven tenants upon which the entire system of safe and
independent mobility for blind individuals is based. But together with the
alliance we have faced that challenge and removed that threat. [applause]
With the issuance of the regulation implementing the Pedestrian
Safety Enhancement Act, the techniques used by blind individuals to engage
in safe and independent travel have been recognized and are now protected
in the law. [applause, cheers] The three key provisions of this regulation
that mattered to blind people: 1) that cars emit enough sound to be heard
at all speeds; 2) that this level of sound be emitted at all times the
engine is turned on, whether the car is moving or not moving; and 3) that
the sound-generating system cannot be turned off at any time by the driver.
[applause]
These provisions would not have survived the long years of study and
negotiation without the staunch support of the alliance. Over and over
Mitch Bainwol and the organization he leads joined us in insisting that the
capacity of the blind to engage in safe and independent pedestrian travel
be protected. And they backed up that commitment by taking concrete and
public actions aimed toward achieving that end by endorsing the Quiet Car
Amendment to the Motor Vehicle Safety Act and later by issuing a joint
letter to recommend implementation of what became known as the quiet car
rule, which established minimum sound requirements for hybrid and electric
vehicles.
The opening text of that joint communication reads as follows: "The
Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the Association of Global Automakers,
and the tens of thousands of members of the National Federation of the
Blind have a long history of working together to help identify and
implement ways to help all Americans, including blind Americans, navigate
safely around motor vehicles." Here I am moved to express the gratitude of
the National Federation of the Blind to the alliance for working with us in
what we have come to view as the ideal model for working in collaborative
rather than adversarial ways to solve problems that might initially seem to
have competing interests. I also note with gratitude that neither we nor
the alliance regard our work together as finished. We are already working
collaboratively to address the promises and perils looming ahead when, like
the horse, the human driver is replaced by something incredibly more
efficient.
With autonomous vehicles now approaching on an increasingly
shortening horizon, the Alliance cohosted an autonomous vehicle summit at
the Jernigan Institute. At this conference, attended by disabled consumers,
automotive industry representatives, ride-sharing providers, staff of
elected officials, and policymakers at multiple levels of government, Mitch
Bainwol made the following statement on behalf of the Alliance: "We are
motivated by the tremendous potential for enhanced safety for everyone and
the opportunity to provide greater mobility and freedom to people with
disabilities. We are anxious to work with stakeholders and government
leaders to develop the policy framework to realize these benefits as soon
as we can."
Well, Mr. Bainwol and members of the alliance, we are anxious, too.
[applause] And we can think of no better partners to work with to make sure
that when the fully-autonomous vehicles arrive, they will be fully
accessible through fully nonvisual systems. [applause] We can think of no
better way to express our gratitude, our trust, and our excitement for the
future than to bestow upon you and your organization the award that bears
the name of Kenneth Jernigan, who had unbounded faith in the unlimited
future that could be created through the joint effort of individuals and
organizations working together in love and trust to create that future.
So it is with enormous pleasure that I make this presentation which reads
as follows:
KENNETH JERNIGAN AWARD
THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
For your dedication to the highest ideals;
For your commitment to extraordinary partnership;
For your leadership in expanding access to transportation
and ensuring safety for pedestrians;
We, the organized blind movement, confer upon
Mitch Bainwol
and the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers
The Kenneth Jernigan Award
YOU HAVE MET EVERY CHALLENGE;
YOUR COMMITMENT TO SAFETY IS UNMATCHED;
YOU ARE A TRUSTED PARTNER AND A VALUED FRIEND.
July 8, 2018
[NFB logo on the left]
Mitch Bainwol: I just want to say thank you very much. I'm really
touched. This is also very heavy [laughter]. I just want to say that we
have a great journey into the future, and I'm so pleased we are on this
journey together. Thank you very much.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Pam Allen hands Francis Gurry the Global Literacy Award]
The Global Literacy Award
presented by Pam Allen
Thank you so much, Dr. Maurer. What an incredible and inspiring
banquet address from our President this evening. [applause] I'm so proud to
serve and to be a part of that legacy in our Federation family.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "The future belongs to those who believe
in the beauty of their dreams." We in the National Federation of the Blind
have worked diligently to turn the dream of global access to information
into a reality. We have believed in this future and tirelessly worked
together to achieve this fundamental right and to open new doors of
opportunity in learning and literacy for the blind.
Fortunately, our dream of global access has been shared. We found a
partner and true champion; someone who is willing to listen, to advocate,
to educate, and to fight until the goal of literacy for all is achieved.
Earlier today we heard about the many accomplishments of this most
deserving individual, whose commitment to excellence has resulted in far-
reaching changes and allowed access to thousands of published materials
previously unavailable.
Under Dr. Francis Gurry's dynamic leadership and expert guidance as
director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization, access to
information across borders was transformed from a distant dream first
articulated in 2009 when the concept was proposed to the reality of the
Marrakesh Treaty adopted only four years later and soon to be ratified here
in the United States. [applause]
Dr. Gurry has demonstrated a steadfast and proactive commitment by
promoting the Marrakesh Treaty at all levels: sponsoring informative
seminars, forming partnerships, and working with governments around the
world. There are numerous examples of the important work Dr. Gurry has done
to further the Marrakesh Treaty and access for all. To highlight one
initiative, he established and secured funding for the Accessible Book
Consortium.
We cherish the true friend we have found, and we are energized by the
possibilities our continued collaboration will create together. In
recognition and appreciation of his exemplary leadership and unwavering
commitment to achieving access to information for all, it is my sincere
pleasure to present Dr. Francis Gurry with the Global Literacy Award.
[applause]
This beautiful crystal plaque has our logo on one side and includes
the following text on the other:
GLOBAL LITERACY AWARD
NATIONAL FEDERATION
OF THE BLIND
For your commitment to making
the world's literature available to all;
For your dedication to accessibility for the blind;
For your imaginative leadership in eliminating
the barriers to sharing equal access across borders;
We, the organized blind movement, confer upon
Francis Gurry
THIS GLOBAL LITERACY AWARD.
In recognition of the significant leadership
of the World Intellectual Property Organization
in making a worldwide book treaty
for the blind possible.
You have facilitated effective sharing
of accessible, published works around the world.
You are a true friend of the blind
and a champion for literacy.
July 8, 2018
[NFB logo on the left]
Congratulations and thank you.
Dr. Francis Gurry: Dear friends, I am truly humbled by this award,
and Pam, thank you so much. You have given an overly-generous assessment of
the very modest contribution that I personally have made. It's you who did
the Marrakesh Treaty. You were the origin of it, the National Federation of
the Blind was the origin with the World Blind Union of the idea of the
Marrakesh Treaty. You have driven us, you have had wonderful, wonderful
negotiators. It was your time, Dr. Maurer, during which the treaty was
concluded. It is President Riccobono's time during which the treaty will be
ratified by the United States of America, and that is an event that the
whole world is waiting for. I thank you all for your inspiration, and I
thank you all for all that you have done in giving birth to this great
treaty, which I hope will make a really worthwhile contribution to global
access. Thank you so much. [applause]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Dr. Marc Maurer stands with Joy Harris as she displays her
Jacobus tenBroek Award]
The Jacobus tenBroek Award
presented by Dr. Marc Maurer
Each year we have a committee that comes together to discuss the work
that is being done by our own members. We think about our first President
when we begin to plan this, because the award that we give for the internal
work that is being conducted in our organization by our own members is
reflective of the commitment of our first President, Dr. Jacobus tenBroek,
and we name our award after him.
Dr. tenBroek began by having an idea. When he invited people to join
him to create an organization, he did not have substantial financial
resources to support it. He did not have a family connection that would
build for him access to the people who might help to change the nature of
the society in which we live based upon an idea. What he had was a thought
that if he brought blind people together, that something might be done to
change the society in which we live. Now many people at the time thought
that blind people represented a number of folks without a future, and if
you take zero and add it to zero, what you get is zero. It doesn't matter
whether you add a hundred or a thousand zeros; it still comes out to zero.
Dr. tenBroek knew that that wasn't the case. He knew that in his own
life things had been achieved that many thought could not be. He had
written law journal articles. He had been in college and got diplomas. He
had found a way to do some teaching, mostly of sighted people, but now and
then of blind people too. He had inspired other people to go to college
other than himself. He had dreamed that there could be something bigger
than he was, and he created the National Federation of the Blind along with
the help of many others.
So tonight we have a presentation to make to a person who has much
the same sort of spirit, a person who's been long in the National
Federation of the Blind, has taken some leadership positions (especially
lately), but has mostly supported others in leadership rolls. And while
we're on the subject, tonight we make our presentation of the tenBroek
Award to a woman of the movement.
I want to invite Joy Harris [applause, cheers] to the podium. Joy has
recently been president of our Alabama affiliate. [applause] She is no
longer, that position now being held by Barbara Manuel, who was elected
this spring.
Joy and Allen Harris moved to Alabama after Allen had come to be
unwell, and they wanted to be closer to family. Joy and Allen got there,
and Joy thought, 'We have a noticeable lack of leadership and unity in
Alabama, and I am going to do something about it!' [applause]
So after a time she became the president of our Alabama affiliate, which
had been off and on a troubled affiliate. And it came to be unified with
her in the principal office. And it came to represent people of different
races. There had been those who wanted it to be all one color or all the
other, and Joy said, 'I'm not having it. [applause] Everybody's welcome,
and I mean everybody's welcome. You just come, and if you want to be a part
of this organization, here you are. You can join it; you can participate
fully.'
Now prior to her being a leader in Alabama, Joy was mostly a
supporter of Allen Harris, who has been a leader of ours for many decades.
He has served on the board, he's been president in Michigan, he has been
treasurer of the National Federation of the Blind, and one of the people
who would always be there to help him and to make sure that things were
done as they ought to be done was Joy Harris. So you represent a human
being with two leadership characteristics that do not often go together.
One of them is that you know thoroughly how to support somebody else in a
major leadership role, and the second is if that's not going to happen, you
know how to do it yourself. [applause]
Consequently, tonight I have this plaque, which says:
JACOBUS tenBROEK AWARD
PRESENTED TO
Joy Harris
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 8, 2018
Joy Harris: [near tears] Thank you. I hardly know what to say,
seriously. This is such an honor for me, just totally unexpected. I joined
the Federation about forty-six years ago. Somebody told me to come to a
meeting. I said, "I don't know; I'm busy..."
They said, "No, Joy, you've got to come to this meeting." I went to this
meeting, and I heard people talking about blind people being equal and
being first-class citizens-all the things-you could be what you wanted to
be. I thought, Wow, I really kind of like this. People were getting a
little rowdy; of course I'm a rowdy person, so I fit right in. I was
elected ombudsman. I had no idea what that was at that point, but I was
elected anyway, and I haven't left since. I'm just so proud of this
organization.
When Dr. Maurer handed me this award though, I kind of laughed
because Allen did receive the tenBroek Award, and he was holding it way up
there, very proud. Well somehow the award got left, and he was holding up a
plaque with a pineapple on it. [laughter] So anyway, I truly, dearly love
the Federation. When I am called, I will definitely be there. It's been a
major, major part of my life, and as long as I'm here, I will be with my
Federation family, and I hope this will continue on for many years. Again,
thank you so much. [applause, cheers]
-----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Suman Kanuganti]
Introducing Chloe: Guided by the Blind
by Suman Kanuganti
From the Editor: Suman Kanuganti is the cofounder and chief executive
officer of Aira Tech. Aira was a proud convention sponsor of the National
Federation of the Blind 2018 Convention, and its services were made
available to Aira Explorers and to Aira Guests. Those who had not yet tried
Aira were invited to download the app and try the service while at the
convention, the airport, and other sites around Orlando.
Here are the remarks that Mr. Kanuganti made to the convention on the
afternoon of July 6:
Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Suman Kanuganti, founder and CEO of
Aira. I'm delighted to be attending my fourth NFB convention, an early-July
tradition that I plan to celebrate with you all for years to come.
As usual, joining me this year are another large group of Aira
employees, engineers, Aira agents, and many, many Aira Explorers. I'd like
to ask all of the Explorers in the crowd to say "I."
Aira is proud to be a part of the NFB family. Many of you have played
a vital role in molding our company. I'm grateful to President Mark
Riccobono and all of you for being vital stakeholders, creating a platform
to augment the ability of every human being on the planet by providing
instant access to information anywhere and anytime.
My involvement with the NFB has taught me much about blindness. The
NFB's core philosophy informs how we at Aira understand our role and aim to
enhance access to information: always on your terms, whenever you need it,
and however you want it. If you had a great experience with an Aira Agent,
make some noise. Aira's human agents and Chloe-our evolving AI assistant-
exist to objectively enhance access to both the physical and digital world,
enabling you to achieve peak efficiency no matter what you're doing, the
mundane and the marvelous.
Because of my relationship with the NFB and through my study of our
home-grown philosophy of self-determination as it relates to blindness, I
want to reassure you that Aira trains its agents to believe fundamentally
in the capacity of those who are blind. [applause] We train our staff to
respect the alternative, nonvisual techniques of blindness. We teach our
staff to convey useful visual detail in an objective manner. And we
encourage our agents to defer to the on-the-ground judgment of Explorers,
exactly as Chancey Fleet said in her earlier remarks. We also candidly set
those expectations with every new Explorer.
In short, Aira is one of many effective tools or skills, such as the
cane or Braille, that anyone may choose to use to manage their lives in the
way they want. And, it's really, really important to understand that the
comprehensive Aira service will organically improve through the growing
community of Explorer usage, as analyzing usage patterns is an important
way to teach both humans and Chloe what the community most desires. This is
how Chloe will be guided by the blind. [applause]
If I may change the topic for a moment: recently, some of my NFB
friends asked me about my background, and what influences my thinking.
Well, I grew up in a small university town back in India, where I earned a
bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. Then I attended the University
of Missouri-Columbia, where I earned my master's in robotics and computer
engineering. Following school, I served in different roles, mostly in
corporate America, including as an engineer programming robots at
Caterpillar; as a hacker, integrating computers and machines at Qualcomm;
and as a manager of several teams creating solutions in the connected world
at Intuit. As a lifelong student, I took my second master's earning an MBA
at the University of California, San Diego, focusing on entrepreneurship
and economics. With this background, I started Aira. Before I continue,
please remember that I love math, data, inflecting ideas, and economic
models. So, with that in mind, I would like to share some key metrics at
Aira.
Aira, in the last twelve months, went from amassing 60,000 minutes to
1.4 million minutes of live-description session time between our Explorers
and agents. Put that in context, and that translates to 20,000 hours or
nearly three calendar-years of conversations over 125,000 sessions across
five-hundred unique tasks, falling into eight general categories at home,
at work, and in the outside world. In 99.9 percent of cases, calls are
answered in under ten seconds, precisely 8.64 seconds.
Why am I telling you about these numbers (other than because I love
metrics)? Well the data speaks for itself. It tells us the story of how our
technology and services are impacting Explorers on a massive scale.
We also gained some insightful surprises. One year ago, most people
in the community thought that Aira would be a tool primarily for
navigation; now as it developed, only 23 percent of our sessions have
related to navigation. And who would have anticipated that 28 percent of
our sessions would have primarily involved reading-and now we're using the
contexts from these sessions to help Chloe learn and review relevant
material for you. This is a beautiful example of how the community is
shaping Chloe's maturation.
Now, superficially, Aira's technology may seem simple: a camera on a
pair of glasses connecting Explorers to a trained agent who describes the
environment. But the platform the Aira service is built on is not just
based on video streaming from a phone-to-phone, Facetime-type application.
Instead, our platform re-creates a composite, virtual environment of where
you are, in a digital space, relying on our proprietary dashboard
technology that our agents run on their computers. The dashboard is an
intelligent, context-aware data integrator with video streams, GPS,
sensors, mobile network data, satellite images, street view maps, and
indoor views-I can go on- but also a number of online applications
including Lyft, Uber, Yelp, Amazon, and even AirBnB. Our dashboard also
runs Chloe, who uses each session's interactions to become a smarter AI
agent.
For the last year we have been working on the fundamentals of Chloe,
who has come to life at the convention with our new Horizon Smart Glasses.
[applause] Inspired by the feedback from our Explorers, and meticulously
designed by Aira engineers, Horizon is equipped with computational power,
improved camera specifications, network stability, and the simplicity of
Chloe dialogue. This provides not just a stable platform for Explorers, but
it is also purpose-built for making the most of the Aira service.
One of Chloe's principal advantages is her ability to learn from you
and others with whom you interact. Chloe is now able to listen and respond
to you through our Horizon Glasses. Another key skill of Chloe's is the
ability to spot read, which is currently in beta testing. Here's a fun fact-
some of the technical components used in Chloe's system are powered by the
NFB's own KNFB Reader. But, given the fact that reading a document and
reading an overhead sign require different skills, our human agents are
available to help Chloe when she needs it. This means that Chloe will be
able to master reading in the widest array of areas. Chloe's capacity for
situational awareness is growing gradually with each Explorer interaction-
and we're incredibly excited to see what she'll do next.
If you know about our Back to School program, say I. Awesome! Did you
know that Aira has recorded over 32,000 minutes over 4,500 sessions of
student Explorer use on college campuses around the nation? Students are
putting Aira into action in a number of ways, including finding and
selecting books from a library; getting descriptions of images in those
books; reading handwritten text on the blackboard; submitting assignments
online that present tricky forms; experiencing campus events; and even
working on their online job profiles and formats, along with applying for
jobs on company websites that may be inaccessible with screen readers.
Recognizing our partnership with the NFB, I am now proud to announce
that Aira will offer each recipient of the 2018 NFB scholarship class
access to our Back to School program. [applause] These students are
guaranteed nine months of free Aira services, with all the advantages that
Aira Explorers enjoy every day. At this point, I would like to thank our
partner AT&T for its support with this program. [applause]
But these students are not the only ones we want to share the Aira
experience with this week. If you haven't already, please, and I say
please, download the free Aira app by visiting aira.io/app on your mobile
phone, and sign up as a Guest. Most of you may already know this, but I
would like to formally announce that the NFB convention and a number of
locations in Orlando are free Aira Access locations for every one of you
including Orlando International Airport and all Rosen Hotels. This is made
possible through the creation of an exclusive NFB plan for Explorers, and
we also have a special starter plan created available during the convention
days.
Not only do I want you to try Aira, but I would like to make your
experience at the convention as efficient and enjoyable as possible. Thanks
to our partnership with Lyft, all Aira Explorer and Guest calls for
organizing Lyft rides during the convention are free. So Lyft, thank you.
[applause] For more information visit aira.io/nfb.
We are continuously expanding our Aira Access around the country for
our Guests and Explorers to access the Aira service free. I want you to
know that this is not just about Aira providing greater access to the blind
community. It is in fact the blind community that is paving the way for
greater access in our time for all. Did you know NFB HQ in Baltimore is
also part of the Aira Access Network? Yep.
Let's talk about Aira at work. A fun fact: Over 25,000 work-related
tasks were captured last year leading to a productive workplace. Earlier
this year on Feb 21, Aira launched its Aira Employment Program, joined by
President Mark Riccobono, which allows all career-seeking Explorers to use
the Aira service for all career-search related activities at no cost.
Explorers have used the program to create and review resumis, fill out job
applications, get rides to the interview, access previously inaccessible
content, and perform independent navigation to and from the interview. And
employers have used the program to increase employee efficiency by
providing access to the tools and technologies that can enhance
productivity, self-sufficiency, and motivation. A fun fact which is not in
my script is that we have four-hundred people in the last five months who
used our career-seeking platform. [applause] This is why I am inviting
every employer in the United States to become part of the Aira Employer
Network. I am proud to share that the American Foundation for the Blind is
the latest employer joining this network. There is a great workforce
available for hire right now, just waiting for an opportunity to shine.
For example, the Aira Employment Program just got stronger, and the
Aira Access Network just got better. Let's see. How many of you are self-
employed? Well that's reasonable. Many of our sessions involve sorting
customer receipts, confirming inventory, and providing online assistance to
send invoices.
So, it's my pleasure to announce a brand new partnership with Intuit
targeted to those who are self-employed or who are business owners.
Intuit's mission is to power prosperity. So, to power your prosperity,
starting this September Intuit will enable free use of Aira's service
whenever any Explorer or Guest needs visual access to all matters
pertaining to running your business. Here is the best part: it doesn't
matter if you are an Intuit customer. We are literally talking about all
tasks related to operating or managing your business. This includes reading
receipts, invoices, filing taxes, selecting paint for a new office, and, of
course, using the market-leading products from Intuit such as QuickBooks.
Ted Drake, please stand up if you are in the room. I want to thank Ted
Drake, chief accessibility officer at Intuit, for making this partnership
happen. So Ted, thank you. [applause]
So far we have touched on four topics. By expanding access to Aira
for students, jobseekers, employees, and employers, we have the potential
to transform lives to take 70 percent to 7 percent together.
A quick note: Aira occasionally faces the challenge of how the media
portrays an Explorer's authentic experience with our service. So, to
address any doubt about what Aira as a company fervently believes, I am
pleased to release our brand guidelines. To view these, please visit
Aira.io/branding. I want to thank the Aira NFB Advisory Committee for its
feedback in our development and articulation of these fundamental
principles.
There are always new value-added features and updates being added to
the Aira service. So far, most sessions between Explorers and agents have
been conducted through voice. Recently, we incorporated a new feature into
our system, designed for accommodating the needs of our deaf-blind
Explorers and for Explorers who want to communicate discreetly with our
agents. I'm glad the Aira Messages feature is available now for all
Explorers.
How many of you here use the JAWS screen reader? In yet another
example of how Chloe's intelligence is derived from conversations between
Explorers and agents, Aira announced a new collaboration with VFO. The new
collaboration will equip all VFO customers with free use of the Aira
service should they require visual access to a screen while using one of
VFO's products, such as the JAWS screen reader. This will help to increase
the user's efficiency while simultaneously prioritizing the development of
features suggested by the data sought. This integration will also help
Chloe to learn patterns of the software. I want to thank Tom Tiernan, CEO
of the VFO Group, for his partnership. [applause]
Let me talk about our latest and greatest features that I saved for
this moment, for all of you. First though, how do you like our Aira agents'
live and vivid descriptions of events such as the Super Bowl and the royal
wedding? The royal wedding was in fact suggested by the NFB, so we made it
happen just two nights before. Also, how many Explorers have gone to a
concert, watched a movie, or been to a museum with Aira? Now, what if
Explorers could choose to share those experiences with others live?
Yep, for the first time ever, at this 2018 Convention, I would like
to announce a new feature called "Aira Live." Aira Live gives Explorers the
ability to go live during a session with an Aira agent, allowing fellow
Explorers and Guests to listen to a live audio stream of their session.
Aira Live is perfect for Explorers who want to share their experiences at
events, shows, movies, or for exploring as a group-publicly or privately.
Every feature I've shared today is available to you now, and yes, Aira Live
is in queue for the app store release anytime today. To learn more, talk to
any of our staff; they will be waiting on the left when you exit the
ballroom.
Aira Live is another innovative way to engage our community and to
further help Chloe to understand the context of people's emotions. The more
she learns, the better she can serve the community. And although Chloe's
main role is to serve the community, she can't do it without first learning
from it. That's why we say that it's Chloe being guided by the blind. So,
to express my appreciation, I would like to ask all the Explorers and
Guests in the audience to please stand. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a
big round of applause. [applause] Thank you.
So far, we've talked about education, employment, and access. But for
me, our work at Aira is about restructuring the economy and the industry
and community and its market serving blind people.
To express my appreciation and commitment to all of you, and to
celebrate this convention with you, I am super pumped to remind you to join
us for an exclusive Aira and NFB event, the concert tonight with Apl.de.Ap
from the Black Eyed Peas.
Aira has been around for a little over three years now, and I hope
you all see the progress, the impact, and the vision of this company. This
company is about the community, and it is about restructuring the economy
in the industry-an industry that requires behavior change and that requires
everyone to come together. It invites and engages the blind and low-vision
community to benefit from the profound advantages of our system together.
In fact, today's screen readers are built for reading and interpreting
screens designed for visual experiences, which is a great solution.
However, there is a need for a solution which is entrenched in every aspect
of a blind or low-vision person's life that can cut time-tasks, regardless
of whether it requires humans or computer algorithms or AI to work.
Aira will save time for everyone, thus saving money for everyone.
Incremental investments today will yield larger positive developments for
tomorrow. Potential developments include efficiency, higher education, more
jobs, and more fun. I would like to close by saying that Aira is just
warming up, and we will not stop until the idea of inaccessibility becomes
a thing of the past. [applause] Let's welcome the generation of new
accessibility together. Please visit NewAccessibility.io to let me know
your thoughts and ideas. Thank you for this opportunity.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Marc Maurer]
Aviation, Technology, and Law
An Address Delivered by
Marc Maurer, Director of Legal Policy
National Federation of the Blind
July 8, 2018
In 1917, Calvin Coolidge, who would later become president of the
United States, declared that four behaviors are responsible for making New
England great. He said: "'Eat it up.' 'Wear it out.' 'Make it do.' 'Do
without.'" Frugality is the theme.
The author Jim Collins said in his book Good to Great: Why Some
Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't that "Good is the enemy of great."
He believes that if the performance of a company is good-especially very
good-that company is unlikely to achieve greatness because the people
involved in it will think that there is no point in changing what is
working well.
In his play King Lear, Shakespeare has one of his characters remark:
"Striving to better, oft we mar what's well."
In 1772 Voltaire wrote: "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien." (The better
is the enemy of the good.)
The recommendation is to embrace frugality and to be satisfied
whenever it seems that matters are good enough. However, greatness remains
the elusive objective. Change at the basic level demands extravagant
exertion, extravagant expenditure, extravagant imagination, and extravagant
leaps of faith. If the systems we encounter are really adequate to meet
whatever needs we have, extravagance is not required. But if something new
is expected in the creative process, we must find a way to gather the
resources and to apply them with the intense concentration necessary to
shift the balance for progress.
Such matters come to mind when I contemplate the work of the National
Federation of the Blind. When is the wise choice to accept what is good
enough, and when is an absolute demand for excellence the only reasonable
approach? We are asked, indeed expected, to accept what other people regard
as good enough-not just occasionally but on a continuing basis. Sometimes
we are not asked to accept the judgments of others but ordered to do so.
However, something within us rejects this demand. Something within us
speaks to the souls we have, telling us that good enough will never do.
Something within us demands the best that we know.
In 1949 Dr. Jacobus tenBroek, the founder and first President of the
National Federation of the Blind, published an article in which he said
that equality as reflected in the Constitution of the United States must be
interpreted so that characteristics of different groups of people would be
employed to make legal distinctions only when those characteristics are
relevant. At the time he wrote, he had observed that two classes of human
beings, prisoners and people with disabilities, had been misclassified by
the Supreme Court in ways that are not legally defensible. In 1955 Dr.
tenBroek wrote that rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the United
States are as applicable to disabled people as they are to anybody else. He
thought that special legislation to address rights of disabled people
should not perhaps be a part of the law because this would indicate that
other legal protections available to people without disabilities might not
apply to disabled human beings. By 1966 he had concluded that a criminal
statute, the White Cane Law, should be adopted to assure disabled human
beings the right to live in the world.
As members of the National Federation of the Blind know, the notion
of disability rights, which was new during the period that Dr. tenBroek
wrote, has come a long way since the drafting of the White Cane Law.
However, my own review of Supreme Court decisions addressing the topic of
disability rights indicates that the breadth of the scope of protection is
much more limited for people with disabilities than is true for other
classes.
Some groups of business leaders in the United States are attempting
to cause members of Congress to add yet more restrictions to the
protections offered in the law for people with disabilities. What these
business leaders are saying, in effect, is, "Surely we didn't mean to
include you in the businesses we operate. Surely we shouldn't be required
to hire you. We run businesses for regular people; surely the law doesn't
say we are required to welcome you." However, these business leaders are in
favor of equal treatment for disabled people as long as the equal treatment
must be provided by somebody else. When disabled people ask if their money
isn't just as good as the money offered by others, the honest response is,
"No, not really, because it comes connected with you, and we don't like
your kind. Besides, aren't there special places for you to live and to
work, and didn't our tax money pay for them already?"
Most technologies have not been intended for the use of the blind.
Two products that have been proclaimed as essential in settling the
American continent are the rifle and the axe. Most people believe these two
products cannot be used effectively by the blind. In my own case, in the
past I have agreed with this assessment. In a liberating and instructional
sequence of events, I myself have learned, at least in a rudimentary way,
how to use an axe. After I had learned to do this, and after I had been
bragging about how courageous and gifted I was for acquiring such skill, I
came upon a fellow member of the National Federation of the Blind who had
been chopping wood for more than twenty years. He took the ability of blind
people to chop wood for granted, and he could not imagine that
knowledgeable people would doubt that the blind can perform this task.
This experience helped to change my mind about the application of
technology to the lives of the blind. Technology is a fancy word for a
tool. Generally, a piece of technology is a complicated tool, although the
basic machines are not. Our experience has also changed the approach of the
National Federation of the Blind to technology. We believe that it must be
built so that all of us can use it whether we have the ability to see or
not. Using technology with vision is valuable, but using it with touch or
sound is equally valuable. This thought helped in the development of the
blind-drivable car, and it is an element of the basis for our program to
ensure that autonomous vehicles have an interface that is equally usable by
sighted or blind drivers. The alteration of the approach is less in the
technology itself than in the expectations that blind and sighted people
will use it to the same degree.
In 1738 Daniel Bernoulli published scholarly material in which he
observed that increasing the speed of a fluid over a surface decreases the
pressure. The Bernoulli principle has application in aviation because the
top surface of an airplane wing is curved, which means that the air flowing
over it travels faster than the air flowing under it, which decreases the
pressure and creates lift.
Almost from its very beginnings blind people have participated in
aviation as passengers, but we have also had other roles. Some of us have
been aviation mechanics, and some of us have supplied food or other
materials to the aviation industry. Several years ago one blind man
declared that he had become a pilot, and he spoke to the convention of the
National Federation of the Blind. However, despite significant efforts on
my part to observe this blind person flying a plane, I was unable
independently to verify the claims he made.
If we have learned anything during the decades of our history, we
have come to know that changes in society that welcome our talent come only
when we participate. Ordinarily the leaders of society do not think of the
blind when they plan a design for the future. Consequently, we must find a
way to get the attention of the people with whom we interact. It is said of
the Army mule that it is a useful animal if you can get its attention.
Frequently a two-by-four beside the head is the easiest way to accomplish
this. Sometimes our own form of two-by-four is the only practical approach.
If we intend, as indeed we do, to be recognized as the valuable
people we are, we must plan strategies for participation in all elements of
the society in which we live. Consequently, it is incumbent upon us to
begin with imaginative dreams and to plan for those dreams to become real.
When I met the man who said he was a blind pilot, I was not convinced that
he was telling me the whole story. However, I was convinced that methods
could be devised for us to become nothing less than the people responsible
for flying the planes. Indeed, I have tried it myself, sitting at the
controls of a plane owned by a friend of mine. However, I did not think
that I had sufficient information, or the tools to gather it, to permit me
to land the plane independently. Such products must be invented.
In the aviation industry we are mostly unwelcomed-not just as workers
but also sometimes as passengers on commercial planes. The list of
complaints from blind people attempting to fly independently and peaceably
on the airlines of the nation and the world is extensive. We decided in the
1980s that something should be done, and we persuaded our government to
adopt the Air Carrier Access Act. This law was originally interpreted to
mean that those of us denied the opportunity to fly on a commercial airline
because of our disabilities could bring suit in federal court to challenge
the discrimination. However, the Supreme Court decided to change the nature
of the interpretation of law such that a right to sue the airlines would be
withdrawn.
We have proposed to the American Bar Association that it adopt a
resolution recognizing the urgent need for disabled passengers not to
encounter discrimination in air travel and to be able to challenge the
discrimination in court. The most recent statistics available indicate that
in 2016, 32,445 complaints regarding disability-related incidents were
filed against the airlines with the Department of Transportation. Some
statisticians believe that at least ten incidents occur for each one for
which a complaint is filed. The Department of Transportation does have some
administrative authority over the airlines, but it almost never takes any
action on behalf of disabled passengers except to send a note to the
airlines telling them that discrimination is forbidden. As one commentator
put it, this is like telling the airlines, "Bad dogs, no, no!"
The Industrial Revolution altered the mechanisms of production and as
a result the nature of society. Some authors believe that we are now in the
4th industrial revolution. In this revolution biological systems will
become digital, nanotechnology will permit manipulation of tissue at the
cellular level, pyramidal governance systems will give way to much more
widely distributed knowledge and power, and alterations will take place in
the classification of human beings and the methods for acquiring wealth.
Already blockchain technology has created the cryptocurrencies that have
brought wealth to some and heartache to others. These currencies have not
been issued by government but arise from the nature of the technology that
created them. They represent a previously unknown form of wealth.
Predictions for blockchain technology suggest that this particular method
of sharing information will change much more than the investment options
represented by bitcoin. These alterations will inevitably modify political
systems and the law.
Within the 4th industrial revolution some people will invent new
machines; some will write books, although they will not be distributed on
paper; some will imagine new forms of entertainment; and some will
concentrate on new concepts. Those who create the machines will undoubtedly
change the nature of the ways we interact with one another. However, the
organizations and individuals to address the future in the most effective
manner will be those who concentrate on ideas.
In the National Federation of the Blind we have invented
technologies. We created NFB-NEWSLINE. for the blind, and we built the
blind-drivable car. Our work was also quite influential in bringing Braille
notetakers into the marketplace. However, we have done most of our work by
inventing new methods of thought, and this has been the most influential
contribution we could make. Ours is a philosophical comprehension of
disability which declares that all human beings have contributions to make-
that all have value. Our job is to find that value and to employ methods
that will put it to work. We will not just survive the 4th industrial
revolution; we will help to bring to it the kind of basic thought and the
kind of uplifted spirit that make our contributions welcomed. However, none
of this will happen until we have made our determination perfectly clear.
We will be grateful for an invitation to help with the planning no more. We
expect to be in meetings when the decisions are made. We will apologize for
the changes that we demand no more. We require that universal acceptance of
the value that we have be understood. Our place on the fringe is no longer
enough. Not only will we walk the corridors of power; we will help to shape
them. The form they take will be better than it might otherwise have been
because of the ideas we bring. We have value, and we cannot be written off.
When I was a small boy, I told my mother that I could help. I did not
want to be left out of the projects we undertook as a family. She gave me a
job. Since that time I have had many, many jobs, but in most cases I have
had to invent them myself. I have contributions to make and a burning
desire to make them. My experience with members of the National Federation
of the Blind informs me that I am not alone. You share this goal. You too
have contributions to make.
As I was considering these thoughts for our national convention, my
friend and colleague Pat Miller urged me to tell you of a saying of
Confucius which is, "Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without." I
feel certain she had in mind that organizations and human beings are not
perfect but that they possess qualities of genuine value without achieving
perfection. If you put your mind and your heart to the effort, a diamond
you can become. Unique contributions can be made by your energy and your
commitment. Reflecting upon the comments of our President at the 75th
anniversary of the National Federation of the Blind, I know for a certainty
that working with each other we have the power to build a society that
includes us all. I know for a certainty that we can create a welcoming
personality for each of us within our nation. Properly polished we will
have the hardness and the force that comes to the tool that carries the
diamond as its cutting edge. The value we possess has the beauty of the
facets cut from this most enduring gem. The dream of equality we share is
extravagant-and the only reasonable approach. Let us gather the force to
make it real.
----------
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Eve Hill]
A Summary of Recent Legal Activity
by Eve Hill
From the Editor: Here are comments made during the meeting of the
National Federation of the Blind Board of Directors that were too long to
be captured in the 2018 Convention Roundup but simply must not be left out
of this issue. Eve Hill now works for Brown, Goldstein & Levy and has a
long history of involvement with the Federation as a result of her legal
work at this firm and in a number of other government jobs. Here is what
she said to the board and its substantial audience:
President Riccobono asked me to make it snappy so we can get on to
the reveal, maybe. So I'm not going to thank everyone, and I'm not going to
say how honored we are at Brown, Goldstein & Levy to be working for the
NFB, but I do want to take this moment to talk about the cases and how we
and NFB's other lawyers do fit into a bigger framework.
When NFB sends a demand letter to the Boeing Employees Credit Union
[BECU], we're not just trying to get access for the three individuals who
complained about their mobile app not being accessible. We're not even just
getting the app fixed for all the blind people in Washington who want to
bank with the same convenience as everyone else. We are working to change
how credit unions think about mobile access. Right now the credit union
industry is pushing back hard on having to make their websites and mobile
apps accessible, but BECU is showing them that they have to, and they can,
and it's the right thing to do if you want to be in business.
And when we work with the NFB of Maryland to challenge inaccessible
checkouts at one of the biggest retailers in the world, we are teaching
that retailer that it can't achieve staff savings by switching everyone
else to self-service checkout but leaving blind people to rely on the fewer
and fewer staff they'll keep.
When we tell Blue Cross Blue Shield's federal employee program they
can't have an inaccessible website, we're not just saying that blind people
want equal access to healthcare; we're saying that even if the federal
government neglects to enforce its rights to accessible technology, we, the
blind people will.
When we sue the Department of Education for abdicating its
responsibility to enforce our rights, we're not just saying we have rights
to education; we are saying the blind are full taxpaying citizens, and the
government can't use our tax money to fund discrimination. [applause] Don't
applaud; I'm going too slow.
When we sue employers in Maryland and Florida and Michigan for
excluding blind people from employment and advancement by employing
inaccessible job technology, we're not just saying we want accommodations.
We are saying that when you build new things and new technology, you have
to build it accessibly.
When we tell online web design sites like GoDaddy that it has to make
its own websites accessible, and it has to help its customers make its
websites accessible, we're not just making a website accessible; we're
saying stop the flow of inaccessible websites into the world at its source.
So there are a number of surveys out. This is where you come in.
Asking you about your experiences, filing Department of Education
complaints, using GoDaddy, encountering inaccessible educational
technology, using mobile banking apps, getting accessible bills from your
doctors or health insurance, and experiencing employment technology
barriers. Your answer is not just about solving the problem you face for
you; it's about getting rid of that barrier for everyone and stopping new
barriers for everyone.
So thank you for your responses and your advocacy and for making the
world a better place. [applause]
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: The 2018 National Federation of the Blind Scholarship
Class. Back row, left to right: Matthew Turner, Tasnim Abdulsalam Alshuli,
Elizabeth Rouse, John E. Harrison, Tyron Bratcher, Chrys Buckley, Paige
Young, Shane Lowe, Eric J. Harvey, Sarah Beth Patnaude. Middle row, left to
right: Harry Staley Jr., Sara LaVel Mornis, Yasmine Marie Sarraf, Trisha
Kulkarni, Justin Heard, Seth Lowman, Jeff Humphrey, Cathy Tuton, Olivia
Charland, Naim Muawia Abu-El Hawa. Front row, left to right: Alexandra
Florencia Alfonso, Connor James Mullin, Purvi Contractor, Amanda L. Lannan,
Caitlin Sarubbi, Kenia Flores, Ozgul Calicioglu, Rilee Sloan, Menuka
(Jyoti) Rai, Millad Bokhouri]
Meet the 2018 National Federation of the Blind Scholarship Class
The head of the scholarship committee, Cayte Mendez, introduced the
2018 scholarship class with these remarks:
Good morning, Mr. President and members of the board. It's been my
privilege to serve as chair of this committee for the past year. Before I
go any further, I just want to take a quick opportunity to thank my
predecessor, Patti Chang, for all of her hard work with the committee.
[applause] With her mentorship and the support of the committee members,
it's made my learning curve as smooth as it could possibly have been, so
thanks.
This scholarship program is an opportunity for the National
Federation of the Blind to emphasize our commitment to academic excellence
and leadership among blind students. The folks I'm going to introduce to
you this morning exemplify these qualities in spades. I'm going to
introduce each scholarship finalist in this fashion: first name, last name,
and then two states. The first state is their home state; the second state
is the state where they will be attending school. Now, last night at the
NABS board meeting the students did a really wonderful job of following
these directions, so today I hope the folks in the audience can follow them
as well. [laughter] Please reserve your applause until the end. There are
thirty scholarship finalists, and if we clap for all of them, we're going
to be here until next Tuesday. They're all wonderful and deserve our
attention, so let's please clap for them at the end. Now the students could
follow these directions-so the audience at the board meeting, I hope you
can as well.
Our first scholarship finalist this year, alphabetically, is one of
only thirteen men in this class. Once again the numbers are skewed toward
the ladies.
Naim Abu-El Hawa, Virginia, Virginia: Good morning, Federation
family. It is my most sincere pleasure to be here this morning with ya'll
and to be honored with the value of being a scholarship finalist. Little
bit about me: I am studying international relations with a Middle East
politics concentration. A fun fact about me: I am proud to identify with my
activist status, no political implications within-actually, lots of
political implications within. I cannot reiterate enough the honor that has
been placed in my hands being a scholarship finalist, and I hope to live up
to the expectations that the National Federation of the Blind has placed in
my trust and care. Thank you fellow Federationists.
Alexandra Alfonso, District of Columbia, District of Columbia: In the
fall I plan on attending Catholic University, where I will major in music
education and pre-law. One day I hope to be a teacher of the visually
impaired and a practicing lawyer in juvenile courts. I went to a school for
the arts for three years, where I majored in vocal music, which motivated
me to do music education. Thank you.
Tasnim Alshuli, Arizona, Arizona: Hello, everyone. Thank you. I'm so
honored, first of all, to be here and to be one of the finalists in the
2018 scholarship class. I am a doctoral student in education. My focus is
mathematics and visual impairment. I have faced a lot of exclusiveness and
inaccessibility as well as discrimination in my education career. I have
met a lot of you that have also faced the same in either K12 or higher
education. I am devoting myself to research how blind students learn
mathematics, and with your help my NFB family-brothers and sisters-we will
do it together. Thank you.
Millad Bokhouri, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania: Hello NFB. I'm getting
my master's in health care administration, specializing in disability
services in medicine. The projected stats for the blind population in the
United States are that it will grow by 30 percent. Seventy-five percent of
that will be ages fifty-five and older, and I personally believe that they
have a more difficult time adjusting to their vision loss and blindness
than our citizens starting at a younger age. My motivation is that the
blind people in this country need to break into health care and make an
active change there. I'm hoping that by implementing and learning about
administrative services, I can be a better advocate for not only the blind
but also the sick and the ill. I'm also hoping that by next year when I
come back to the 2019 convention-wherever it is-that I would also be able
to potentially develop a health care committee to create transparency for
not only health care individuals in medicine who are blind, but also within
the immediate community.
Tyron Bratcher, Maryland, Maryland: Good morning, Federation family.
This coming fall I will be completing my final year of undergraduate
studies at Coppin State University in Baltimore. I am studying social work,
and I have a rehabilitation services minor. After I am finished at Coppin,
I am planning on pursuing my master's degree in social work, doing work
that helps people who are not only blind but people with all types of
disabilities realize what most of us here already do, which is that no
matter what's going on, what type of disability you have, whatever the case
is, it doesn't have to automatically stop you from living the life that you
want. I am truly honored to be here. I have attended many conventions, but
it is an honor to be here this year as one of the national scholarship
finalists. I'm not only involved in things in the Federation but also in my
school. And one of them that I am looking forward to this year is I may
possibly have an opportunity to join my school's executive board of student
government association this coming year as a representative to the
University System of Maryland's student council, which has the opportunity
to make recommendations to our chancellor and our board of regents on
different issues including appointments of student regents and different
things like that. I'm looking forward to that, and even if I don't get that
position, I may have the opportunity to join in a different executive board
position. I truly enjoy being part of the Federation, and I definitely use
what I've learned here to help me with other things that I'm involved in at
school as well as in my community. I thank you for all the support that
everyone has given me over the years, and I look forward to continuing to
be active in helping to build the National Federation of the Blind. Thank
you.
Our next finalist is also a tenBroek Fellow. That means that she has
previously won a National Federation of the Blind scholarship, and this
honor is named after Jacobus tenBroek, a renowned leader in our
organization's past. So, without further delay I'm going to introduce all
of you to Chrys Buckley, Oregon, Oregon:
Good morning, NFB. In a month from tomorrow I will be starting medical
school, and it was a long journey to get to this point. I earned degrees in
micromolecular biology, biochemistry, and arts and letters, and worked as a
chemistry tutor and tutor coordinator. When it was time for me to take the
MCAT, the NFB intervened to make sure that I got testing accommodations. I
love science, and I love working with people, so I'm really excited for
this new journey and also really excited and so grateful to be here today.
Ozgul Calicioglu, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania: Good morning, NFB.
Thank you for welcoming me here. I obtained my bachelor's and master's
degrees in environmental engineering in Turkey and another bachelor's in
business management in Russia. Currently my PhD studies at Penn State
involve converting waste into valuable products and biofuels. I conducted
some part of this research in Switzerland last summer, and this summer I am
interning in the UN in the food and agricultural organization headquartered
in Rome, Italy. My work there is about assisting countries to attain the
global sustainable development goals of the UN. I'm very passionate about
sustainability as much as disability advocacy, and I aspire to a career in
academia to raise environmentally-conscious and socially-aware citizens.
Olivia Charland, Massachusetts, Vermont: Hi. So this is my first time
attending an NFB convention. This week was my first time traveling alone,
and this was sort of my first time being independent. I'm not a naturally
outspoken person; I'm not that outgoing. I've never been very open about
being visually impaired, so this convention was a really critical first
step in breaking some of those restraints I had been unwittingly putting on
myself because I am blind. I'm going into a STEM field, and I'm hoping to
do research in biology and biotech. I know it's going to be a challenge,
but I know that the NFB is going to be behind me and that I'm going to have
support from this community and that with that help I'm going to be able to
achieve my dreams. Thank you for having me.
Purvi Contractor, Texas, Texas: Good morning, President Riccobono,
members of the board of directors, and fellow Federationists. This fall I
will be attending the University of Texas at Dallas and pursuing a
bachelor's of science in physics. My goal is to be a scientist at NASA or
conduct research at the university. Last year I completed a quantitative
case study analyzing bird strikes with airplanes for the Dallas-Fort Worth
and the Dallas Love Field airports. During my high school career I had
advocated for the rights of the blind. When I was in ninth grade I
presented a prototype of a Braille label on Pepsi products. I would like to
thank you for this opportunity. For parents and teachers, I would like to
encourage you to encourage your child or student to apply for this
scholarship. Thank you.
Kenia Flores, North Carolina, South Carolina: Good morning, fellow
Federationists. It is truly an honor to be recognized as a scholarship
finalist. I am a rising junior at Furman University, majoring in politics
and international affairs. I recognize that my rights as a woman who is
Hispanic and blind would not be possible without individuals who came
before me. After graduating from Furman I plan to attend law school so that
I can become a civil rights attorney and protect the rights of individuals
who fall within protected classes. I look forward to continuing to build
the National Federation of the Blind alongside you and continuing our
efforts to achieve equality, opportunity, and security for the blind. Thank
you.
John Harrison, Wisconsin, Wisconsin: Good morning, y'all. It's good
to be back to my second convention. I'm having a great time; I hope you are
too. Next year I'll be a sophomore majoring in English, creative writing,
and psychology. I love reading and writing, so if you have any good book
recommendations, hit me up. I am just fascinated by psychology. Next year I
will get the opportunity to be my campus LGBTQ peer educator, and I'll be
able to go into classrooms and help people through education, sitting on
panels, and just being an advocate for them. I think that's great practice,
because the life I want to live is helping others live the lives they want
through education and advocacy. I'd like to thank you all for helping me
live the life I want, and I look forward to talking to you all. Have a good
day.
Now these next two finalists (I just have to share this with you)
have the same birthday-not the same year, but they were both born January
15. So the first of them is Eric Harvey, California, Massachusetts:
Good morning, and thank you for this phenomenal honor. I am in the
final year of my PhD, finishing up my dissertation in Near Eastern and
Judaic studies at Brandeis University. In my research I study the history,
religion, and literature of the ancient Middle East. This means everything
from the epic of Gilgamesh in Babylonian to funerary inscriptions in
Phoenician to the Dead Sea Scrolls in Hebrew and Aramaic. And let me tell
you, if you think information accessibility is a problem today, phew.
[laughter] I study the religious past, but I don't want to keep it in the
past. My goal is to become a professor because I think right now that
religious literacy is one of the most important skills for the world we
live in to understand the history and traditions of our own religion and to
understand the religions of our neighbors and friends, both locally and
across the globe. Thank you so much for supporting my last year of studies,
and hopefully I will never need to apply for this scholarship again.
Justin Heard, Georgia, Georgia: Hello. I just want to say, the
Federation love for students is both awesome and terrifying, so thank you.
I'm literally controlling my breathing right now. I'm attending Georgia
College and State University seeking a bachelor's degree in psychology, and
then afterward I will either attend Louisiana Tech to get a master's in
teaching blind students, or I will attend Orthodox Christian Seminary-so,
Lord knows what's happening. [laugher] I have been president of the Georgia
Association of Blind Students for the past four years, and I have been a
board member of the National Federation of the Blind of Georgia for almost
a year. I am a graduate of BLIND, Incorporated [cheers] from Minnesota,
both the prep program and the adult program, and I'm also working at the
Colorado Center for the Blind [cheers] this summer as a technology
instructor and residential counselor. I believe that is all about me.
Jeff Humphrey, Michigan, Michigan: Ladies and gentlemen of the
National Federation of the Blind: Next year I shall finish my bachelor's
degree at Olivet College in sociology/anthropology, and also my double
minors in political science and religious studies. After that I shall go on
to Case Western Reserve University in Ohio [cheers], and I shall complete
my master's degree in ethnomedicine and global health. My goals are to
ensure that people are cared for and that I can become a holistic healer
and help bridge the gap in our medical system and treating our people with
compassion. I also wish to start a global educational exchange where
cultures can share with one another all the different histories that they
have so that we can learn from one another, respect one another, enjoy each
other for who we are, and stop fighting so many wars. My other goal is to
ensure that the advancement of Braille literacy continues, so after this I
shall go and submit my name for the Braille committee. In high school I was
always a member of SGA [Student Government Association]. I was even a
member of the National Honor Society. In college I served on our Student
Government Association for three years, two years as our activities
liaison. I am the community service representative for Elite, or the Alpha
Xi Omega social fraternity at Olivet College. I was also a founding member
of this group called the Disability Rights Council, which is a group that
advocates for all disabled students on campus for accommodations and to
ensure that they can do the jobs that they wish to do. Thank you for giving
me this opportunity as a first-time conventioneer and even as a newly-made
NFB member. I did not expect to receive this honor. We must remember: we
must educate to liberate.
Trisha Kulkarni, Ohio, California: In addition to yesterday being the
national celebration of our country's independence, this first week in July
has also come to have significant personal meaning to me. Last year at this
time my family and I worked tirelessly to organize a fundraiser that raised
over $70,000 for retinal research to help others with unstable eye
conditions live the lives they want. Today I am also celebrating my one-
year anniversary with my guide dog Liberty, my first national convention,
and my newfound membership as a student at the Colorado Center for the
Blind. [cheers] I will be attending Stanford University in the fall and
majoring in symbolic systems with the hope of becoming a software engineer.
Thank you so much for welcoming me to the NFB family.
Amanda Lannan, Florida, Florida: Good morning. I believe that
education is the foundation for our future. Therefore my journey started
long ago when I was diagnosed as being blind, but my parents really pushed
me. I tried anything and everything, and because of their efforts, I have
journeyed, and I find myself now at the University of Central Florida
pursuing a PhD in exceptional student education. My focus though is on new
teacher preparation. My goal is to help those teachers to understand that
high expectations will lead to success. My purpose in life is to educate
all children with hope, equality, and resourcefulness. I wanted to also
share that I am a huge advocate. I will be leaving early Monday morning
right after this amazing convention to go for the Student Exceptional
Leadership Summit. I will be in Washington; I'll be on the Hill. I have
been doing a lot of research, but I will be advocating for many of our
efforts here in the NFB: the AIM High and all of those initiatives.
Additionally, I will be in Washington again for another summit at the end
of July, and then I am really looking forward to going to Maryland and
volunteering with the STEM EQ because I love to hang out with students, and
I cannot wait to empower them with some STEM learning. Finally, my research
involves augmentative and virtual realities, and we're working on how those
technologies can benefit the accessibility of STEM for students who are
blind. I really appreciate the honor, and let's go continue to build this
amazing Federation.
Shane Lowe, Kentucky, Kentucky: Amanda, that's great. I'm here for
the check. [laughter] No, not that check, the reality check, because there
are so many misconceptions around the NFB. And in case you guys didn't
know, as a member of the NFB you are allowed to ask other people for
directions. When I'm not here, I'm an incoming freshman at a university
you've never heard of, majoring in business administration and cyber
security to reform the way that blind people analyze cyber threats so that
we may live the lives we want and not the lives the guy who nicked our
social security numbers want. I also want to combat these in the corporate
world. I am a software engineer for Pearson, I'm a published author, and
I've had the privilege of working with Kentucky's commissioner of education
to enhance both my geographic and demographic community. On a more exciting
note for some of you, tomorrow you will get to see me in a different light.
Tomorrow evening I will have the honor of performing with Precious Perez at
the welcoming concert, and I still suspect that they will make me buy a
ticket. See you there; thank you so much.
Seth Lowman, Idaho, Montana: Okay, I want to begin by asking you how
many of you are tech-savvy musicians? [scattered cheers and applause] All
right, well, you're in luck. I'm studying music technology over at Montana
State University and am paving the way for future music tech students in
that field. My goal to help the NFB is to eventually advocate for better
accessibility in the music tech world. So in the future we will have no
more synthesizer inaccessibility, no more Soft Sense inaccessibility, etc.,
etc. You guys know the field; you know what I'm talking about. And I also
want to be able to bring resources that already are accessible to the
blind. Thank you.
Sara Mornis, Vermont, Vermont: Good morning. I am truly honored to be
recognized as a scholarship finalist. And as a first-time conventionist I
want to thank you all for being welcoming. I am attending Johnson State
College as a senior this fall, studying English and psychology. I plan on
pursuing a master's in counseling after that. I have passion for reading,
writing, and helping others. So thank you.
Connor Mullin, New Jersey, Louisiana: Thank you, everyone. Joe
Ruffalo, as a fellow New Jerseyan, I was wondering if someone could go pick
up my vehicle donation; it's currently sitting over the Hudson River.
[laughter] Famous O&M thinker and teacher Joe Cutter and others talk about
how independent travel and learning independent travel skills are some of
the most important things to encouraging blind people to go out into their
world, literally and in an abstract sense to explore and achieve. Having
the privilege of learning from Joe Cutter at a young age helped me when in
my college years I began to build my independence. Getting involved with
the Federation helped me to conduct an original research project of all
state justices of supreme courts throughout the country, and it also helped
when working with blind students in the Employment Development Guidance and
Engagement Program run by Dan Frye, and now in my current endeavor as a
graduate student in the cane travel instruction program at Louisiana Tech.
I look forward to continuing to benefit from these insights with my
connections with the Federation to give students the gift of independence.
Thank you.
Our next finalist is also a tenBroek Fellow. This is Sarah Patnaude,
Virginia, Virginia:
Good morning, Federation. As a cosplayer [a contraction of the words
costume play], I know the importance of a good sewing machine, the ability
to create patterns, and the importance of a good attitude in creating and
embodying a character. The Federation has given me the necessary tools,
skills, and confidence to become the individual, leader, and advocate I
aspire to be. With my master's in social work I hope to become an advocate
for those who so often do not have a voice and to empower others to awaken
their inner hero or villain, just as you have done with me.
Menuka Rai, North Dakota, North Dakota: Good morning to you all. I
have always dreamt of working in the medical field, so I'm studying
physical therapy at the University of North Dakota. I have realized now
that it is not always easy to turn our dreams into reality. Sometimes I get
frustrated, and I feel like giving up. But then I think of the potential
that I have and all the people who I will be able to help in the future by
facing and overcoming all of the challenges. So that's what keeps me going.
I would like to thank the NFB for encouraging me to move forward, and thank
you for this wonderful opportunity.
Elizabeth Rouse, Iowa, Iowa: Hello everyone whose names I haven't
learned yet. To add on to what Cayte has told you about me already, I am
going to be a junior this fall at Central College. We are the Dutch. (I
don't understand the mascot, either.) I have a lot of various campus
activities in and outside the classroom. I'm an English/theater double
major with a religion minor, and on any given Thursday night you can find
me in Kuyper Athletic Center with my forty-five pseudo-big brothers also
known as the Dutch wrestling team. Keeping forty-five college-age boys
under control is a lot harder than you think. I also enjoy my job as a
writing tutor; they're a lot quieter over there. Anything else you want to
know, please ask; I'm here all week.
Yasmine Sarraf, Arizona, Arizona, and before she speaks I have to
tell you that she is the last of eight finalists whose birthdays are in
February. That's almost a third of the class. I don't know what's going on
in February, but that's a good month. Go ahead, Yasmine: Good morning,
everyone. This is my first convention, and I'm honored to be here. This
year I will be majoring in forensic science in the Barrett Honors Program
of Arizona State University. What really attracted me about this major was
the variety of fields that it encompasses that I'm interested in, such as
criminal justice, psychology, and the sciences-especially biology. I've
known that I wanted to do forensics ever since I was eight years old and
first heard about it. And I knew I wanted to do biology even before that,
when I saw my first microscope in sixth grade. But the thing I really love
about forensics is that I will be able to help people in so many ways, more
than what I've been able to do in my community service projects in high
school, because I will have learned all of what I need. What I've done
before is the Welcome to America Project, so I've helped refugees, and I've
worked at the Foothills Animal Rescue Shelter, where I helped care for
abandoned and neglected animals. I've really loved being at this convention
and seeing how my legal blindness can be used as a way to connect with
people instead of isolating me from them, and being able to meet other
blind people as hard-working and dedicated as I am and want to continue to
be. So thank you.
Caitlin Sarubbi, New York, New York: Good morning, everyone. It's an
incredible honor to be here with you today. I was born with a rare syndrome
which left me legally blind, hearing impaired, and having undergone over
sixty-five surgeries. This is what initially sparked my passion for
medicine. I graduated from Harvard in 2015 with a degree in social and
cognitive neuroscience, and I'm currently earning a master's degree and
applying to medical school this summer. I am also a United States
Paralympian and competed in alpine ski racing at the 2010 games in
Vancouver. I love to volunteer, teaching other children and veterans with
disabilities how to live the lives that they want through sports. Thank you
guys so much.
Rilee Sloan, Oklahoma, Oklahoma: In the fall I will begin university
as a history and political science major. I intend on becoming a lawyer
specializing in disability advocacy, though I am also very passionate about
other forms of advocacy. For example, LGBTQ+ advocacy and mental health
awareness is also something I'm passionate about. I also work for the ACLU
Smart Justice Campaign which is a national initiative to promote criminal
justice reform and reduce the prison population by 50 percent. While
attending university I hope to use those experiences to strengthen my
leadership skills. I hope that by developing these skills I can serve my
community more effectively.
Harry Staley, Texas, Texas: [cheers] Thank you my Texas family. I am
currently attending Texas A&M San Antonio, majoring in computer science. My
vocational goal is to become an autonomous vehicle engineer. I currently
serve this country as a systems analyst for the United States Army. And in
that role the biggest thing that I have learned is that accessibility needs
to be baked in, not bolted on. [cheers]
Matthew Turner, Idaho, Massachusetts: Good morning, members of the
board, Federationists. I'm Matt. I'm a rising sophomore at MIT, studying
computer science and economics with a 4.9 GPA. My underlying mission in
life is to inspire others to learn, dream, grow, and achieve. I have done
this through leadership in my student council, where I helped us overcome
an $18,000 budget loss, as well as through service in Mamelodi, South
Africa, where I traveled with a team to educate high school students so
that they could go on and pass college entrance exams. This summer I am
currently interning at HP, and I am excited to begin research on a virtual
assistant that will function similarly to Aira this fall at the MIT
computer science and artificial intelligence lab. This is my first NFB
convention, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it, and I am excited to get to
know all of you more. Thank you.
This class ranges from eighteen to fifty, and this next finalist (and
I won't tell you where on the continuum she falls), but she celebrated her
birthday here with us on the third. This is Cathy Tuton, Oklahoma,
Oklahoma:
Hi fellow Federationists. I am a graduate of the Louisiana Center for
the Blind. I am currently attending the Oklahoma State University Oklahoma
City campus, working on my associate's degree. Then I will be going to the
OU Health Sciences Center to get my bachelor's and master's in dietetics to
be a registered dietician. As a small child all I wanted to do was to be in
the medical field, but I was always told that because I'm blind I can't. I
am very proud to say that I am fifty, I am the oldest one here, but I will
tell you that with all of the obstacles that I've had to climb over, go
around, and figure out a way to get through, I want to help other people,
blind, sighted, and otherwise, to learn how to be healthy, to live a
healthy life, not to be sick and die young because of their illnesses that
can be prevented by healthy eating and exercise. I already have an
associate's degree in personal fitness training that will go great with my
degree that I'm working on now. Thank you very much.
Paige Young, Maine, Maine: Hi. I'll be a junior at Husson University
this fall. I'm studying to receive my master's in business administration
through accounting. As well as being blind, I'm also a type 1 diabetic, and
over the last eight years I've coordinated the annual walk-a-thon in my
county. It's fun to do that as well.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Harry Staley speaking at banquet]
At the banquet Harry Staley won the $12,000 Kenneth Jernigan
Scholarship. Here is what he had to say:
Fellow Federationists, I had some words prepared, but I honestly did
not think I would be standing up here. But one thing I can tell you is that
I am surrounded by leaders who poured their lives into us as students. I'm
constantly surrounded by people like Norma Crosby [cheers] and Glenn
Crosby, some of the first folks that I met in coming back to the Federation
two years ago. I thought I was a big dreamer before, but every day that I'm
in the Federation, my dreams get pushed. I have a wonderful wife; I thought
I was living my dream until I came and got involved in the National
Federation of the Blind. And it's so true: my dreams are becoming a reality
because I am involved in this organization, and I am pushed to dream bigger
every single day. [applause]
Following is a complete list of 2018 scholarship finalists and the
awards they received. In addition to the awards listed below, each finalist
also received: $1,000 and additional prizes donated by Dr. Ray Kurzweil and
the Kurzweil Foundation; $1,000 from Google and the newest Chromebook; a
generous certificate from Cary Supalo and Independence Science toward the
purchase of a Sci-Voice Talking LabQuest; a complimentary nine-month
subscription to Aira; and a KNFB Reader courtesy of the NFB.
$3,000 NFB Scholarships (17): Naim Abu-El Hawa, Alexandra Alfonso, Millad
Bokhouri, Tyron Bratcher, Olivia Charland, Purvi Contractor, John Harrison,
Justin Heard, Jeff Humphrey, Amanda Lannan, Seth Lowman, Sara Mornis,
Connor Mullin, Menuka Rai, Yasmine Sarraf, Rilee Sloan, and Paige Young
$3,000 Expedia Scholarships (2): Tasnim Alshuli and Caitlin Sarubbi
$3,000 Adrienne Asch Memorial Scholarship: Eric Harvey
$3,000 E. U. and Gene Parker Scholarship: Sarah Patnaude
$3,000 Charles and Betty Allen Scholarship: Matthew Turner
$5,000 NFB STEM Scholarship: Cathy Tuton
$5,000 Mimi and Marvin Sandler Scholarship: Elizabeth Rouse
$5,000 Pearson Scholarship: Shane Lowe
$5,000 JAWS for Windows Scholarship: Kenia Flores
$8,000 Oracle Scholarship for Excellence in a STEM Field: Ozgul Calicioglu
$8,000 Oracle Scholarship for Excellence in Computer Science: Trisha
Kulkarni
$10,000 Charles and Melva T. Owen Memorial Scholarship: Chrys Buckley
$12,000 Kenneth Jernigan Scholarship: Harry Staley, Jr.
-----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Chancey Fleet]
Directing Big Data and Technological Innovation:
Perspectives on the Importance of Leadership by the Blind
by Chancey Fleet
From the Editor: Our history dictates much of what we believe, is the
glue that holds us together, and represents a significant force guiding our
policies and priorities: the shared experiences that come to make up the
philosophy of the National Federation of the Blind. But the future isn't
just history repeating itself. We are challenged to supplement our history
with the changing demands and opportunities of today and to have those
policies influenced for as far into the future as we can meaningfully
speculate.
In this address, delivered on July 6, 2018, Chancey speaks to the
proven techniques that have been a part of our independence, to the new
technology that can either expand or limit it, and to the necessity of us
seeing that it does the former rather than the latter. With her firm
philosophical understanding, her impressive grasp of current technology,
and the gift she has for blending all of this into something that speaks to
us all, here is what she said:
We come to convention every year to gather the wisdom we'll need to
direct the course of the year to come: in our own lives, in the support we
give to each other, and in the guidance and mentorship we offer to those
who would like to be trusted as our allies. That's a big job to fit into a
week.
Twenty-five years ago today, I believe, in Dallas, Texas, Dr. Kenneth
Jernigan spoke to our convention about "The Nature of Independence." Some
students had written to him asking why, as a leader in the Federation and a
proponent of cane travel skills, he had been noticed moving through the
hotel with a guide. Dr. Jernigan explained that, while skills like cane
travel and fluency in Braille are key, the core meaning of independence is
the ability to go where you want when you want without inconvenience to
yourself or others and to get the information you need with the minimum of
inconvenience or expense. Our independence comes from within, he said, and
it depends on our self-respect, confidence, our will, and our ability to
make choices. As we consider how technologies shape our lives and how we
might shape technology through research, training, and advocacy, Dr.
Jernigan's conception of the nature of independence gives us points of
reference that are useful whether we're talking about canes, guides, or
artificial intelligence.
As a technology educator I know it's not enough to teach someone how
a particular tool works: you can understand the layout of a screen or all
the features of a recorder, but unless you have a sense of how and when to
use each tool and how it's valuable, that knowledge isn't worth much.
Dieter Bohn, who writes for an online tech publication called The
Verge, suggests that we think of new tech as instruments. "When you use an
instrument," he explains, "you have an expectation that it is going to take
effort to use it well. It takes practice. You form a relationship with it.
It becomes part of your identity when you make something with it. You tune
it." I would like to venture to add that, no matter how familiar and
comfortable an instrument becomes, you can't depend on it completely. You
have to know that, if your favorite instruments break or you have to travel
without them, you can still make your own music.
Mainstream media and the technology sector often talk about consumer
technologies as though the instrument does all the work. But our successes
and mistakes, no matter how dramatic, are made in the interplay among our
instruments, skills, choices, and thoughts. Right now our community is
grappling with the rise of visual interpreters: apps and hardware that
supply visual information to blind people using computer vision, verbal
description from a human being, or some combination of the two. Sighted
assistance on demand is, potentially, a distraction from the cultivation of
skills: having an interpreter on hand might make us less likely to check
for Braille signage, label stuff, or notice landmarks as we travel. Even
people who are comfortable with nonvisual techniques can be distracted by
high-tech solutions because our attention is a finite commodity. I spent a
couple of minutes my first day here using an app that shall remain nameless
to sort shampoo and lotion bottles in my hotel room, only to discover in
the middle of my shower that there were Braille characters marching around
the cap on each one. I've noticed that sometimes, when a person is using an
app to navigate, he or she (or okay, I) might start to have a cane arc
that's not so even and wide anymore. My husband says it looks like you're
plowing the fields, and we might attend less to the information that comes
from the textures, patterns, and sounds around us. There's something else
competing for our attention. That doesn't mean that we shame people any
more than we shame people for bad typing technique. We give people options,
and we give people tools. It's hard to play more than one instrument at the
same time. It's not impossible, but blindness training must include
strategies for using tech with mindfulness and self-awareness so that
technology enriches rather than flattens our perceptions. [applause]
Technology meant to make our lives more convenient (or to borrow a
buzzword that I hate-frictionless) is a buffet of unlimited enablement's
for anyone blind or sighted who can afford to partake. If you don't want to
walk five blocks, take a Lyft. Are you hungry, are you out of groceries and
you can't bother to talk to a human? Try GrubHub. Choosing between the
convenience of a few taps and a less predictable adventure in the real
world can be a struggle, and it's an easy slide from some occasional use of
an app to conjure up a pizza party or a late-night ride to a bleak
procession of lunches ordered to your desk and long expensive rides that
save twenty minutes on the train. Maybe developers have a responsibility to
build in tools that help us notice and alter new patterns as they emerge.
Maybe self-discipline is best managed within the self. Either way, your
daily decisions add up to the lives we choose to live: when you walk in
your city, are you always waiting for the next piece of advice, turn after
turn, or do you sometimes pick a direction and just go? Do you ever get
lost and take joy in the confusion, the clues along the way, and that
feeling that you get when you're not lost anymore?
Supporting and sometimes challenging each person's ability to develop
and his or her approach to independence is sometimes difficult and always
worthwhile. Because of this Structured Discovery I received, informally
through my mentors and formally through the Colorado Center for the Blind,
I use technology to enhance and not replace the skills that I carry with me
in my brain and my body. I love that I can discover a new coffee shop or
get walking directions, but I know that if my phone dies, I'll live. And I
can always problem-solve, use what I know about urban and rural geography,
and check out ambient clues in my environment to get where I am going.
Two years ago I went sea kayaking on Tomales Bay with the San
Francisco LightHouse. [applause from the California delegation] I can
easily use some ambient clues in my environment to know where the
California delegation is sitting in the session. So we camped on Tomales
Bay. There are no roads, no bars on my phone, no digital guides of any
kind, but because of my fundamental trust in my nonvisual skills, that was
a peaceful respite and not a scary time.
I grew up using Braille and a screen reader both since kindergarten,
and my Braille teacher was petrified that if I learned to use a computer
too early, I would abandon Braille. She was not wrong to worry, but instead
of fearing the computer, she ultimately supported me using both and became
the advocate in my life who would ensure that one day I would switch back
and forth between Braille and speech and sometimes both all the time.
[applause]
As we explore technologies for visual interpretation, we've got to
practice mindfulness, and we've got to practice art. There is an art to
effectively using a cane, taking notes with the slate, communicating
efficiently when you're working with a reader or a shopping assistant. The
prevailing narrative in marketing materials and mainstream media sometimes
is so reductive as to suggest that these technologies for the blind are
mostly powered by magic, bouncy music, and positive thinking, but using
machine vision and visual interpretation is an art that you learn.
I love learning new origami models. There is something really cool
about following lots of little steps to transform a plain square paper into
a flower or a fish, but most instructions online are chock full of pictures
and diagrams and videos featuring several minutes of totally silent moving
hands. I access this content using a visual interpreter, specifically
sometimes Aira. But I am not a passive recipient of description. Here are a
few things I had to learn first before I could actually learn how to fold a
Koi fish with the help of an Aira agent: I learned that I needed a well-
lighted workspace, and my phone camera works best [instead of the glasses
provided]. I learned that the instructions that I think are good online
because they have the most text are the most ad ridden and cluttered from a
visual perspective, so believe it or not, the silent YouTube videos
sometimes work the best. I learned that vocabulary is important. "Fold in
half" can mean six different things, so it is better to say "bring the top
right corner to the lower left corner and then crease." Not every
interpreter will be familiar with the vocabulary I prefer for this or any
task, so I need to learn how to make suggestions that are clear, kind, and
consistent. I've got to choose a time for skill building where I'm not
feeling rushed so that I can give myself time to negotiate communication,
work through mistakes, and not get frustrated. Last but not least, I have
to write those steps down so I won't need an interpreter next time, and at
the end of the session I have not one fish but fish for a lifetime.
[applause]
Directing technological innovation begins with the way we direct
ourselves and one another. I believe that we best serve our community when
we actively engage with the full range of instruments available. When we
teach nonvisual skills, we introduce sleep shades as a tool to limit the
distractions of visual information and help learners develop proficiency
and trust in nonvisual techniques. We take other tools out of play to
achieve instructional goals: sighted assistants, Perkins Braillers, GPS-you
name it, you're not getting it during training. Constraint is a powerful
tool for focusing attention, directing effort, and building confidence. But
I would encourage our mentors and professionals to practice the fine art of
pursuing excellence through constraint while still supporting at
appropriate times the exploration of high-tech tools as part of blindness
training.
Our professionals around the country and informal mentors offer an
approach that's free from sales and marketing hype and grounded in the
belief that any blind person can achieve the goal given the right skills
and opportunities. We need a framework for exploring Structured Discovery
and technology together to build confidence across unfamiliar situations,
active goalsetting, problem-solving, task analysis, self-awareness, self-
confidence-like structure discovery always does. High-tech tools work
better when you've got solid Structured Discovery training, so let's spark
conversations and learning opportunities to use both, and let's invite
developers to design ways for users to experience and explore the structure
discovery mindset. [applause]
We must ensure with the full power of collective advocacy that
technology does not create collective harm. When I bought the first version
of KNFB, it didn't connect to the internet, so we didn't update it much,
and it was harder to share documents. But you know what-my software didn't
change unless I told it to. We're living in an era of accessibility as a
service. If you've ever updated to a newer operating system or an app and
lost some abilities to read controls and screens, if you've felt like an
unwilling test dummy when you've told a developer that you can't do
something anymore and gotten a form letter that thanks you for your
feedback, you know why this is bad.
We live under the constant shadow of digital precarity: software can
change at any time in ways that make our instruments more frustrating and
less useful. Not only must we insist that new technologies be born
accessible, but we must pursue with equal vigor acceptance of the
proposition that accessibility should not be breached, that software
testing includes performance with accessibility features to the degree that
unusable features are not shipped and developers who, through errors or
inaction, distribute software with accessibility breaches in it provide
explanations and concrete action plans as they would when a security breach
or service downtime affects the general population. [applause]
Algorithms are pieces of code that make decisions based on information
they receive. They may check to see that you are running a screen reader
and without your explicit consent send you to a special subprime version of
a webpage. Algorithms can parse images and texts like the ones you might
find in a social media context and decide what information gets exposed to
your screen reader. If I take the liberty of defining algorithm broadly as
anything that digitally mediates information and decision, an algorithm
decides whether people uploading images to Twitter are prompted to describe
them by default or are expected to find that accessibility tool buried in a
secondary setting screen. Algorithms create the ads you see, the music you
hear, your transit directions. They automate the information that cloud-
based services collect about you, how long it's kept, who can access it,
and how your identity is protected or not protected. Algorithms surface
what you find when you look for information about yourself. If you've ever
done a search for the word "blind" and were disappointed by links for
window shades and medical cures, you know what it's like to work with an
algorithm that was not designed with you in mind.
Algorithmic accountability is the process of assigning responsibility
for harm when algorithmic decision-making results in discriminatory and
inequitable outcomes. In the era of accessibility as a service, it's time
we hold developers accountable. When code denies assistive technology users
access to cloud-based platforms or directs us to separate and subprime user
experiences, the outcomes are discriminatory and inequitable. Holding
developers accountable for creating platforms that support consistent, well
tested, integrated accessibility is just the beginning. Design decisions
matter. Developers can and should place image description and tools
prominently enough to convey the expectation that users should employ them,
not just on special occasions but always. Machine vision and interpretation
apps should be designed with more than one path to communication. Audio
works well for some of us some of the time, but whether we are deafblind or
simply unable to talk or listen in a business environment or a loud
concert, we need the option to use other methods. Transparency matters.
Developers should craft privacy policies that use plain language to
explain how our data is used. We expose our personal documents,
environments, colleagues, and daily lives to machine vision and
interpretation, so it is critical that we know what data that we're handing
over. In many cases apps keep our voices, camera feeds, and location data
long after we're done using them, and we deserve to know how this
information is stored, for how long, who can access it, how it's being
used, and how we can opt out. If a company gets acquired, we need to know
whether a buyer we may or may not know or trust can inherit our legacy data
without our explicit consent. Ownership and access matter.
We should be able to examine the data we contributed to a developer's
cloud at any time, collected for our own records, and deleted at will
directly rather than through a process of faith. If the practice of locking
a user out of his or her own data and history seems somehow more
justifiable in the case of cloud-based vision apps than those we already
use for cloud collaborations and social media, we need to have a lively and
public discussion about why that is. Even when developers make design
decisions informed by the community and manage data in ways that are
consensual and transparent, collective harm can still happen.
Some of us are on the greener side of the digital divide, equipped
with the training, infrastructure, and money it takes to use the latest
technologies. Many of us don't have the training or the funding, and any of
us can find ourselves in a part of the city or the world without
infrastructure that supports cloud services. We should approach this
problem by pursuing partnerships and models that will bring more people
into contact with high-quality training, reliable infrastructure, and
sometimes direct funding. This is in line with our existing efforts to
bridge the digital chasm that blind people must cross to participate fully
in education, employment, and civil society. When we encounter an
inaccessible place, product, or service though, and we solve it using
technology, we must be careful not to let our possession of a personal
bridge to access distract us from the important labor of building a more
accessible world for everyone. [applause]
Last year I presented at an online conference that had a thoroughly
inaccessible web platform, ON24. With the help of an Aira agent who remoted
into my computer, I controlled my slide deck, read questions from the
audience, and avoided having to ask the event organizers to solve the
access problem for me. Although I documented the inaccessible nature of the
platform and followed up by email with the conference organizers, part of
me wonders whether I was as persistent as I would've been if persistence
were my only option, and whether the presence of a competent interpreter
made my access request seem a little less pressing.
It's wonderful that we can use all of these apps to accessify
everything from vacation photographs to museum exhibits to flat screen
appliances, but it would be better still if we could touch the composition
of every photo, rely on museum exhibits to engage all of our senses, and to
expect every flat screen to come with accessibility options. It's hard to
play more than one instrument at the same time, but it's not impossible. We
can improvise with technology, perform our own access when we need to, and
teach our fellows how that's done. But let's keep the beat of the drums of
freedom: careful cultivation of embodied skills that don't rely on
technology but rely on our self-trust and self-respect, collective action
that shapes a more accessible world from the status box to the ballot box-
from those tiny Braille labels to the vivid tactile footprints of an
astronaut's indelible first steps on the moon-and tireless advocacy to help
each blind person discover the tools, methods, and self-belief that he or
she needs to find and live the life that he or she wants. Thank you.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Joanne Gabias]
What Does "Blind" Have to Do with It?
The Right to Parent from a Sighted Daughter's Perspective
by Joanne Gabias
From the Editor: As we struggle for the right to raise the children
we have brought into the world or have chosen to adopt, many of us rely on
our own experience to provide encouragement, counsel, and the assurance
that there are time-tested techniques that blind people use in raising our
children to be normal, happy adults. We think we see this in our children
and in the children raised by other blind people, but many of us long for a
verbal affirmation that what we think we have provided is really so and
that our children don't feel that they have received a second-rate
upbringing. If ever there was an affirmation that one sighted daughter
believes that she got what she needed to become a self-sufficient, well-
balanced adult, Joanne Gabias provided that testimonial to the convention.
Here is what the daughter of Paul and Mary Ellen Gabias said on the morning
of July 7, 2018:
Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Gabias, and I am honored to speak
to you all today. I was four months old when I attended my first
convention. Although I've missed some throughout the years, this is my
twenty-first. [applause] I have come to convention by plane, by train, by
bus, and by car. I was hoping to go by boat next year, but it would be hard
to accomplish going from Arizona to Vegas. Maybe 2020 will be in Hawaii or
Puerto Rico.
My convention experience has changed over the years. I used to be at
NFB Camp or what is now called NFB Child Care with my brothers Jeffrey,
Philip, and Elliott. I remember at the Atlanta convention all of the kids
went to the Coca-Cola factory. I got really sick because I pigged out on
all the free soda from all over the world. My parents wouldn't normally let
me drink soda. That was an early lesson on how parental advice is worth
considering even when they're not there to make you do what they say.
When I was too old to be babysat, I started working for NFB Camp, and
now I am a blindness professional. [applause] Before you all think that my
childhood is what got me into this field, I would like to point out that I
never even knew that the field of orientation and mobility existed until I
was finishing my undergraduate degree and didn't know what to do with my
life. I love my degree in linguistic anthropology, and I wouldn't change it
for the world. But I couldn't make a living wage as an anthropologist
unless I became a university professor, something I definitely didn't want
to do. In fact I always said I would never become a teacher or go into
psychology because that is what my dad does, and everyone assumed I would
follow in his footsteps. Well, now I know never say never, because I
obtained my masters in guidance and counseling, and I am currently an
orientation and mobility instructor at SAAVI Services for the Blind in
Tucson, Arizona.
I am here today for you, for your kids, and for the future children
of blind parents. I hope that my story will help you convince doubters that
children of blind parents can and do live wonderful lives. [applause]
People made a lot of assumptions about my life growing up-some true
and some not so true. Both of my parents are totally blind due to
retinopathy of prematurity. When people learn that, I get comments like,
"Oh, I'm so sorry;" or "Wow, how is life growing up with blind parents?;"
or "Oh, you must've been a big help around the house." Most children of
blind parents can probably list off a bunch of other naove comments that we
get all the time. My answer is always, "Well, I didn't know any different,
so it was normal to me." And, quite frankly, my childhood was a pretty
typical one.
During my schooling at Louisiana Tech University, I attended
immersion at the Louisiana Center for the Blind. Even after my immersion
ended, I attended a seminar at least once a week throughout my entire
program. One time the seminar question was "Who is the first blind person
you met, and how old were you?" Pam Allen called upon me to speak. I told
the group that I was in kindergarten when I met my first blind person.
Clearly that's an odd answer coming from a child whose parents are blind.
It was in kindergarten that I first realized what people meant when they
use the word. Before then, my parents were just my parents. My parents fed
me, dressed me, and took me to school. My experience wasn't any different
from anyone else's. I also thought it was weird at the age of four that
everyone would say to me, "Oh, you must be a big help around the house."
Like what the heck was that supposed to mean; I'm four! I'm pretty sure
that those comments ingrained in me and my brothers the determination to do
the least amount possible around the house outside of our chores. Even
getting us to do those were hard; so Mom, next time you need to yell at
Elliott to take out the trash, blame it on the world for making us want to
prove that the stereotype of saintly children helping their poor blind
parents wrong. [applause]
I was spoiled. My mom made my breakfast and lunch every day until I
graduated from high school. Even in university, if I asked or if she saw I
was stressed with work or school, she would make me food. When I go home to
visit, I have a list of favorite foods that I ask my mom to make. As
everyone knows, there are just some things that taste better when mom makes
them.
There were expectations, too. On each of our thirteenth birthdays, my
mom taught us how to use the washer and dryer. She said, "You are a
teenager now. I'm no longer doing your laundry. If you want clean clothes,
you'll have to do them yourself. [applause]
My family has always been very health-focused. My dad runs the Gabias
Wellness Center out of our family home. Some of you might have met him in
the exhibit hall talking about all the Nikken wellness products they offer.
When I was younger, my dad was very strict about what we ate. My brothers
are so lucky that he let up as we got older, but, as you know, parents are
always the hardest and the most cautious with the first born. I even have
proof. All the pictures from my first birthday party show my dad following
me around making sure I was okay. I was running away with an annoyed look
on my face. I already wanted to be my own person. By the time they had
their fourth child, my parents were just satisfied that the youngest was
wearing clean underwear.
When I was in kindergarten, my mom made a cake to bring to my class
for my birthday. My parents had chosen not to have chocolate in our house,
so my mom tried to make a cake using carob. If you have never worked with
carob, it frankly tastes like dirt. My mom made carob frosting as well, a
double dose of yuck. Carob doesn't spread well. The frosting started
clumping and breaking the cake. It was just a mess. I think Apple must've
seen a picture of this cake because they made an emoji that looks exactly
like it. [laughter] I think voiceover calls it the smiling pile of poo. I
remember that day so vividly. The teachers tried to shush the kids when
they asked why the cake looked so weird. The teacher assumed that it was
because my mom was blind. I was annoyed, because I knew it wasn't my mom's
blindness or her cooking skills. It was because of that stupid carob.
Mom can bake good stuff. I planned a surprise sweet sixteen party for
my best friend, and my mom made a giant chocolate (real chocolate) heart-
shaped cake with raspberry filling. Everyone loved it so much that all of
my friends asked her to make one for their birthdays as well.
Misconceptions and confusing problems caused by other factors with
problems caused by blindness happen all the time. My family lives in the
beautiful Okanagan Valley in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, minutes
away from a spectacular lake. When I was ten, my family bought a speedboat.
Growing up we spent most of our summer on the lake waterskiing, tubing,
wakeboarding, and swimming. Our family knew a man who drove for us. It was
only natural that he would also drive our boat. When I was twelve our
driver had a stroke and was in the hospital for most of the summer. My dad
tried to hire random people to drive the boat. The cab driver he chose bent
the propeller when he ran aground. The twenty-one-year-old son of a friend
gouged the side of the boat while docking at a cost of $250. Dad was so
annoyed with incompetent boat drivers that he started looking into the boat
licensing process. He found out that twelve-year-olds can get a boat
license in Canada. Conveniently I had just turned twelve, so I was
volunteered. He paid for me and two of my friends to get our boat license.
Dad sat in the class as we learned nautical rules and took the licensing
exam, which we all passed. The only problem was that we completed the class
without ever coming near a boat. The next day my dad took me out on the
boat at 6 a.m. when there weren't many boats on the lake and showed me what
all the controls did. His family owned a boat when he was growing up, so he
had been around them all his life. Whenever my dad gets a new gadget of any
kind, he figures out every button, lever, and widget. So he knew exactly
what to do with his boat. I remember being extremely nervous because of my
dad's high expectations. I remember my dad telling me, "Put it in full
throttle and turn the wheel." That scared me.
I said, "We're going to flip."
Firmly he said, "If you don't do it, I will. You need to know how the
boat will react to whatever you are doing."
Everything I learned about boating, towing a waterskier, docking, and
just cruising along I learned from my dad. I would like to point out that I
have never put a scratch on our boat, and neither have my three brothers
who were also taught by my dad. [applause]
When we all started to learn how to drive cars, my dad insisted that
we take formal lessons. Dad went to every lesson with us. My dad went
through the program four times to be exact. If he couldn't make it to a
lesson, he would have to reschedule because he wanted to make sure that he
knew what we were being taught and that we were doing what we were supposed
to do when we were driving alone. Even though he wasn't the one directly
teaching us this time, my dad was very much at the center of our driving
experience.
As I grew older, I became more and more independent. I traveled all
over Canada and the US. I even went to France, Guatemala, New Mexico, and
Belize in high school and in college. Even when you're legally an adult,
sometimes you still need help from your parents. When I came back from
Guatemala, my cell phone stopped working. I had insurance, so I brought it
in to get it fixed. I spent three months contending with loaner phones that
didn't work and my original phone coming back to me more broken than
before. I was complaining to my mom that they kept giving me the runaround,
so she came to the store with me. But my mom is a very calm person. She
doesn't really raise her voice, but when she's mad, you know it. My mother
calmly but powerfully explained that this was unacceptable, and they needed
to figure things out. Just like that I got a new upgraded phone at zero
cost to me. If I had known that this would've been the outcome, I would've
brought her in the first place. This skill is something I still don't
possess. I think my brother Jeffrey inherited this skill. Luckily for me I
can still call on my mom when I'm in need.
Some kids are denied the chance to grow up learning from their
parents, especially children of blind parents. When I was in the fifth
grade, my life could've changed drastically. Some random lady came to
school and separately pulled my brother and me out of class. She started
asking me questions about my parents: whether my father hit my brother or
if I was safe at home. I thought they were the weirdest questions ever. I
was sure that they took the wrong kid out of class. These questions didn't
even remotely make sense in my life. When I came home, my mom was very
upset. The random lady had been to our home too. I told her about my
experience. My mom became livid. She had not been given the courtesy of
being told that they would be interviewing us at school. The weird lady was
from social services. Someone made an anonymous call about my parents. The
complaint was that my dad might-just might-have hit or spanked my brother,
our house was messy, and that my brother went to school with a dirty shirt.
Can anyone in the audience tell me that your house is never messy and that
your kids or you have never dirtied a shirt? I sure can't.
After talking to us kids and visiting our parents at home, they
realized that the complaint was unjustified. Luckily they never bothered us
again. [applause] But that one incident has lingered with my mother to this
day. All of her children are legal adults, yet she still wonders who called
social services. We all know that social services didn't show up because my
dad might've spanked my brother or because of a messy house or because of a
dirty shirt. They came because the caller said that both parents were
totally blind. That was the real issue. It didn't matter that my mother was
a stay-at-home mom or that my dad was a university professor. Even though
we had a parent at home to take care of us and a parent making sure we had
the money to live a happy and prosperous life, the thing that mattered to
the social workers was that my parents were blind. I know that many other
parents have either experienced this visit or live in fear of this visit.
I recently testified at the Arizona House of Representatives in favor
of the right to parent bill which was passed and signed into state law this
spring. [applause] One of the committee members was asking a lot of naove
questions about how my parents knew when we were doing something wrong. He
seemed convinced that I probably got away with a lot of things because my
parents couldn't see. I told him that when my brother Philip was still in
preschool, my mother took him to the store with her. While she was busy in
the checkout line my brother quickly grabbed a pack of gum. On the way out
mom noticed that he was being very quiet. She heard him fiddling with
something. She did a quick search of his pockets and marched him right back
into the store and asked for the store manager. She made my five-year-old
brother confess what he had done and apologize. [applause] Then she paid
for the gum. The store manager said, "Well, you've paid for it now, so you
can have it back." My mom said, "Absolutely not! I'm not rewarding this
behavior; throw it out." My brother was so embarrassed that he never stole
from a store again. [applause]
The committee member seemed unconvinced. He said, "Well, he was
young. I have teenagers. It's really hard to keep track of them." The ways
that my brothers and I got caught may be unconventional, but no matter
what, we always got caught. In middle school the fad was to have your
midriff showing, a fad that happens to be coming back recently. It's funny
how many things have come back from the 90s. Shout out to the 90s babies
out there! [cheers] Well, I wasn't allowed to show off my belly, but I
wanted to be fashionable. Besides, it was hard for me to find shirts that
fit because I've always been tall. I've been five-foot-nine since the
seventh grade. Before I left for school, my parents would ask for a hug.
This is how they would sneakily check to see that my shirt was long enough.
My dad would ask for a hug from my brothers to check their breath to see if
they had brushed their teeth. I could go on and on about all the ways we
got caught, so when someone says "Oh, you must've gotten away with a lot of
things," I just laugh because they are so, so wrong.
When I was in high school, I did an exchange program. Sara, a girl
from Quibec, was to spend six weeks in my home, and I would spend six weeks
in hers. We had to fill out a profile about our life, interests, parents,
what they did for work, etc. There was no line asking if my parents were
blind, so I didn't write anything. It wasn't important. We got each other's
paperwork in June, but Sara didn't come until the end of January. On her
way to our home, she met the program coordinator who remarked on how brave
Sara was to come to a home run by two blind parents. Sara started freaking
out. She even called her mom. Her mom told her that she should just see
what it was like before she panicked and came home. When Sara arrived at
the Kelowna airport, my dad and I were waiting for her with a big sign
saying, "Bienvenue Sara," meaning "Welcome Sara" in French. We picked up
her luggage, which my dad carried. When we got home, mom made her a snack,
and we talked with my parents for an hour before my new friend and I went
to my room. She finally told me about her conversation with the coordinator
and said, "I realized once I got here that your parents are supernormal,
but why didn't you tell me before?" I told her it wasn't important to me,
so I didn't really think it was necessary to say anything. As things
developed, I was happy I hadn't told her. When I asked her what she
would've done if she had gotten this information in advance, she admitted
that she wasn't sure she would've even come. Sara had a great time. It
became so much more than a nice trip. We call each other sisters to this
day. [applause]
When she had a semester off a few years later, Sara decided to come
back to Kelowna and live with us for three months. Not only do their flesh
and blood love my parents, but so do my friends. Sara was not the only one
who lived with us either. I had four different friends live with my parents
over the years. My house was the place to be. I wish my grandparents could
see our family now. My grandmother was very upset when my dad married a
blind person. She didn't have a problem with him being blind, but she was
scared that if he married another blind person, their children would grow
up socially awkward because they wouldn't learn any visual social cues. My
grandmother died when I was one, so she didn't get to see any of us grow
up. I know my grandmother is biting her tongue up in heaven right now.
My mother, Mary Ellen Gabias, used to work at the national office in
the 80s. She was in charge of the Job Opportunities for the Blind. My
father, Paul Gabias, met my mother through that program briefly and then
again while attending a leadership seminar. My mom happened to be one of
the ones giving a tour for the seminar group. If you have ever been to the
national office, you know that everyone helps out where they are needed no
matter what their position may be. Well, my mom says that that was the
worst tour she ever gave. Anything that could go wrong did. The ancient
freight elevator got stuck with everybody onboard, among other minor
disasters. My father, however, knew he had found his future wife even if
she didn't know it yet.
So I would like to thank the National Federation of the Blind.
Because if it wasn't for this community, I would not exist. [applause]
Although I may not be blind, this is my family, I am a Federation baby, and
this is my family reunion. [applause] I am part of the next generation of
Federationists. The next generation may not all be blind, but we know that
blindness is not the characteristic that defines you, me, or your child's
future. Every day we live with high expectations of blind people. We don't
understand why there are low expectations. We are the result of the dreams
of blind people. We live the lives you fought for. We know that blindness
doesn't hold you back because you have taught us. Thank you.
-----------
Leave a Legacy
For more than seventy-five years the National Federation of the Blind
has worked to transform the dreams of hundreds of thousands of blind people
into reality, and with your support we will continue to do so for decades
to come. We sincerely hope you will plan to be a part of our enduring
movement by adding the National Federation of the Blind as a partial
beneficiary in your will. A gift to the National Federation of the Blind in
your will is more than just a charitable, tax-deductible donation. It is a
way to join in the work to help blind people live the lives they want that
leaves a lasting imprint on the lives of thousands of blind children and
adults.
With your help, the NFB will continue to:
. Give blind children the gift of literacy through Braille;
. Promote the independent travel of the blind by providing free, long
white canes to blind people in need;
. Develop dynamic educational projects and programs that show blind
youth that science and math 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 losing vision maintain
their independence; and
. Fund scholarship programs so that blind people can achieve their
dreams.
Plan to Leave a Legacy
Creating a will gives you the final say in what happens to your
possessions and is the only way to be sure that your remaining assets are
distributed according to your passions and beliefs. Many people fear
creating a will or believe it's not necessary until they are much older.
Others think that it's expensive and confusing. However, it is one of the
most important things you will do, and with new online legal programs it is
easier and cheaper than ever before. If you do decide to create or revise
your will, consider the National Federation of the Blind as a partial
beneficiary. Visit www.nfb.org/planned-giving or call 410-659-9314,
extension 2422, for more information. Together with love, hope,
determination, and your support, we will continue to transform dreams into
reality.
Invest in Opportunity
The National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the
characteristic that defines you or your future. You can live the life you
want; blindness is not what holds you back. A donation to the National
Federation of the Blind allows you to invest in a movement that removes the
fear from blindness. Your investment is your vote of confidence in the
value and capacity of blind people and reflects the high expectations we
have for all blind Americans, combating the low expectations that create
obstacles between blind people and our dreams.
In 2017 the NFB:
. Distributed over seven thousand canes to blind people across the
United States, empowering them to travel safely and independently
throughout their communities.
. Hosted forty-eight NFB BELL Academy programs, which served more than
three hundred fifty blind students throughout the United States.
. Provided over one hundred thousand dollars in scholarships to blind
students, making a post-secondary education affordable and attainable.
. Delivered audio newspaper and magazine services to 118,900
subscribers, providing free access to over five hundred local,
national, and international publications.
. In the third year of the program, over three hundred fifty Braille-
writing slates and styluses were given free of charge to blind users.
Just imagine what we'll do next year, and, with your help, what can be
accomplished for years to come. Below are just a few of the many diverse,
tax-deductible ways you can lend your support to the National Federation of
the Blind.
Vehicle Donation Program
The NFB now accepts 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-it
doesn't have to be working. 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. Donate online with
a credit card or through the mail with check or money order. Visit
www.nfb.org/make-gift for more information.
Bequests
Even if you can't afford a gift right now, including the National
Federation of the Blind in your will enables you to contribute by
expressing your commitment to the organization and promises support for
future generations of blind people across the country. Visit
www.nfb.org/planned-giving or call 410-659-9314, extension 2422, for more
information.
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 withdraw of funds from a checking
account or a charge to a credit card. To enroll, visit www.nfb.org/make-
gift, and complete the Pre-Authorized Contribution form, and return it to
the address listed on the form.
----------
[PHOTO CAPTION: Sharon Maneki]
What Does Democracy Look Like?
The 2018 Convention Resolutions
by Sharon Maneki
"What does democracy look like? This is what democracy looks like."
This is a popular protest chant used to express dissatisfaction with
everything from economic inequality to the failure to control gun violence.
The origin of this chant is believed to be at the World Trade protests in
Seattle in 1999. This chant has become more popular recently. This slogan
was prominent during the Women's March of January 2017 and most recently at
the March for Our Lives protest in March 2018.
What does democracy look like in the National Federation of the
Blind? There are many answers to this question, but one of the best answers
is the resolutions process at National Convention. In his November 19,
1863, Gettysburg address, President Abraham Lincoln gave one of the best
definitions of democracy. He said: "...that we here highly resolve that
these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall
have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the
people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
The resolutions process meets Lincoln's definition of democracy. This
process is both by and of the people. Anyone can present a resolution to
the committee provided that he or she abides by the rules. The chairman of
the committee must receive the resolution two weeks before the committee
meeting. If the individual misses that deadline, he can present the
resolution to the chairman up to an hour before the meeting if three
committee members agree that the resolution should come forward. The
committee does not consider a resolution if there is no spokesman for it at
the meeting.
The hallmark of democracy is participation by the people. The thirty-
member resolutions committee always consists of a cross section of leaders
from throughout the country. I was appointed chairman of the committee by
President Riccobono and was ably assisted by Marsha Dyer, a member of the
national staff for twenty-eight years. The committee's job is to consider,
debate, and then vote each resolution up or down. If the committee kills a
resolution, it can still be brought to the Convention if the delegates from
five states sponsor it. The Convention is the supreme authority of the
Federation and has the final say on each resolution. If the Convention
approves the resolution, that resolution becomes part of our policies. As
you can see, the membership fully participates in the resolutions process.
This year the committee sent twenty resolutions to the Convention for
its consideration on July 7, 2018. After some spirited discussion, the
Convention passed all twenty of them. An examination of the subject of each
resolution will demonstrate that they conform to the last criteria of
Lincoln's definition of democracy as they are for the people with
blindness. The resolutions fall into two broad categories, expressing our
views to various types of entities and resolutions dealing with information
technology. It is interesting to note that five resolutions condemn and
deplore the actions of various entities, a higher number than in most
years.
The most unusual resolution that the Convention passed this year was
Resolution 2018-20. It was unusual because of its subject matter. In this
resolution, we commend CBS television for its portrayal of blindness on the
NCIS show. CBS not only cast a blind actor as a blind character but also
consulted with the National Federation of the Blind about the most
authentic way to present Annie Barth, the blind character. We hope that the
entertainment industry will follow CBS's lead. Deepa Goraya, who won a
national scholarship in 2010 and is second vice president of the Potomac
Chapter of the NFB of Virginia and also serves as one of the legislative
directors for the affiliate, proposed this resolution.
Lynn Heitz, president of the NFB of Pennsylvania, sponsored
Resolution 2018-02. Accreditation, the subject of this resolution, was
familiar to longtime Federationists because we have been passing
resolutions about this subject since 1971. We needed another resolution
this year because the National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving
the Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC) "...transferred all of its
remaining assets, $85,554, to AER, on June 30, 2018." AER is now trying to
follow the exclusionary practices of NAC. In this resolution we "...condemn
and deplore the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind
and Visually Impaired for its insulting gesture of tokenism toward the
blind in the formation of its National Accreditation Council." This
resolution also states: "...we do not oppose proper accreditation properly
done."
It is customary to have resolutions about the US Congress at every
National Convention. The Convention passed three resolutions that urge the
US Congress to take action this year. In Resolution 2018-01, "...this
organization condemn and deplore the action of 103 members of Congress who
have asked the Department of Justice to exempt public accommodations from
their obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act. We also call
upon these members of Congress to withdraw their signatures from the letter
immediately." Greg Aikens, president of the NFB of Georgia, sponsored this
resolution.
Ellana Crew, president of the Maryland Association of Blind Students
and a summer intern at the Jernigan Institute, introduced Resolution 2018-
06. In this resolution "...this organization condemn and deplore the
passage of H.R. 620 by the United States House of Representatives." H.R.
620, the "ADA Education and Reform Act of 2017" would severely weaken the
Americans with Disabilities Act through its Notice and Cure provisions.
Businesses would no longer have to comply fully with the ADA. They would be
required to show only "substantial progress," a term never defined in the
bill. In this resolution we also urge the United States Senate to oppose
H.R. 620 or any similar legislation.
In Resolution 2018-12, we urge the United States Senate to act
quickly to pass the A/V Start Act, S.1885, that "...would prohibit states
from imposing discriminatory licensing requirements, require manufacturers
to provide information on their human-machine interface technology in their
safety reports, and create a working group specifically tasked with
promulgating recommendations on accessibility issues for people with
disabilities." When Gary Allen, president of the NFB of Connecticut,
introduced this resolution, he reminded us of the dearth of public
transportation and the opportunities that self-driving vehicles could
provide to the blind.
The Convention passed five resolutions concerning entities in the
executive branch of the US government. These resolutions are either
reactions to proposed rules or reactions to problems in administration.
Marion Gwizdala, president of the National Association of Guide Dog Users,
proposed Resolution 2018-10. The US Department of Transportation recently
released an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking on the Air Carrier
Access Act concerning the carriage of trained service animals and untrained
emotional support animals. These proposed rules are vague and could lead to
discriminatory practices. In Resolution 2018-10, "...this organization urge
the United States Department of Transportation to promulgate regulations
that are harmonized with the Americans with Disabilities Act and are
sufficiently detailed so that they are not open to subjective
interpretation."
The Convention passed two resolutions regarding the US Department of
Education. On March 5, 2018, the US Department of Education, Office of
Civil Rights, issued a new case processing manual for its investigators.
These new procedures severely restrict the rights of complainants who are
seeking assistance in eliminating discriminatory practices by all levels of
educational institutions. In Resolution 2018-08, we not only condemn and
deplore the actions of the US Department of Education and its Office of
Civil Rights but also demand that the Department immediately halt the
implementation of the changes outlined in this new manual. Matt Langland,
second vice president of the Metro Chapter of the NFB of Minnesota and a
summer intern at the Jernigan Institute, introduced this resolution.
Terry Smith, first vice president of the NFB of Tennessee, proposed
Resolution 2018-16. It was most appropriate for Terry to bring this
resolution to the committee because of his experience working for the
Entrepreneurs Program of the National Association of Blind Merchants. The
US Department of Education through the Rehabilitation Services
Administration (RSA) has oversight responsibilities for the Randolph-
Sheppard program. This resolution describes the delays and backlogs in
approving state rules and policies and in handling arbitration cases caused
by RSA. In this resolution we also demand that the Department immediately
remedy these problems and prevent future occurrences.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was the subject of two
resolutions passed by the Convention this year. Joel Zimba, who was an
access technology specialist at the Jernigan Institute but now works for
HumanWare, proposed Resolution 2018-03. The FCC created the Lifeline
program, which provides a free cell phone to seniors and other low-income
individuals, including persons with disabilities. Unfortunately, the
eligibility process is complex and time-consuming. Most of the free cell
phones are inaccessible to the blind. In this resolution we call upon the
FCC to create guidelines that ensure that Lifeline consumers receive
accessible devices and the necessary training to use these devices.
In Resolution 2018-17, "...this organization demand that the FCC
require audio description on live programming of all types." This
resolution came about in part because Comcast and NBC-Universal recently
set a precedent of providing live audio description of the Olympics and
Paralympics. Grace Anderson, vice president of the Alabama Association of
Blind Students and a summer intern at the Jernigan Institute, introduced
this resolution.
The remaining ten resolutions deal with accessibility. The Convention
passed three resolutions concerning accessibility to voting. Lou Ann Blake,
deputy director of the Jernigan Institute, proposed two of these voting
resolutions. Too many voters with disabilities face discrimination and are
deprived of their right to a secret ballot. Ballots that are marked using
an electronic ballot marking device (BMD) are identifiable because they are
different in size and content from hand-marked ballots. In Resolution 2018-
05, "...this organization demand that election technology developers design
and manufacture BMDs that produce ballots which are the same size and have
the same content as hand-marked ballots. We also demand that state and
local boards of elections that have procured BMDs which produce ballots
that are different in size and content from hand-marked ballots, implement
procedures that will ensure voters with disabilities have the same
opportunity to cast a secret ballot as voters without disabilities."
More and more state and local governments are adopting vote by mail
systems. In Resolution 2018-13, we reminded these jurisdictions that they
should ensure accessibility for voters with disabilities when implementing
a vote by mail system. Lou Ann Blake also introduced this resolution.
Stephen Handschu, a long-time leader in the Michigan affiliate,
proposed Resolution 2018-09. In this resolution we commend VOTEC
Corporation for its leadership in developing an accessible pollbook system
and urge other manufacturers of voting technology to implement nonvisually
accessible pollbooks. A pollbook, which contains a voter's name and
address, is used to verify whether an individual is eligible to vote. In
this resolution we also demand, "that all election jurisdictions that plan
to use or are already using electronic pollbooks to purchase accessible
election pollbooks as soon as they become available."
The next three resolutions contain instructions to federal and state
governments concerning accessibility. For many years blind citizens have
been unable to obtain most forms and documents from federal agencies
because the agencies used inaccessible PDF formats. The accessibility
problems would be solved if agencies used the HTML5-based format. In
Resolution 2018-07, we call upon all federal agencies to adopt policies
requiring that all documents and forms be produced in HTML5-based formats
by December 31, 2020. We also call upon these agencies to replace currently
used forms and documents by converting them to the HTML5-based format.
Janae Burgmeier, a member of the board of directors of the National
Association of Blind Students and vice president of the Iowa Association of
Blind Students, sponsored this resolution.
Rocky Hart, a high school student at the Minnesota State Academy for
the Blind, who was attending his first national convention sponsored
Resolution 2018-15. Blind students at all levels struggle because the
eLearning tools used in their classrooms are frequently inaccessible. In
this resolution, "...this organization demand that schools and local
education agencies require educational technology vendors to confirm the
accessibility of their products prior to purchase and to assume cost and
liability for any technology found to be inaccessible after purchase."
The US Postal Service recently initiated the Informed Delivery
Service Program to help residential consumers keep track of incoming mail
and packages. Unfortunately, this program is inaccessible to the blind
because it uses an image to display the status of mail. In Resolution 2018-
19, we strongly urge the US Postal Service to make the Informed Delivery
Service Program accessible quickly and to institute procedures to prevent
the deployment of inaccessible services in the future. This resolution had
two sponsors, Latonya Phipps and Ronza Othman. Latonya is a leader in the
NFB of Maryland who won a national scholarship in 1994. Ronza Othman is
chairman of the Blind Federal Employees Committee, a member of the board of
directors of the Maryland affiliate, and she won a national scholarship in
2006.
The remaining four resolutions contain instructions to various
software developers regarding accessibility. Epic Systems Corporation is a
leader in the electronic health records industry. In Resolution 2018-04,
"...this organization condemn and deplore Epic for incorporating gratuitous
accessibility barriers in its health information software, for failing to
commit to resolving these access barriers, and for perpetuating
discrimination against blind health care employees." We also demand that
Epic immediately remove all accessibility barriers to employment for the
blind. Syed Rizvi, first vice president of the National Association of
Blind Students and winner of a national scholarship in 2016, introduced
this resolution.
The remaining three resolutions address specific concerns with
various software developers. Melissa Carney, secretary of the National
Association of Blind Students, president of the Connecticut Association of
Blind Students, and the winner of a national scholarship in 2017 introduced
Resolution 2018-11. Apple, Google and Microsoft have Braille display
support built into their operating systems. While we appreciate this
action, these companies should do more. The resolution states: "...we
strongly urge these companies to increase the priority given to
developments in Braille access and to ensure that updates to their
operating systems do not result in regression for Braille users." Since
Braille support in Android has been stagnant for more than two years,
"...we call upon Google to demonstrate measurable and significant progress
in the implementation of Braille in the Android platform by July 1, 2019."
Resolution 2018-14 promotes the use of EPUB3 over the PDF format
because of its accessibility features: "...this organization commend Apple
for its robust implementation of 'Save as EPUB' in Pages." We also "...call
upon other major authoring tool developers to include, improve, or simplify
the creation of EPUB3 documents in current and future updates." Mausam
Mehta, who was attending her second convention and will be a freshman at
the University of Virginia, sponsored this resolution.
In the past we have enacted resolutions about inaccessible web
browsers. We needed another resolution on this subject this year because
Mozilla recently released an inaccessible version of Firefox. Michael
Powell, president of the NFB of Michigan, sponsored Resolution 2018-18. In
this resolution we call upon all web browser manufacturers to work closely
with screen reader producers to ensure that new browsers or updates to
browsers are not released unless they are fully accessible.
What does democracy look like? In the National Federation of the
Blind, democracy looks like the resolutions process. The process is
definitely of and by the people. This article is merely an introductory
discussion of the resolutions considered by the 2018 Convention. The
complete text of each resolution is reprinted below. Readers should analyze
the text of each resolution to understand fully our policy on these
subjects. These resolutions are definitely for the people with blindness.
----------
National Federation of the Blind 2018 Resolutions
These resolutions were passed by the Convention on July 7, 2018, in
Orlando:
Resolution 2018-01
Regarding a Recent Letter from 103 Members of Congress to the US Department
of Justice Addressing Website Accessibility
WHEREAS, for nearly twenty-eight years the Americans with Disabilities Act
has required that public accommodations make their communications with the
public accessible; and
WHEREAS, the ADA standard for accessible communication requires that all
communications be equally effective for persons with and without
disabilities; and
WHEREAS, communicating through websites is now the most commonly used
method employed by public accommodations to interact with the public, a
form of communication which must meet the ADA's effective communication
requirement; and
WHEREAS, the United States Department of Justice has not issued regulations
setting out a specific accessibility standard for websites or for any
particular type of communication, thus allowing public accommodations to
use any available standard as long as that standard achieves effective
communication for people with disabilities; and
WHEREAS, for years many public accommodations have advocated against the
Department of Justice issuing website accessibility standards; and
WHEREAS, in spite of the fact that the ADA provides an effective
communication standard that offers businesses flexibility in how they make
their websites accessible, some public accommodations have argued in court
that requiring them to make their websites accessible at all violates their
due process rights; and
WHEREAS, every court to consider the issue has rejected these public
accommodations' due process arguments except one, and that opinion is
currently on appeal; and
WHEREAS, on June 20, 2018, 103 Members of Congress wrote a letter asking
the Department of Justice to issue guidance indicating that courts cannot
require public accommodations to make their websites accessible because,
they argued, such requirements violate due process rights: Now, therefore
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this seventh day of July, 2018, in the City of Orlando, Florida,
that this organization condemn and deplore the action of 103 members of
Congress who have asked the Department of Justice to exempt public
accommodations from their obligations under the ADA; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization call upon these members of
Congress to withdraw their signatures from the letter immediately; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization request that the Department
of Justice confirm, as it has consistently made clear in briefs, technical
assistance, and its own enforcement, that websites of public accommodations
must comply with the effective communication requirement of Title III of
the ADA and that due process does not restrict enforcement of that
requirement.
Resolution 2018-02
Regarding the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and
Visually Impaired and the AER Accreditation Council
WHEREAS, beginning in 1967 and for approximately thirty-five years
thereafter, an organization known as the National Accreditation Council for
Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped (NAC) sought to control
education and rehabilitation services provided to the blind by means of so-
called standards leading to so-called accreditation; and
WHEREAS, NAC was the offspring of the American Foundation for the Blind
(AFB), created by AFB in direct response to the growing effectiveness of
the organized blind movement; and
WHEREAS, as opposition to NAC by the National Federation of the Blind and
others gained strength, the federal government, state agencies, schools for
the blind, and even the AFB itself withdrew their former support, financial
and otherwise, leading the AFB executive director to exclaim in speaking to
the NAC board in 2002 "What part of no more NAC don't you understand?"; and
WHEREAS, although the dreams of NAC to hold dominance over the blind have
lived on into the present decade, the independent voice of the blind has
been heard and respected and has prevailed; and
WHEREAS, NAC died, and on June 30, 2017, transferred all of its remaining
assets-$85,554-to AER; and
WHEREAS, AER has recently offered NFB a single seat on its National
Accreditation Council, only after repeated attempts by NFB to communicate
with AER about NAC; and
WHEREAS, this half-hearted offer of a single seat is the kind of tokenism
that doomed the original NAC to utter and complete failure and which,
unless altered, will eventually threaten the viability and very existence
of AER itself: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this seventh day of July, 2018, in the City of Orlando, Florida,
that this organization condemn and deplore AER'S insulting gesture of
tokenism toward the blind in the formation of its National Accreditation
Council; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that, as stated in our convention resolution 71-03
and repeated on many occasions since, it be made clear that: we do not
oppose proper accreditation properly done; we will be happy to participate
in and cooperate with any appropriately organized and democratically
constituted accrediting activity; and if the time should come that a
genuine accreditation system is created along democratic lines and blind
people have more than token representation in the governance of the
accreditation system and throughout the accreditation process, the National
Federation of the Blind pledges its willingness to work with AER and other
organizations truly to make services for the blind more relevant and
responsive to the needs of the blind than ever before.
Resolution 2018-03
Regarding the Lifeline Program and the Free Cellphone Service for Seniors
and Those with Low Income
WHEREAS, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has created the
Lifeline program for low-vision seniors and others with low income to
provide a free cellphone with free calling, texting, and some data
services; and
WHEREAS, this service is funded through the universal access fee paid by
all phone subscribers; and
WHEREAS, the service providers are typically mobile virtual network
operators (MVNOs), smaller third-party mobile phone service providers who
resell access to the networks of the major carriers; and
WHEREAS, proof of residence and proof of disability or eligibility for
other assistance (e.g., Medicaid, SSI, etc.) are required to participate in
this program; and
WHEREAS, the phones provided by the MVNOs vary widely from a basic flip
phone with tactile buttons which provides only calling services and
possibly some limited text-to-speech functionality to a low-end Android
smartphone with touchscreen that would require basic technology training
for the newly blind or seniors, regardless of their level of vision; and
WHEREAS, many MVNOs require navigation of a complex list of menu options on
the phone and long wait times to speak with a representative about specific
needs and company options; and
WHEREAS, all companies surveyed by the National Federation of the Blind
were modest operations with varying procedures, making the process of
obtaining the free service complex and time-consuming: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this seventh day of July, 2018, in the City of Orlando, Florida,
that this organization call upon the FCC to establish guidelines for the
MVNOs that provide the Lifeline service to make available accessible
devices and documentation and to establish a minimum standard for support
to low-income citizens and seniors with vision loss.
Resolution 2018-04
Regarding the Inaccessibility of Epic Corporation Systems Software
WHEREAS, Epic Systems Corporation (Epic) is a leader in the electronic
health records (EHR) industry and has developed a suite of health
information software used nationwide by more than three hundred hospital
and health clinic customers; and
WHEREAS, Epic has failed to conform the employee-facing side of its
software to industry standard Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
2.1 AA, despite Epic's proven ability to incorporate accessibility features
in its patient-facing software; and
WHEREAS, blind professionals working in the healthcare field who are
otherwise qualified for the work they have been hired to perform are unable
to engage in basic functions of their jobs because of Epic's inaccessible
software design and have suffered from this lack of access, including the
likelihood of being overlooked for promotions and raises or terminated from
their positions entirely; and
WHEREAS, blind healthcare professionals are now forced to advocate for
their protections under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act and
Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and must engage in
interactive dialogue with their employers to request accommodations that
will give them access to Epic's software; and
WHEREAS, Epic's practice of selling software that it knows to be
inaccessible has put its customer base at risk of violating federal law and
has forced healthcare employers to rely on code scripting solutions that
work only until a platform is updated, at which point the scripts break and
must be rewritten; and
WHEREAS, the National Federation of the Blind has insisted that Epic
remediate its employee-facing software and legal action has been filed
against Epic demanding that it do so; and
WHEREAS, despite these actions, Epic has failed to commit publicly to
including accessibility features in all facets of its healthcare software:
Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this seventh day of July, 2018, in the City of Orlando, Florida,
that this organization condemn and deplore Epic for incorporating
gratuitous accessibility barriers in its health information software, for
failing to commit to resolving these access barriers, and for perpetuating
discrimination against blind healthcare employees; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization demand that Epic take
immediate action to remediate access barriers within its health information
software so that it conforms with WCAG 2.1 AA and is fully and equally
accessible to blind healthcare employees, removing this fundamental barrier
to employment for the blind in the healthcare field.
Resolution 2018-05
Regarding Accessible Ballot-Marking Devices and the Ability to Cast a
Secret Ballot
WHEREAS, the ability to cast a secret and anonymous ballot is a cornerstone
of our democracy that enables citizens to vote their conscience without
fear; and
WHEREAS, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires
that voters with disabilities be afforded an opportunity to exercise their
right to vote equivalent to the opportunity afforded to voters without
disabilities; and
WHEREAS, election technology developers, such as Elections Systems and
Software (ES&S), Dominion Voting Systems, and Unisyn Voting Solutions have
designed accessible ballot-marking devices (BMDs) that produce ballots that
are different in size and/or content from the ballot that is hand-marked by
the majority of voters; and
WHEREAS, because the BMD ballots cast by voters with disabilities are
different in size and/or content from the hand-marked ballots cast by the
majority of voters, the BMD ballots can be identified as having been cast
by a voter with a disability and are, as a result, not secret ballots; and
WHEREAS, a state or local board of elections is in violation of Title II of
the ADA when it does not provide voters with disabilities the same
opportunity to cast a secret ballot that it provides voters without
disabilities: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this seventh day of July, 2018, in the City of Orlando, Florida,
that this organization demand that election technology developers design
and manufacture BMDs that produce ballots which are the same size and have
the same content as hand-marked ballots; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization demand that state and local
boards of elections that have procured BMDs which produce ballots that are
different in size and content from hand-marked ballots implement procedures
that will ensure voters with disabilities have the same opportunity to cast
a secret ballot as voters without disabilities.
Resolution 2018-06
Regarding the Consideration of H.R. 620 or Similar Legislation by the
United States Senate
WHEREAS, H.R. 620, the "ADA Education and Reform Act of 2017," would
fundamentally weaken the Americans with Disabilities Act by shifting the
burden of compliance onto the backs of people with disabilities through the
imposition of an oppressive "notice and cure" provision; and
WHEREAS, despite strong opposition from the National Federation of the
Blind and the rest of the disability and civil rights communities, the
United States House of Representatives passed H.R. 620 on February 15,
2018, by a vote of 225 to 192; and
WHEREAS, the proponents of H.R. 620 continue to advocate for its adoption
in the United States Senate by flooding members of the Senate with letters
and phone calls; and
WHEREAS, if opponents of H.R. 620 and similar legislation do not continue
to fight this effort in the Senate, the prospects for its ultimate passage
will increase: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this seventh day of July, 2018, in the City of Orlando, Florida,
that this organization condemn and deplore the passage of H.R. 620 by the
United States House of Representatives; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization call upon the United States
Senate to oppose H.R. 620 or any similar legislation.
Resolution 2018-07
Regarding the Creation of Government Documents and Forms in HTML5
WHEREAS, for many years blind citizens have been unable to obtain most
forms and other government documents in an accessible format; and
WHEREAS, many documents sent to blind people from federal agencies are time-
sensitive and have severe consequences attached to a missed deadline; and
WHEREAS, PDF documents are often inaccessible to the blind, and the
remediation of these documents is both costly and time-consuming; and
WHEREAS, PDF documents cannot be completed on mobile devices using screen-
access software nor be made compliant with the W3C Web Content
Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 AA; and
WHEREAS, HTML5-based formats render all documents accessible regardless of
device; and
WHEREAS, all citizens benefit from documents that are properly formatted
and easy to read on any device: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this seventh day of July, 2018, in the City of Orlando, Florida,
that we call upon all federal agencies to adopt policies requiring that all
documents and forms be produced in HTML5-based formats by December 31,
2019; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we call upon these agencies to replace or
convert all currently used forms or documents to the HTML5-based format and
that this replacement or conversion process commence on or before January
1, 2020.
Resolution 2018-08
Regarding Recent Updates to the Case Processing Manual in the Office for
Civil Rights at the United States Department of Education
WHEREAS, the mission of the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the United
States Department of Education is to "ensure equal access to education and
to promote educational excellence through vigorous enforcement of civil
rights in our nation's schools"; and
WHEREAS, for many blind people filing complaints with the Office for Civil
Rights has been the only way to rectify instances of discrimination
experienced at public schools, institutions of higher education, and other
recipients of federal financial assistance through the US Department of
Education; and
WHEREAS, the United States Department of Justice intervened in several
cases and reached significant settlement agreements with institutions of
higher education as a result of OCR complaints filed by NFB members; and
WHEREAS, on March 5, 2018, without any public notice and without affording
interested stakeholders the opportunity to provide comments, the department
issued a new "U. S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, Case
Processing Manual," which replaced the 2015 Case Processing Manual and made
substantial changes to the processes investigators must follow when
attempting to evaluate, resolve, and dismiss complaints; and
WHEREAS, some of these changes include the automatic dismissal of an
allegation or a complaint entirely if a complaint is a continuation of a
pattern of complaints previously filed with OCR by an individual or group
against multiple recipients or if a complaint is filed for the first time
against multiple recipients that, viewed as a whole, places an unreasonable
burden on OCR's resources; and
WHEREAS, in addition to setting out broad criteria by which complaints can
be automatically dismissed, the 2018 "U.S. Department of Education, Office
for Civil Rights, Case Processing Manual" eliminated complainants' right to
appeal OCR findings of insufficient evidence; and
WHEREAS, these three changes substantially restrict the ability of blind
Americans to exert our rights under existing disability law and will serve
only to exacerbate the discrimination blind students, blind parents,
parents of blind children, and advocates confront in K-12 and higher
education settings nationwide; and
WHEREAS, on May 31, 2018, in response to these actions, the National
Federation of the Blind, along with the Council of Parent Attorneys and
Advocates and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People filed suit against the US Department of Education seeking
declaratory and injunctive relief: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this seventh day of July, 2018, in the City of Orlando, Florida,
that this organization condemn and deplore the actions of the United States
Department of Education Office for Civil Rights; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization demand that Secretary of
Education Betsy DeVos and Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Ken Marcus
immediately halt the implementation of the changes to the "U.S. Department
of Education, Office for Civil Rights, Case Processing Manual," and
strongly urge them to consult with the blind and other stakeholders before
making drastic changes in the enforcement of civil rights laws.
Resolution 2018-09
Regarding the Accessibility of Pollbooks
WHEREAS, universal suffrage, the hard-won right of every citizen to vote
freely and secretly, is the bedrock upon which our democracy functions; and
WHEREAS, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires
that voters with disabilities be provided the opportunity to exercise the
right to vote that is equal to the opportunity provided voters without
disabilities; and
WHEREAS, great progress has been made in the development and use of
accessible voting machines that allow blind voters to cast their ballots;
and
WHEREAS, the voter pollbooks, the official registers of voters deemed
eligible to vote, remain inaccessible to us, a clear violation of the
spirit of the ADA; and
WHEREAS, to confirm or verify an individual's voting status, he or she must
have access to the pollbook for his or her voting area; and
WHEREAS, the VOTEC Corporation is leading the industry in developing the
first fully accessible election pollbook; and
WHEREAS, if state and local boards of elections have electronic pollbooks,
they should install accessible pollbooks as required under the ADA: Now,
therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this seventh day of July, 2018, in the City of Orlando, Florida,
that this organization demand all election jurisdictions that plan to use
or are already using electronic pollbooks to purchase accessible election
pollbooks as soon as they become available; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization commend the VOTEC Corporation
for its leadership in developing an accessible pollbook system; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization urge other manufacturers of
voting technology to follow the leadership of the VOTEC Corporation in
implementing nonvisually accessible pollbooks.
Resolution 2018-10
Regarding Guide Dogs in Air Travel
WHEREAS, the National Federation of the Blind is the oldest and largest
consumer organization of blind people in the United States, and the
National Association of Guide Dog Users is its special interest division
consisting of guide dog users and those interested in issues related to the
use of guide dogs; and
WHEREAS, this organization has been working with the airline industry and
the United States Department of Transportation (DOT) to develop sound,
specific, and objective policies, practices, procedures, and regulations
that effectively support the civil rights of airline passengers who use
trained service animals; and
WHEREAS, the Department of Transportation (DOT) has recently released an
advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) on the Air Carrier Access
Act (ACAA) concerning the carriage of trained service animals and untrained
emotional support animals; and
WHEREAS, some of the proposed rules concerning service animals are vague
and open to interpretation that could lead to discriminatory actions, such
as referring to the safety concerns posed by a large animal; and
WHEREAS, the current implementing regulations of the ADA provide effective
regulations and guidance concerning service animals which, if adopted by
the DOT, would adequately secure the civil rights of disabled passengers
accompanied by service animals while ensuring safety to all passengers and
airline staff; and
WHEREAS, the ACAA does not currently provide for a private right of action,
thus limiting the remedies available to disabled passengers when facing
discrimination: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this seventh day of July, 2018, in the City of Orlando, Florida,
that this organization urge all airlines to work with the National
Federation of the Blind to adopt policies concerning the carriage of
service animals that respect the dignity of the individual and protect our
civil rights while ensuring safety for all passengers; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization urge the United States
Department of Transportation to promulgate regulations that are harmonized
with the Americans with Disabilities Act and are sufficiently detailed so
that they are not open to subjective interpretation; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization urge the United States
Congress to amend the Air Carrier Access Act to include a private right of
action for violation of this law.
Resolution 2018-11
Regarding First-Party Braille Support
WHEREAS, Microsoft, Apple, and Google have Braille display support built in
to their operating systems; and
WHEREAS, this support is a central component of access for blind and deaf-
blind users alike; and
WHEREAS, each implementation still has room for improvement in both
features and stability; and
WHEREAS, Braille support in Android has been stagnant for more than two
years, severely limiting its usability for Braille users: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this seventh day of July, 2018, in the City of Orlando, Florida,
that this organization recognize that Apple, Microsoft, and Google have all
made efforts to create a robust user experience for Braille readers without
the need for third-party screen readers; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we strongly urge these companies to increase
the priority given to developments in Braille access, and to ensure that
updates to their operating systems do not result in regression for Braille
users; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we call upon Google to demonstrate measurable
and significant progress in the implementation of Braille in the Android
platform by July 1, 2019.
Resolution 2018-12
Regarding the Consideration of the American Vision for Safer Transportation
through Advancement of Revolutionary Technologies Act (AV START Act, S.
1885) by the United States Senate
WHEREAS, blind people face challenges related to inadequate public
transportation systems, insufficient paratransit networks, and inaccessible
rural and suburban transportation options; and
WHEREAS, innovations in autonomous vehicle technology represent a
potentially valuable new resource that will help blind people grapple with
transportation challenges and gain greater independence; and
WHEREAS, private industry stakeholders are already designing, developing,
and deploying autonomous vehicles on roads and highways across the country;
and
WHEREAS, twenty-nine states have already enacted autonomous vehicle
legislation, with more states introducing such legislation every year; and
WHEREAS, on September 6, 2017, the United States House of Representatives
passed the SELF DRIVE Act (H.R. 3388), a bill to create a federal
regulatory framework for autonomous vehicles; and
WHEREAS, on September 28, 2017, Senator John Thune (Republican, South
Dakota) and Senator Gary Peters (Democrat, Michigan) introduced the AV
START Act (S. 1885) in the United States Senate; and
WHEREAS, the AV START Act would prohibit states from imposing
discriminatory licensing requirements, require manufacturers to provide
information on their human-machine interface technology in their safety
reports, and create a working group specifically tasked with promulgating
recommendations on accessibility issues for people with disabilities: Now,
therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this seventh day of July, 2018, in the City of Orlando, Florida,
that we urge the United States Senate to act expeditiously to pass the AV
START Act; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization call upon automobile
manufacturers, technology companies, and all other stakeholders involved in
designing, developing, and deploying autonomous vehicles to make their
vehicles fully accessible to the blind.
Resolution 2018-13
Regarding Accessible Vote by Mail
WHEREAS, vote by mail is a voting system in which local boards of elections
mail a paper ballot to every registered voter and consolidate local polling
places into remote voting centers; and
WHEREAS, the trend of states converting from the traditional system of
voting at a local polling place to all vote by mail has continued in 2018
with Hawaii joining Oregon, Washington, and Colorado as an all vote-by-mail
state starting in 2020; and
WHEREAS, local jurisdictions that use vote by mail include twenty-seven of
twenty-nine counties in Utah, thirty-one of fifty-three counties in North
Dakota, five counties in California, and the city of Anchorage, Alaska; and
WHEREAS, the reduced costs to local boards of elections, increased
convenience to voters, and increased voter turnout that result when a state
or local jurisdiction changes its voting system to all vote by mail will
likely mean that the trend of states converting to all vote by mail will
continue; and
WHEREAS, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires
that jurisdictions that implement vote by mail must provide voters with
print disabilities an opportunity to mark their ballot privately and
independently at home that is equal to the opportunity provided voters
without disabilities; and
WHEREAS, accessible electronic ballot delivery systems that comply with the
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA would enable blind, low
vision, deaf-blind, or other print-disabled voters to mark their ballot
privately and independently at home or work using a computer and their own
access technology: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this seventh day of July, 2018, in the City of Orlando, Florida,
that this organization demand that states and local jurisdictions include
an accessible electronic ballot delivery system that conforms to the Web
Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1 AA) when they convert to all
vote by mail so that voters with print disabilities can mark their ballot
privately and independently at home with the same convenience afforded
voters without disabilities.
Resolution 2018-14
Regarding the Absence of EPUB Creation Options in Common Document Creation
Tools
WHEREAS, PDF documents are ubiquitous because most major authoring tools
including Word, Pages, and Google Docs will save or print to PDF; and
WHEREAS, PDF documents do not reflow, making them difficult to use on some
platforms with screen-access software and difficult to read on phones,
tablets, or with magnification; and
WHEREAS, EPUB 3 documents are reflowable, making them easier to use on
small screens with or without magnification; and
WHEREAS, EPUB 3 is a superior format for content written or edited on the
computer, having many well documented and implemented open standards,
including HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript; and
WHEREAS, the specification itself was planned with accessibility in its
core structure so that making it accessible is easier than PDF; and
WHEREAS, accessible EPUB is being adopted as the preferred standard in
digital publishing by professional publishers; and
WHEREAS, end-user tools do not provide a mechanism for direct conversion as
simple as the "Save as PDF" mechanism in Word, preventing its widespread
adoption by individual content creators; and
WHEREAS, many end-user tools that do create EPUB documents do not create
well-formed accessible EPUB documents, even when the original content is
built with accessibility in mind: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this seventh day of July, 2018, in the City of Orlando, Florida,
that this organization commend Apple for its robust implementation of "Save
as EPUB" in Pages; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we call upon Microsoft to provide a robust
"Save as EPUB" tool for the Microsoft Office Suite; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we call upon Google to develop further the
"Save as EPUB" option for GSuite; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we call upon other major authoring tool
developers to include, improve, or simplify the creation of EPUB 3
documents in current and future updates.
Resolution 2018-15
Regarding Inaccessible eLearning Opportunities
WHEREAS, success in K-12 and higher education is a critical indicator of
career readiness, and traditional K-12 and higher education classrooms are
being replaced in part by eLearning opportunities; and
WHEREAS, eLearning offers options for flexible learning schedules, the
ability to complete coursework at home or other remote locations, and
opportunities for taking coursework not available within a student's
physical school; and
WHEREAS, Titles II and III of the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibit
schools from discriminating against individuals with disabilities and
ultimately require that schools provide effective communication and equal
and integrated access to programs and activities; and
WHEREAS, technology exists to render electronic text nonvisually and
thereby provide blind students with access to eLearning opportunities using
screen-access software; and
WHEREAS, blind students nationwide have encountered eLearning technologies
that fail to conform to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA
and are incompatible with screen access software; and
WHEREAS, education technology vendors continue to sell eLearning platforms,
ebooks, and online tools that are knowingly inaccessible to blind students,
and K-12 schools, colleges, and universities continue to purchase such
inaccessible eLearning technology; and
WHEREAS, blind students in K-12 and higher education have been discouraged
from enrolling in courses and activities that rely on eLearning materials,
have been urged to alter their preferred subject track or major, or have
been advised to withdraw as online students entirely because of perceived
or actual accessibility barriers with eLearning software: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this seventh day of July, 2018, in the City of Orlando, Florida,
that this organization demand eLearning technology vendors take immediate
action to incorporate accessibility into their products and development
roadmaps; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization demand that schools and local
education agencies put in place procurement policies that will prohibit
acquisition of eLearning technology that does not conform with WCAG 2.1 AA;
and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization demand that these schools and
local education agencies require educational technology vendors to confirm
the accessibility of their products prior to purchase and to assume cost
and liability for any technology found to be inaccessible after purchase.
Resolution 2018-16
Regarding the US Department of Education's Responsibility to Support the
Randolph-Sheppard Program
WHEREAS, the Randolph-Sheppard Act is the only federal legislation that
solely focuses on promoting entrepreneurship for blind people in the United
States, with the goals of "providing blind persons with remunerative
employment, enlarging the economic opportunities of the blind, and
stimulating the blind to greater efforts in striving to make themselves
self-supporting"; and
WHEREAS, to assist in achieving these goals, Congress tasked the United
States Department of Education with oversight responsibility of this
program through the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA), which is
required to review and approve rules, regulations, policies, or procedures
to be used in the administration of the program at the local level by state
agencies for the blind, but to date, approximately eight states are
currently awaiting approval from RSA, and some approvals have been pending
for as long as eighteen months; and
WHEREAS, The Randolph-Sheppard Act also requires the Department of
Education to convene arbitration panels to resolve disputes between blind
entrepreneurs and state licensing agencies, as well as between state
licensing agencies and federal entities that are alleged to be out of
compliance with the Randolph-Sheppard Act; and
WHEREAS, at least a dozen pending arbitration cases are currently awaiting
action by the Department of Education, when a simple convening letter is
all that is required; however, despite pleas from the National Association
of Blind Merchants, individual blind entrepreneurs, and individual states,
the convening letters remain stuck in an unwieldy bureaucracy; and
WHEREAS, multiple arbitration panels hear the same complaint, and many of
the issues being disputed are exactly the same, so the vast majority of
such arbitration cases could be avoided if the US Department of Education
would fulfill its responsibility to interpret the Randolph-Sheppard Act and
issue policy guidance on these recurring issues: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this seventh day of July, 2018, in the City of Orlando, Florida,
that this organization call upon the US Department of Education to complete
the review and approval process for all pending rules, regulations,
policies, or procedures pertaining to the administration of the Randolph-
Sheppard Program without further delay, as well as immediately to issue
convening letters for all pending arbitration cases; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization demand that the US Department
of Education promptly issue policy guidance regarding recurring issues
confronting the Randolph-Shepard Program in order to prevent similar
backlogs and delays from occurring in the future.
Resolution 2018-17
Regarding Audio Description of Live Television Programming
WHEREAS, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has recently required
a substantial increase in the amount of audio-described programming; and
WHEREAS, the National Federation of the Blind, in collaboration with NBC-
Universal, worked to create a potential waiver for broadcasters that would
establish alternative measures, satisfactory to all parties, that could be
used to satisfy the requirements of the FCC's new rule; and
WHEREAS, neither the FCC rule nor the waiver requires live television
programming to be audio-described because it would create a conflict on the
single secondary audio programming (SAP) channel used to broadcast live
events in other languages; and
WHEREAS, other accessible technology exists in the live broadcast arena,
such as the Gala Pro Application for smartphone devices; and
WHEREAS, Comcast and NBC-Universal have set a precedent by providing audio
description for the Olympics, Paralympics, and musical productions: Now,
therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this seventh day of July, 2018, in the City of Orlando, Florida,
that this organization demand that the FCC and the broadcasters work
together to create additional SAP channels so that both foreign language
speakers and the blind are able to enjoy the same programming; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization demand that the FCC require
audio description on live programming of all types.
Resolution 2018-18
Regarding Web Browser Accessibility
WHEREAS, web browser manufacturers have historically introduced new
browsers or updates to existing browsers to the market without ensuring
accessibility prior to release; and
WHEREAS, prior to the release of Firefox Quantum, Mozilla Firefox was the
most used browser by the blind because of its focus on accessibility; and
WHEREAS, users of screen readers other than JAWS 2018 have been advised to
change or update their screen readers to JAWS 2018, change browsers, or
avoid the latest versions of
Firefox; and
WHEREAS, JAWS is used by less than half of screen reader users, many of
whom are not using the latest version; and
WHEREAS, controls and functions can vary widely between screen readers, and
changing to JAWS 2018 may require extensive retraining; and
WHEREAS, upgrading or switching to JAWS 2018 is often prohibitive in both
cost and time; and
WHEREAS, accessibility features and screen-reader compatibility do not
function uniformly across browsers, making a sudden browser change
problematic; and
WHEREAS, blind people must have equal access to the web in order to be
productive citizens and responsible members of the community; and
WHEREAS, the failure of web browsers to work efficiently with third-party
screen readers can cost the blind money and time and significantly affect
productivity; and
WHEREAS, browser developers should give as much priority to accessibility
as they give to usability for non-disabled users: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this seventh day of July, 2018, in the City of Orlando, Florida,
that this organization call upon Mozilla to make future versions of Firefox
compatible with all widely used screen readers; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization call upon all web browser
manufacturers to work closely with screen reader producers such as Freedom
Scientific and NVAccess to ensure that new browsers or updates to browsers
are not released unless they are fully accessible.
Resolution 2018-19
Regarding the Inaccessibility of the Informed Delivery Service Operated by
the United States Postal Service
WHEREAS, the United States Postal Service's (USPS) Informed Delivery
service is a free and convenient notification tool that gives residential
consumers the ability to preview incoming letter-sized mail and manage
packages digitally; and
WHEREAS, Informed Delivery service has replaced My USPS as the avenue for
tracking and managing incoming mail; and
WHEREAS, at present the service displays the status of mail only en route
by an image, which is totally inaccessible to the blind; and
WHEREAS, the technology exists to make the service accessible to those who
are blind; and
WHEREAS, the USPS, as an independent agency of the executive branch, is
subject to accessibility laws, including Section 508 of the Rehabilitation
Act; and
WHEREAS, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires that Information
and Communication Technology (ICT) used or procured by the USPS be
accessible to individuals with disabilities, including the blind; and
WHEREAS, the USPS not only operates its Informed Delivery service without
regard to accessibility in violation of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation
Act, but also discriminates against the blind by depriving us of a service
offered to the rest of the public: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this seventh day of July, 2018, in the City of Orlando, Florida,
that this organization strongly urge the United States Postal Service
quickly to make the Informed Delivery service accessible to those who are
blind; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization urge the USPS to work with
the National Federation of the Blind to implement protocols that prevent
deployment of inaccessible services in the future.
Resolution 2018-20
Regarding Commending CBS for its Portrayal of Blindness on NCIS
WHEREAS, the mainstream media rarely portrays people with disabilities in
movies and television shows, and when it does, the portrayal is frequently
negative and/or inaccurate; and
WHEREAS, one reason for the stereotypical portrayals of blind people in the
media is that blind characters are hardly ever played by blind actors; and
WHEREAS, CBS produces a television series called Naval Criminal
Investigative Service (NCIS), which is an American action procedural series
revolving around a team of special agents who investigate crimes involving
the US Navy and Marine Corps; and
WHEREAS, NCIS episode number 350, entitled "Sight Unseen," which aired on
April 17, 2018, featured acclaimed blind stage actress Marilee Talkington
as a key witness to a crime; and
WHEREAS, CBS consulted the National Federation of the Blind prior to
casting Marilee Talkington in this episode and solicited feedback on
portions of the script; and
WHEREAS, according to the Sacramento Bee, Marilee's character, Annie Barth,
was "written as emotionally complex, humorous, and powerful"; and
WHEREAS, Marilee also joined the CBS cast on a new television pilot, In the
Dark, in a recurring guest role as a blind character; Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention
assembled this seventh day of July, 2018, in the City of Orlando, Florida,
that this organization commend CBS for promoting diversity among its
characters, plots, and actors by casting blind actors as blind characters;
and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization commend CBS for consulting
with the organized blind about the most authentic way to portray the
character of Annie Barth on its episode of NCIS; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization call upon the entertainment
industry to promote the inclusion of blind actors and characters in its
television shows and movies, to portray blind characters in a positive and
accurate light, and to consult the National Federation of the Blind when
doing so.
----------
Convention Miniatures
Krafters Division:
2018 is a year of celebration and a changing of the guard. This year,
Krafters celebrate our tenth birthday! Isn't that great? As we look back,
we appreciate the effort put forth to grow an idea into a working division
of the NFB. We applaud Joyce Kane for her initiative to partner with many
others to create what we now lovingly call "Krafters Korner." We are
crafters who happen to be blind. We share alternative techniques which
enable us to continue growing in our crafts.
During our time at convention, we shared our division with many
others in the Exhibit Hall. We provided the opportunity for members to
demonstrate our skills by bringing items to our Market Place. Many NFB
members came, visited, and even did some shopping. We appreciate all of you
who spent time with us and recognized our efforts by purchasing our items.
We left this event with excitement for what we could do for the next
convention.
We wrapped up our division activities with our business meeting,
where elections were held. We now have Tammy Freitag serving as president.
We have brought enthusiasm and new motivation into our new decade. We have
a great group of women and men excited about the ability to make fun and
beautiful things with our hands and imagination. We extend an invitation to
anybody else that would like to come join the fun. We welcome those that
know a craft and don't mind teaching the rest of us. We also welcome those
that have either the desire to learn or the curiosity about how we do our
crafts. Our Korner has room for all who are interested; come join us! If
you have questions, please contact President Tammy Freitag: 402-904-5105 or
email: krafters.division.president at gmail.com.
We hope you will join the fun!
Report from Communities of Faith:
The NFB in Communities of Faith held its annual meeting on Thursday,
July 5, at 1 p.m. We first heard from publishers of Christian and Jewish
literature. Craig Leeds, director of Braille Bibles International and also
representing MegaVoice, spoke about these respective organizations as well
as Aurora Ministries. Braille Bibles International sends out translations
of the Bible in Braille as well as solar case speaker Bibles from
MegaVoice. Aurora Ministries has several versions of the Bible and other
Christian literature available on cartridges.
Jeri Lyn Rogge, director of The Christian Record Braille Foundation,
spoke about the many and varied activities of this organization. They have
a lending library, produce magazines, and conduct camps for various age
groups. Antonio Guimaraes, from the Jewish Braille Institute also spoke to
us about the valuable work of this organization. JBI has produced this
important literature for many years.
Michael Smith, director of the International Christian Braille
Mission, spoke about its move to Grayson, Kentucky, from West Virginia.
Mike, a veteran of our movement, is training others to further the work of
this ministry. Anil Lewis, executive director of the Jernigan Institute,
shared about his faith from childhood.
Tom Anderson and Rehnee Aikens spoke about the importance of
encouraging others to become people of faith.
We had several new members join the division. Tom and Rehnee had a
Bible quiz as part of the NABS Olympics.
The speakers for devotions this year were: Ron Brown, president of
the NFB of Indiana; Tom Anderson, Overland Park, Kansas; and Reverend
Carolyn Peters from Dayton, Ohio.
The officers of this division are: president, Tom Anderson, Kansas;
vice president Rehnee Aikens, Texas; secretary, Linda Mentink, Nebraska;
and treasurer, Sam Gleese, Mississippi.
Elected:
On July 5, the Science and Engineering Division of the NFB elected
the following officers for two-year terms: president, John Miller,
johnmillerphd at hotmail.com, 858-774-9286; vice president, Ashley Neybert,
crazy4chemistry at att.net; secretary, Louis Maher, ljmaher03 at outlook.com;
treasurer, Alfred Maneki, apmaneki at earthlink.net; and board members Purvi
Contractor, purvidc2 at gmail.com; and David Hertweck,
david.hertweck at sbcglobal.net.
Report from the Seniors Division:
On July 3, the seniors division hosted a seminar, "Emergency
Preparedness-How to Prepare to Remain in Place or Evacuate when Necessary."
Ms. Georgianna Cherry, Health Emergency Operations Manager for Florida,
North Central Area, was our presenter. She focused on knowing your
surroundings and thinking about what you need to do to evacuate from
wherever you are-the hotel, your home, visiting friends, wherever you
happen to be. She advised having a "go bag" with items you think you will
need plus comfort items that will get you through about three or four days
in an unfamiliar environment. If you have special needs such as a pet or
you use a guide dog, or if you take medicine that must be kept chilled,
learn from your local area disaster relief officials where you should go,
and plan a strategy to get there. What services will you need to get to the
best designated shelter that can meet your specific needs?
Next, have a chain of people that you contact, and they in turn will
let others know where you are and what needs you may have. She emphasized
getting as much information about local resources and where and how to
access them, and then plan, plan, and plan still further. The more prepared
you are, the more control you have over where you go and what happens to
you when you get there.
Do not assume that services you believe you are entitled to will be
available. Bring water, food, medicines, and change these in your go bag at
least twice a year. Bring any important documentation such as bank and
financial records, medical history, insurance policy, etc.
Finally, if you have others in your household that you are
responsible for, make certain they know the plans you have made and know
whom to contact and where to go.
Ms. Cherry distributed little emergency first-aid kits that can be
packed in the go bag and added to with other items if need be.
In our annual business meeting of the seniors division, officers were
elected as follows: president, Ruth Sager; first vice president, Judy
Sanders; second vice president, Robert Leslie Newman; secretary, Shelley
Coppel; and treasurer, Diane McGeorge assisted by Duncan Larsen.
Phyllis Chavez spoke about her first Washington Seminar experience
and how she was able to put the training she has received from the Colorado
Center into practice. She felt frightened and scared, but she learned that
she could ask for help from others in her group or strangers as well. She
enjoyed the meeting with legislators and the museum event held Tuesday
evening of this four-day seminar. She stressed how important our
legislative efforts are for all blind people across the country whether
they are members of the NFB or not. She felt empowered and will be back
again for many more Washington Seminars.
Ruth and Shelley spoke about the retreat, what its purpose is, and
gave some details about the physical location of Rocky Bottom Retreat and
Conference Center in South Carolina.
NFB members Nancy Yeager from Virginia and Carol Braithwaite from
Alabama next informed everyone of upcoming events their senior divisions
are in the process of exploring and noted what they have done this past
year. These are newly formed divisions, and they are working on growing
their memberships and fundraising activities as well as planning events for
seniors in their states.
Theresa Gfroerer from Minnesota spoke about her experience losing
vision and finding BLIND Inc. and their senior program. She also became an
active member of the affiliate. She was proud of her accomplishments but
wanted to also strongly encourage anyone who has the ability to get good
training to take the opportunity and learn as much as you can. It will
change your life for the better. Theresa is a tenBroek Scholar, and she was
having a fabulous convention experience.
Michael Hingson gave a presentation on Aira, what it is, what it can
do, and basic instructions on how to use it. And, as always, we had our
"not so silent" auction. Come next year. We need you, and you need us.
Elected:
At our business meeting on July 5, the Community Service Division
elected a new board to serve for the 2018-2019 year. Board members are as
follows: president, Jeanetta Price; vice president, Johna Wright;
secretary, Kyra Sweeney; treasurer, Janae Burgmeier; and board members
Chris Parsons, Jonathan Franks, and Sam Gates.
Elected:
The NFB in Computer Science held its bi-annual board elections at its
annual meeting on July 5. The results of the election are as follows:
president, Brian Buhrow, buhrow at nfbcal.org; vice president, Steve Jacobson,
steve.jacobson at visi.com; secretary, Louis Maher, ljmaher03 at outlook.com;
treasurer, Curtis Chong, chong.curtis at gmail.com; board members: Jeanine
Lineback, jeanine.lineback at gmail.com; Harry Staley, staleyh at gmail.com; and
Jim Barbour, jbar at barcore.com.
Report from NAGDU:
On Tuesday, July 3, during the annual convention of the National
Federation of the Blind, the National Association of Guide Dog Users held
its second annual seminar. This dynamic seminar featured workshops on how
to identify veterinary emergencies and creating wellness for our dogs, tips
for solving the problem of counterfeit service animals, coping with the
grief associated with the retirement or passing of our dogs, the process of
applying for and training with a guide dog, and the ever-popular "Show &
Tail." The workshops were very well attended, and participants shared how
much valuable information they received.
On Thursday, July 5, we held our annual meeting. We heard from our
legal department about our rideshare testing program and from the Jernigan
Institute's Advocacy and Policy Department about our work with the
Department of Transportation and the airline industry. We also elected our
leadership with the following results: president, Marion Gwizdala
(Florida); vice president, Michael Hingson (California); secretary,
Sherrill O'Brien (Florida); treasurer, Linda O'Connell (Arkansas); board
members, Aleeha Dudley (Louisiana), Raul Gallegos (Texas), and Jessica
Snyder (Ohio).
Congratulations to our newly-elected board of directors and thanks to
our membership for helping to make the National Association of Guide Dog
Users the leading advocacy organization on the affairs of guide and service
dog users in the United States.
Report from the Promotion, Evaluation, and Advancement of Technology
Committee:
The exhibitors showcase was held the first night of convention, July
3, with over twenty companies presenting brief information about their
products and services that they would show in the exhibit hall in the
coming days.
Tap technology spoke about its wearable keyboard that lets your
fingers send letters or commands to a connected Bluetooth device. It has a
unique alphabet, but their fastest typist types sixty-two words per minute.
It also has a set of VoiceOver commands to make it more efficient.
Universal Low Vision Aids Inc. (ULVA) talked about its OCR and
magnifying devices.
WayAround spoke about its non-camera device that gives information
about the world around you. It can identify colors, appliance information,
and even the date your milk expires. It uses tags for your personal
information that is stored in the cloud, and the app is free.
A.T. Guys has a new, more powerful battery pack, new AfterShokz
headphones that weigh just over an ounce, an updated audio recorder that
can store ninety-six hours of recordings, and a new wireless speaker that
will do Alexa through WiFi and Bluetooth.
NReach has an app that helps one understand the world around you
through Bluetooth beacon technology. When in range of its transmitter that
a business can obtain, you can get details about the location of a store,
such as the stores in a mall, and, for as little as $100 a year, they say
they can put a unit at the business location.
Envision America has improved ScriptTalk with a new app for iPhone 7
or higher that will read your prescriptions for you. Also, it says its ID
Mate Galaxy barcode scanner will prove that apps just don't cut it for
barcode information.
OrCam has a new wearable device that weighs about an ounce and is
about the size of one's finger that will read currency, identify colors,
and even allow facial recognition.
Sprint talked about its desire to work with the blind, just as it has
done with the deaf. It says it now has a fully accessible website and a
toll-free help line.
Bookshare spoke about its 625,000-book collection that is available
the same day as you can get them from Amazon or a bookstore. You can
download books in Braille, in audio, or as a Word file. It's only $50 a
year, and for many a membership is free.
Amazon talked about its new totally accessible TV and about its
accessible Echo device.
VOTEC asks for help from the NFB in creating a new fully accessible
pollbook. This will enable a blind person to sign in to the voting location
completely on their own to assure voter verification.
VFO and Freedom Scientific spoke about its new magnifier and
notetaker. The company talked to us about Fusion, which fuses JAWS and
ZoomText together for the best of both worlds.
Project RAY has a new eyes-free user interface for Android that it
says can be learned in fifteen minutes and makes operating touchscreen
phones easier for Android 4.0 or higher.
HIMS discussed with us its new QBraille, a Braille display with all
the modifier keys that are on a normal QWERTY keyboard, so there will be no
need to learn workaround Braille entry keys. The new QBraille will also
have a few built-in notetaking applications and is due out this fall. The
company also has a new low-vision device with better full-page OCR called
the GoVision PRO.
Zoomax is a new company specializing in low-vision magnifiers
including the Snow 10 which is a ten-inch magnifier with OCR and speech in
ten different languages.
Open Access has a core focus of document accessibility. It helps
clients find and make accessible the documents that are on websites that
are not currently accessible. It says it can make PowerPoints, Word
documents, and PDFs accessible.
Duxbury Systems now has version 12.3 out for MAC systems. There are
improvements for its translator for Nemeth and Perky Duck. Also, there are
new improvements to JAWS scripts, and you can download tactile graphics
from the company's website.
Bristol Braille Technology is an English company that is introducing
a new multiline Braille display. It's called the Canute, and many got to
see it first at the end of our program. The company says this display will
cost less than a forty-cell display when it comes out.
Sunu has a wearable band to detect objects around you using radar and
augmented reality to reflect objects above the waist and overhead like tree
branches. It also has a built-in compass and a GPS app. It's an all-in-one
multitool to augment the cane and dog.
American Printing House for the Blind said that now Nearby Explorer,
its GPS app, can do some indoor navigation. It now has a forty-by-sixty
grid tactile graphics display and are again taking orders for the Orbit
Reader, the $450 twenty-cell Braille display.
Microsoft came to talk about improvements to its Windows 10 screen
reader called Narrator. The company also discussed a new magnifier that
will have new features this fall.
Tactile street maps of your neighborhood are available now from
LightHouse for the Blind of San Francisco. So anywhere in North America,
you can get a map of the street around you that's tactile with Braille
Identifiers with a key.
There were well over a hundred people in the audience who came to
learn about what they could see in the exhibit hall and particularly where
to find it once there. The showcase continues to be a popular item that
helps the committee promote and advance technology that can be of help for
the blind. Whether a sponsor or a consumer, join us next year.
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Monitor Miniatures
News from the Federation Family
Join The Blind History Lady Mailing List:
One of the 2018 Bolotin Award winners, Peggy Chong, The Blind History
Lady, invites all of you to sign up for her monthly emails celebrating our
blind American ancestors. Just send an email to
theblindhistorylady at gmail.com asking to be added to her list. Then look for
her emails at the beginning of each month, and enjoy the stories of those
who paved the way before us. Also visit her website at
www.theblindhistorylady.com to learn about The Blind History Lady's
activities and other published works.
Large Print Calendars Available:
The 2019 EZ2See. Weekly Calendar is now available. This is the most
low-vision-friendly weekly calendar available on the market. It is designed
specifically for those with low vision or who need the space to write big.
Many of its helpful design features are found nowhere else. That's because
it is designed by a low-vision person.
Federationist Edward Cohen started making and selling the EZ2See.
Weekly Calendar in 2015 after being frustrated by the absence of a weekly
calendar that met his needs. Unique features include:
. Printed on 8.5-inch-by-eleven-inch heavy-weight paper
. All bold black lines, numbers, and words
. Letters and numbers ten times the size of newsprint-no tiny print
. Black page borders-no more writing off the edge of the paper
. Daily cells nearly as large as two three-inch-by-five-inch cards-the
largest available space
The product sells for $21.95 on the EZ2SeeProducts.com website. Visit
the website to see it and place your order. Shipping is by Free Matter.
Don't buy online? No problem, email Info at EZ2SeeProducts.com to learn how to
buy with a check.
National Federation of the Blind CAREER Mentoring program:
Blind and low-vision youth need exposure to positive blind role
models who demonstrate a genuine belief in them and in their natural
abilities. Here is a wonderful opportunity for you to give back to the next
generation and to help them achieve their full potential.
We are actively recruiting successful independent blind or low-vision
adults. Go to https://nfb.org/mentorapplication, and sign up to become a
mentor.
Through guidance and example, you can help raise expectations and
teach blind youth the practical strategies of how to access resources and
to acquire skills for success.
If you are willing to share your life experiences, to teach tips and
tools for living independently, and to assist blind youth to become better
self-advocates, the National Federation of the Blind CAREER Mentoring
Program offers you a golden opportunity to give back.
Our NFB CAREER Mentoring Program provides a framework of training and
support that will empower you to be a successful mentor to an aspiring
blind or low-vision youth. We will host several fun educational activities
that allow the mentor/mentee relationships to grow. If you do not feel you
have the time, remember that in many instances a phone call, an email, or a
text may be a life-changing interaction.
In addition to having the opportunity to positively affect the life
of a young blind person, you will also be able to improve your own skills
and to expand your personal/professional networks.
For more information, check out the article in the April issue of the
Braille Monitor, entitled "Changing Attitudes Regarding Education,
Employment, and Rehabilitation through the National Federation of the Blind
CAREER Mentoring Program:"
https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm18/bm1804/bm180414.htm.
NABM Announces Nationally Acclaimed Mark Gungor Will be Featured at BLAST:
The National Association of Blind Merchants is excited to announce
that Mark Gungor, one of the nation's most sought after experts on
communication and relationships, will be one of the keynote speakers at
BLAST (Business Leadership and Superior Training). Do men and women really
see the world through different eyes? Do they communicate differently? Are
men really able to retreat into their "nothing box" and think about
absolutely nothing? For answers to these and other burning questions, you
will want to be at this year's BLAST Conference. Prepare yourself to learn
a little and laugh a lot when nationally acclaimed speaker and author Mark
Gungor presents "The Tale of Two Brains" at BLAST.
Mark is a sought-after keynote speaker on the corporate circuit and
thousands attend his workshops and seminars each year. His candid and
comedic approach uses unforgettable illustrations to teach proven
principles that are guaranteed to strengthen and enhance communication and
relationships. Mark's speaking is refreshing and free of textbook
psychological lingo. His goal is to help people get it right and to get
along.
Register now to attend BLAST November 13 through 16 at the fabulous
Hyatt Regency Hill Country in San Antonio, Texas. It is shaping up to be a
spectacular event that you won't want to miss. It starts with a full day of
staff training which is being cosponsored by the National Council of State
Agencies for the Blind on Tuesday, November 13. SLA [State Licensing
Agency] staff will want to arrive on Monday. The conference will also
feature our all-encompassing trade show on Thursday afternoon, and there
will be an old fashioned Texas BBQ Thursday evening. We conclude on Friday
morning with some relevant Randolph-Sheppard programming.
So don't miss out on this Texas-size blowout of an event. Go to
https://blindmerchants.org/blast-2018-information/ and register today.
In Brief
Notices and information in this section may be of interest to Monitor
readers. We are not responsible for the accuracy of the information; we
have edited only for space and clarity.
Hear Ye, Hear Ye!
Did you know that the American Action Fund for Blind Children and
Adults produces over 12,000 Braille calendars each year? These pocket-sized
calendars are given free to any blind or deaf-blind person in the United
States.
Each calendar is embossed with the days of the week, the date, and all
of the major national and religious holidays. You will love how quick and
easy it is to use, not to mention the convenient size of the calendar.
If you or someone you know needs a 2019 Braille calendar, please feel
free to complete the short online application at
https://actionfund.org/braillecalendar. If you do not have access to the
online form, you can send an email to calendars at actionfund.org or call 410-
659-9315 to request the calendars as well.
Eight Popular Kids' Books are Now in UEB from Seedlings:
Seedlings Braille Books for Children has added eight more titles to
its collection of books in Unified English Braille. Four titles are brand-
new: They are Wishtree, for independent readers ages eight to twelve; Just
Critters Who Care and Finding Dory: Big Fish, Little Fish, for beginning
readers; and Grumpy Bird for babies and preschoolers. The other four are
titles for independent readers that have been converted from the old code:
Where the Sidewalk Ends, Indian in the Cupboard, Don't Sweat the Small
Stuff for Teens, and Where the Red Fern Grows. This brings to 428 the
number of low-cost books in UEB Seedlings offers. Order at
http://www.seedlings.org/order.php.
Keep watching our website as we are adding more UEB every month!
The Experience of a Lifetime Awaits You at Ski for Light International Week
2019:
The forty-fourth annual Ski for Light International Week will take
place from Sunday, January 27 through Sunday, February 3, 2019, in Granby,
Colorado. Ski for Light, an all-volunteer nonprofit, organizes an annual,
week-long event where blind and mobility-impaired adults are taught the
basics of cross-country skiing. The event attracts more than 250 skiers,
guides, and volunteers from throughout the United States, as well as
international participants. During the Ski for Light week, each skier with
a disability is paired with an experienced sighted cross-country skier who
acts as ski instructor and on-snow guide.
Participants in the forty-fourth annual Ski for Light International
Week will ski and stay at Snow Mountain Ranch, part of the YMCA of the
Rockies, located near Winter Park. Single rooms, doubles, triples, and
quads are available. In addition to skiing on one hundred kilometers of
wide and wonderfully groomed Nordic trails, participants will have the
opportunity to hone their auditory laser rifle skills in a biathlon
experience facilitated by the United States Association of Blind Athletes,
compete in the Olav Pedersen Race/Rally, and enjoy many off-snow
activities.
"I discovered Ski for Light at the 2012 event, and my life changed.
Through skiing and the opportunities to work with other Ski for Light
enthusiasts, I began to imagine what was possible and spent less time and
energy dwelling on what I could no longer do after experiencing vision
loss," wrote skier Tim McCorcle.
If you have never before attended what many have called "the
experience of a lifetime," please consider participating in the Ski for
Light 2019 International Week.
Registration forms and pricing for skiers, guides, and volunteers are
now available at www.sfl.org. You can also visit www.sfl.org to view a
brief, narrated video introduction to Ski for Light. For other questions
regarding the program, contact Visually Impaired Participant Recruitment
Coordinator Melinda Hollands at mlhollandstc at gmail.com or call her at 231-
590-0986.
Hope to ski with you in Colorado!
Braille Calendars Available:
I am starting to make Braille calendars for 2019. Each calendar is
six dollars. One third of the profit from each will go toward helping me
attend the NFB convention next year, one third will go toward the NFB, and
one third will go to help the hungry around the world. If you are
interested, feel free to email me at: adrijana.prokopenko at gmail.com.
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NFB Pledge
I pledge to participate actively in the efforts of the National
Federation of the Blind to achieve equality, opportunity, and security for
the blind; to support the policies and programs of the Federation; and to
abide by its constitution.
More information about the NFBNJ
mailing list